USPS declares Moratorium on New Regulations until Nov 2009

Posted: May 22, 2009

As you may know, the USPS has been pumping out new rules and regulations at a feverish pace the past two years. While one would like to believe that these all are being done in the quest for cost savings and efficiency, the management time drain and uncertainty this causes has been significant. ACMA has found it has been forced to expend considerable time and effort to sort through these proposals and formally respond to Federal Register Notices on behalf of catalogers and informally work with USPS managers on removing burdensome stipulations or finding less punitive means of addressing the root cause that led the USPS to promulgate the new regulation in the first place. (Prior to ACMA's founding, these new regs would have simply become the rule of law in the postal world because in several cases, ACMA was the only party addressing catalog-specific issues. ACMA has had a strong track record of moderating otherwise difficult or restrictive regulations that would have further hurt cataloging.)

At this week's National Postal Forum, USPS SVP Steve Kearney declared the USPS is putting a moratorium on issuing new regulations for the next six months.  Today, he clarified that position a little further.  This is good news for the mailing community generally and catalogers specifically are that we get a much needed break from things that take our time and money while we slog through the current economic environment.  He is Steve's message to MTAC:

On Monday, I said the following in response to a question by Jack Potter:

"Something we talked about that I'd like to share with everybody here today is that we've decided to stop imposing any new mailing standards requirements on mailers for about the next 6 1/2 months, which takes us through the end of November. (applause) Sounds like that's a popular thing to say.  We know you all have a lot on your plates right now and we also need to get through this recession and we need to implement Intelligent Mail." 

A few folks at the Forum asked me whether this moratorium applies to standards that already have been announced with specific implementation dates before the end of November.  The answer is that it does not.  Our purpose in making this announcement is to take away any uncertainty or concern about new mailing standards requirements that we might otherwise propose during the coming months.  Of course, standards that accompany things that are favorable to mailers, such as the summer sale, will not be held up by the moratorium.  And if the law requires us to do something, or the relocation of facilities requires new labeling lists, we will implement those standards.  We hope MTAC will appreciate the certainty, however, that we will not propose any new mailing requirements that place a burden or cost on mailers through at least November 29th, when Intelligent Mail pricing takes effect.

ACMA has suggested to Mr. Kearney and several other top USPS Officers that the current process for working with industry in making these changes could be totally re-designed.  It looks like the USPS apparently agrees. We are told that one of the things that is going to happen during this moratorium is a re-do of the process for working with industry to make changes to "rules and tools" in the future.  ACMA hopes that the very positive lessons from the slim jim experience will be applied. (The slim jim outcome was terrible for catalogers but at least the process used allowed us to participate in the work and help make suggestions along the way in an attempt to find a productive solution for all. While we were unsuccessful in solving the slim jim issue, this highly collaborative method of working together, we feel, presents a model for the future we would do well to adopt.)