Postmaster General Louis DeJoy testified Friday during a video hearing that the Postal Service would be able to handle a mail-in ballot surge.
Photo: /Associated PressPostmaster General Louis DeJoy defended his efforts to make the Postal Service run more efficiently and said the mail agency could handle an expected surge in mailed ballots this fall amid concerns, particularly from Democrats, that his actions would interfere with the presidential election.
Mr. DeJoy, who has been at the center of controversy over efforts to curtail costs at the Postal Service, appeared Friday before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, controlled by Republicans.
Sen. Rob Portman (R., Ohio), who said he votes every year by absentee ballot, asked Mr. DeJoy if he supported voting by mail. “I think the American public should be able to vote by mail,” Mr. DeJoy said. “We will deploy processes and procedures that advance any election mail, in some cases ahead of first-class mail,” he added.
Mr. DeJoy testified that he had never spoken to President Trump about the Postal Service, other than in receiving his congratulations on becoming postmaster general.
In opening remarks, Mr. DeJoy urged Congress “to enact legislation that would provide the Postal Service with financial relief to account for the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on our financial condition.”
“Legislative actions have been discussed and debated for years, but no action has been taken,” he said, referring to long-running debates over the mail agency’s operations, while adding that the Postal Service must do its part to adapt to “the realities of our marketplace.”
Mr. DeJoy, a former logistics-company executive and Republican Party donor, had sought operational changes, such as reducing extra delivery trips, which postal-union representatives have blamed for delaying deliveries. Complaints about delays have spilled over into concerns about the election, in which mail-in voting is expected to hit historic highs because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Democrats said Mr. DeJoy had been slow to respond to inquiries about the delays, which they said harmed businesses and individuals. Republicans largely defended Mr. DeJoy’s actions as financially responsible but also pressed him to address concerns about delays and make other commitments not to hamper service.
“I am concerned about the delays that we have seen in Ohio and elsewhere,” said Mr. Portman, adding he had heard from a number of veterans who said they weren’t able to get their medication.
Sen. Gary Peters (D., Mich.) said the delays led one constituent’s daughter who gets her epilepsy medication through the mail, “to ration what few pills she had left. As a result [she] suffered seizures and was transported to a hospital.”
Amid public outcry, Mr. DeJoy said this week that the Postal Service would suspend some operational changes, such as removal of mail-processing equipment and collection boxes, until after the election. Democrats say the move left unanswered questions about specifically which changes will be deferred and want him to commit to reversing changes already made.
Mr. DeJoy said the Postal Service has removed around 35,000 collection boxes over the past decade. “I had no idea” that process was under way, he said, but decided to pause it until after the election in response to the public outcry. He said the Postal Service routinely reviews where collection boxes are needed and where to place new ones.
Mr. DeJoy said there was no intention to bring back any mail-sorting machines that have been removed. “They’re not needed,” he said in response to a question from Mr. Peters.
The Postal Service says it has ample capacity to handle election mail this fall but has urged voters to mail in ballots at least a week before their state’s due date, if not earlier.
Democrats have accused Mr. DeJoy—who was selected by the bipartisan-by-statute Postal Service Board of Governors, all appointed by Mr. Trump, and took office in June—of working with the president to hamper mail-in voting. Mr. DeJoy has rejected such accusations.
The president has said adopting universal mail-in voting in response to the coronavirus raises the prospect of fraud and would favor the Democrats. Research isn’t definitive on whether the practice, which some states have used in previous federal elections, benefits one party more. Studies haven’t found evidence of widespread fraud connected to mail-in voting despite isolated cases.
The House is scheduled to convene Saturday to vote on a bill that would prohibit operational changes to the Postal Service until well after the election and give the agency $25 billion in additional funding. On Monday, the Democratic-led House Oversight and Reform Committee is scheduled to question Mr. DeJoy and Robert Duncan, chairman of the agency’s board of governors.
Mr. DeJoy disputed that he has curtailed overtime. He said overtime has run at a rate of roughly 13% both before and after he took over as postmaster general.
While Mr. DeJoy took over as postmaster general in June, the Postal Service was already facing complaints about package delays, with more people shopping online as the pandemic took hold in the U.S. earlier this year, and as the Postal Service faced staffing problems due to Covid-19 outbreaks.
USPS employees scanned the votes for counting during a primary election at the Miami-Dade elections department in Miami this week.
Photo: chandan khanna/Agence France-Presse/Getty ImagesThe parcel-delivery issues persisted through the summer, prompting e-commerce marketplace eBay Inc. last week to tell sellers the company was “working on other affordable, more reliable delivery options.”
In recent weeks, postal-worker unions said policies implemented under Mr. DeJoy, such as limiting extra mail-transportation runs, have slowed delivery of mail and packages, including prescriptions, at a time when many Americans are more dependent on those services because of the pandemic.
Some cost-saving efforts predated Mr. DeJoy’s arrival in June, the Postal Service has said, including what it called routine decommissioning of underused mail-sorting equipment and mail-collection boxes. The agency’s inspector general recommended some such cost-reducing measures in studies conducted before Mr. DeJoy took the role.
Mail volume is down “and package volume is growing,” Mr. DeJoy said Friday when asked by Mr. Johnson about the removal of mail-sorting equipment. “We really are moving these machines out to make room to process packages.”
Mr. DeJoy said changes to the transportation schedule were aimed at making the trucks run on time. “FedEx, UPS, everybody runs their trucks on time. That’s what glues the whole network together.” He said production processing at the Postal Service’s plants “is not fully aligned with this established schedule…so we had some delays in the mail.”
Mr. DeJoy said the shifts would improve on-time delivery “once we get all the mail on those trucks.” The effort to get trucks out on time won’t be deferred until after the election, a Postal Service spokesman clarified Friday.
USPS and the Presidential Election
- Postal Service and the 2020 Election: What You Need to Know
- Postmaster General Defends Independence from the Trump Administration (Aug. 7)
- USPS to Suspend Changes Until After Election (Aug. 18)
- House Democrats Set Vote on Bill to Bolster USPS (Aug. 17)
- Postal Delivery Delays Trouble E-Commerce Sellers (Aug. 19)
The Postal Service faces long-running financial problems, which stem from both legislative requirements and seismic changes to its business over the past two decades. A 2006 law, among other things, required that the Postal Service prefund retiree medical benefits.
The pandemic has further strained the agency’s finances. First-class and marketing mail volumes have fallen sharply, while less-profitable parcel volumes soared under heavy e-commerce demand during coronavirus lockdowns.
The Postal Service reached an agreement for a $10 billion loan from the Treasury Department in July. The agency hasn’t used the loan so far, a spokesman said Friday. “You need to know how you’re going to pay it back,” Mr. DeJoy said, when asked about it by Sen. Josh Hawley (R., Mo.).
The Postal Service handled 49.9% more packages in the three months ended June 30 than it did in the same period last year, a jump that “drove substantial increases in work-hour and operating expenses,” the Postal Service said in its most recent earnings statement. The e-commerce-propelled growth in package revenue, which jumped 53.6% in the quarter to $8.3 billion, isn’t expected over the long term to make up for “the losses in mail service revenue caused by Covid-19,” the agency said.
Sen. Rand Paul (R., Ky.) asked Mr. DeJoy what he thought about moving from six-day-a-week delivery to five days or fewer in some rural areas, a change the senator said could save the Postal Service between $1 billion and $1.5 billion.
Mr. DeJoy said he had considered that but found other scheduling changes more efficient.
“I think the six-day delivery—the connection that the postal letter carrier has with the American people that gives us this highly trusted brand, and where the economy is going in the future—I think that is probably our biggest strength to capitalize on,” he said.
Write to Alexa Corse at alexa.corse@wsj.com and Jennifer Smith at jennifer.smith@wsj.com
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