On February 7th, the Postal Service Reform Act of 2021 (H.R. 3076) passed the House with a bipartisan vote of 342-92. The bill is a major financial overhaul of the U.S. Postal Service (USPS), relieving it of tens of billions of dollars in liabilities that agency leaders said prevented it from modernizing and providing efficient service. Some in the House Democratic Caucus had pushed to pass a broader bill that included provisions to protect mail-in voting and funding for electric vehicles, but final negotiations lead to a much narrower bill that appears to have a pathway toward Senate approval.
For rural areas, the bill adds a ‘Non-Postal Services’ category, which increases reach of services for rural areas on behalf of other federal agencies, such as passport applications, and providing check-in services to the elderly. The bill also helps promote small businesses by allowing special rates for rural newspapers to increase the number of non-subscribers in their counties they can send their publication to in a calendar year.