October 1, 2015

On September 30, 2015, the U.S. Postal Service filed documents related to its appeal of the Postal Regulatory Commission’s order that the exigent surcharge related to the 2007-2009 recession shall end this coming spring when a revenue target is met. Key among yesterday’s postal documents was the PETITIONER’S STATEMENT OF ISSUES TO BE RAISED. It is not surprisingly short and vague:

“Pursuant to this Court’s Order of August 31, 2015, Petitioner, the United States Postal Service, submits the following statement of the issue to be raised in this matter:

Whether the Postal Regulatory Commission’s (PRC’s) method of computing the mail volume and contribution lost “due to either extraordinary or exceptional circumstances,” 39 U.S.C. § 3622(d)(1)(E), is inconsistent with the test that this Court upheld in Alliance of Nonprofit Mailers, et al. v. Postal Regulatory Commission, 790 F.3d 186 (D.C. Cir. 2015) (Brown, Millett, and Wilkins, JJ.), or is otherwise arbitrary, capricious, or an abuse of discretion.”

The Alliance  believes that the PRC did an excellent job of implementing precisely what the U.S. Court of Appeals told it to do, and that the latest USPS appeal is itself capricious and, frankly, an affront to all customers of the Postal Service. To quote Thomas Hobbes, we wish this postal appeal a “nasty, brutish, and short” life.

© 2015 Alliance of Nonprofit Mailers