GOP bill orders U.S. Postal Service to keep Saturday delivery

Republicans have brought forth a spending bill with a provision requiring the U.S. Postal Service to keep its full Saturday delivery service.

The order, attached to a GOP-sponsored appropriations bill as a rider, counters a cost-cutting plan presented to Congress last month by Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe, the Hill reports.

Mr. Donahoe’s plan would stop all Saturday delivery of first-class mail as a means of saving $2 billion a year. Package delivery would still go forth, however.

“I’m imploring Congress,” he said to Senate Homeland Security Committee members. “Please do not force us back into a six-day [delivery] window. Let us make the move [to five-day delivery] in August.”

The Postal Service still needs the permission of Congress to enact the service cuts, most legal analysts agree. The rider returning six-day service to the agency is somewhat of a surprise, given House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa’s support of Mr. Donahue’s recommendation.

An unnamed aide with the House Appropriations Committee confirmed the existence of the postal service rider in the Hill report and said it’s attached to a Republican appropriations bill aimed at avoiding a government shutdown in March.

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