Alliance Alert: The Commission’s 2017 Regulatory Review

The 2006 legislation requires the Commission to issue a report in 2017 on whether the system of rate regulation adopted under the law should be modified or replaced. The regulatory review is likely to be highly controversial. ANM and other mailers believe that the scope of the Commission’s authority is limited to filling the gaps left by the existing legislation. Others, including the Postal Service and some at the Commission, contend that Congress intended to authorize the Postal Service to scrap or rewrite the entire regulatory scheme, including provisions explicitly mandated by the 2006 law. Whether Congress intended to delegate such authority to the Commission, and whether such delegation would be lawful, remain a subject of debate. One thing is clear: if the expansive view of the Commission’s authority were to prevail, the existing constraints on the Postal Service’s exercise of pricing power could be largely eliminated.