June 29, 2021

Alliance Members and Sponsors,

Yesterday at the U.S. Court of Appeals, our mailer coalition filed a brief, as did the USPS.  Ironically, in different ways, we both were supporting the PRC.

In the mailer brief, we oppose the effort of the USPS to get even more pricing authority than they already received from the regulator.  The Commission correctly rebuffed USPS’s calls for additional postal rate authority to raise rates to compensate for past losses, a “rate reset,” that would have cost market-dominant mailers billions of dollars.

In the USPS brief, the agency opposes our petition for review, or appeal, of the new PRC pricing authority rules.  USPS argued that the PRC does have the statutory power to alter the CPI-based rate cap, and that the surcharges the regulator added are not arbitrary and capricious.  The Postal Service argued that the density adjustment will not overcompensate the Postal Service, the mailers’ “death spiral” hypothesis is unfounded and is inconsistent with their concerns with “over-recovery,” and the Commission reasonably rejected the “changed circumstances” argument.

Time will tell whether the customers are right, or the employees of the two federal agencies.

Here is where we are in the appeal schedule:

• April 13 – Brief for Mailer Petitioners (10,000 words)
• April 13 – Brief for U.S. Postal Service (10,000 words)
• June 14 – Brief for Respondent (PRC) (20,000 words)
• June 28 – Brief for Mailer Petitioners as Intervenors (4,550 words)
• June 28 – Brief for U.S. Postal Service as Intervenor (4,550 words)
• July 12 – Reply Brief for Mailer Petitioners (5,000 words)
• July 12 – Reply Brief for U.S. Postal Service (5,000 words)
• July 19 – Deferred Appendix
• July 26 – Final Briefs
• Sept 13 – Oral Arguments
• Early 2022 – Expected Court Decision

We will continue to keep you posted on the progress of the appeal.

Best,

Stephen Kearney

Executive Director

Alliance of Nonprofit Mailers

1211 Connecticut Ave, NW, Suite 610

Washington, DC 20036

Tel: 202-462-5132

The leading voice for nonprofits on postal issues for over 40 years.

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