Amazon backs postal service reform

Amazon is publicly calling for legislation to revitalize its “first and oldest” business partner.

In an official corporate blog post, Amazon cites how founder Jeff Bezos started Amazon by packing and driving book orders to his local post office. Now, Amazon says it contributes billions of dollars in profits annually to the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) by using their package delivery services.

However, due to what Amazon terms “budernsome” funding mandates and declining letter mail, the USPS estimates it will lose $160 billion over the next 10 years. In response, Amazon is publicly supporting the recently introduced bipartisan Postal Service Reform Act. According to Amazon, the legislation would implement policy reforms to help strengthen the USPS’s financial and operational arms, as well as codify USPS practice to maintain an integrated delivery network of mail and packages six days per week.

Amazon also publicly supports doing away with the Postal Service’s 2006 mandate to pre-fund health benefits for retirees and integrating postal employees into the Medicare program, which the e-tailer says will “help stabilize” USPS’s finances.

“We’re proud of our partnership with USPS and want to continue working with the agency to innovate and deliver for our customers well into the future,” the blog post concludes. “With the House Oversight Committee’s swift advancement of the Postal Service Reform Act, we hope the full U.S. House and Senate will follow suit. Enacting these common-sense reforms will help guarantee that the USPS remains an affordable, reliable, and profitable package delivery system for the American people.”