On July 1, with Vice President JD Vance breaking a 50-50 tie, the Senate passed the controversial budget reconciliation bill. (Three GOP senators voted with all the Democratic senators to oppose the underlying bill.)
Prior to floor consideration, all the provisions that would have negatively impacted the U.S. Postal Service and its employees, as well as federal employee benefits, were stripped from the bill. H.R. 1 now returns to the House of Representatives for a final vote that likely will take place tomorrow (Wednesday).
The thousands of postal supervisors, managers and postmasters who participated in NAPS’ online legislative advocacy campaign to defeat the anti-postal employee provisions should be proud of their efforts.
As a side note, yesterday, Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) filed an amendment to the bill that would have repealed $1.275 billion in funding for the Postal Service’s vehicle modernization efforts. In response, NAPS promptly emailed key senators, urging them to oppose the amendment. In our email, NAPS pointed out that slashing USPS vehicle modernization funds would impair timely and reliable delivery of mail. The USPS delivery fleet dates back a quarter-century and replacement parts are almost non-existent. The amendment was never brought up for a vote.
