On Universal Service

The following is a perspective by postal commentator Gene Del Polito prepared for publication in Direct magazine. The opinions expressed are those of the author, and are not necessarily the official views of the Association.

For the past five years, those who have a stake in the preservation of a viable mail delivery system have been laboring to devise a legislation to ensure that the American postal infrastructure doesn't deteriorate like an old, neglected, two-lane road that parallels a modern multi-lane interstate highway. Despite all the noise about the "wiring of America," we will continue to need for a long time to come a system that's capable of delivering paper-based communications and packages to every home and business in the nation. The trouble is, the system we have, the one that's stewarded largely by the U.S. Postal Service, is in danger of collapsing financially under the weight of an anachronistic legislative and regulatory framework.

Efforts to craft a legislative proposal capable of enjoying broad-based support, however, has been frustrated by the various interested parties' inability to define precisely what they believe they will need from a postal system that must endure the challenges posed by a new century. The inability to reach consensus on the design of a postal system for tomorrow has made for a study in frustration.

Mailers have said consistently in testimony presented to Congress that they need a postal system capable of providing universal mail service. In fact, everyone talks about universal service, but no one ever has explicitly defined (in all of its possible manifestations) what universal service is, how it should look, how much it would cost, how it can be provided, and (most importantly) how it should be funded. While the debate over postal reform or postal modernization (or whatever else you'd like to call it) has alternately simmered and boiled over a regular basis, the heat from this debate has largely been dissipated rather than being channeled to flesh out what this thing called universal service really is all about.

One of the key features of House postal subcommittee chairman John McHugh's Postal Modernization Act is a provision that calls for a study of the Postal Service's universal service obligation (USO). While there is the usual lack of agreement over who should participate in this study or how it should be conducted, virtually all of the participants in the past five years' postal food-fight agree that such a study is sorely needed. In fact, some have argued that it's impossible for Congress to design America's postal system for tomorrow without such a study being first undertaken.

If authorizing a congressional or presidential study of the universal service obligation is the only thing that comes from our recent efforts for postal reform, then the whole postal reform endeavor would  have been worth the effort. If universal service is the goal, there are a multiplicity of ways by which it can be provided. It's therefore essential that we understand the full panoply of alternatives, before we walk away from the debate resigned to let America's postal system crash and burn.