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Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 152 / Wednesday, August 11, 2021 / Rules and Regulations The Postal Service has reasonably balanced the relevant statutory objectives and factors. The revised service standards would enhance value for customers, providing greater reliability and consistency. Id. at 3691b1A, b1C, c2.
Customers would have a better ability to predict when to expect First-Class Mail delivery, based on objective criteria. The Postal Service has reasonably determined that the service standards would improve both delivery reliability and efficiency, while minimizing the extent of impact on delivery speed. Id.
at 3691b1C, c1, c6. But, contrary to the view portrayed by the States, the Postal Service is not merely moving the goal posts of the service standards. The service standards are necessary to facilitate much more concrete operational initiatives to improve delivery reliability and transportation efficiency.
Several commenters argue that the changes violate 39 U.S.C. 101, but fail to recognize how the changes appropriately balance the various policies set forth in that provision. The States, for example, quote 39 U.S.C.
101e, but never mention subsection f of that section. An individual commenter argues that the proposed service standards are contrary to 39
U.S.C. 101e and f Congress generally considered faster delivery to be better delivery, without reconciling the statutory mandate to balance both prompt and economical delivery in selecting modes of transportation. The Postal Service notes that the economical prong cannot be relegated to some lesser aspirational goal, given the longstanding expectation that the Postal Service be financially self-sufficient. See generally 39 U.S.C. 101a, 2401; H.R. Rep. 91
1104, at 17 1970. The Postal Service cannot simply incur huge costs to ensure a narrower conception of speed, particularly one that experience shows is not consistently achievable in practice.
First, 39 U.S.C. 101e does not say that all letter mail must be delivered in the fastest manner at all costs, nor does it define important. Similarly, the second sentence of subsection f does not require overnight delivery of all mail, and instead recognizes that only certain important letter mail may warrant overnight treatment. In that regard, the Postal Service is not changing the current service standard for First-Class Mail subject to an overnight standard. The Postal Service also has other options for speedier delivery available to customers who want their important letter mail to travel
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overnight, even for long distances:
Specifically, Priority Mail Express and Priority Mail.
By contrast, the first sentence of subsection f does address all mail and thus is much more relevant to the present initiative, which will affect First-Class Mail and end-to-end Periodicals based on distance of transportation. Subsection f also focuses specifically on modes of transportationthe underlying issue with respect to the changes here at issue. Prompt and economical, when considered together, cannot mean speediest in all instances, but necessarily entails reasonably fast speeds to the extent that they can be achieved at reasonable costs. The Postal Services current usage of air transportation has proven inadequate to meet that test, and so the Postal Service is taking measured steps to improve the selected modes of transportation. To do so, however, the service standards need to be adjusted.
Moreover, the proposed changes are limited in scope, and are designed to address the consequences of the current standards that result in an unreliable, inefficient service, while also mitigating the impact on speed of delivery. In this regard, most mail volume will remain at its current standard, and overall, most mail volume will continue to be subject to a standard of 3 days or less. All mail will also receive much more reliable service, meaning actual service performance will be better aligned with the service standards, rather than having consistent performance failures a problem particularly pronounced for mail currently subject to a 3-day standard. Hence, and regardless of how one might choose to define the scope of important letter mail, the Postal Service has given appropriate consideration to the interest in ensuring expeditious delivery of First-Class Mail letters generally, and has appropriately balanced that interest to the extent possible with the other policies of the statute, including reliability, efficiency, and affordability.
Some commenters suggest that the changes would be inconsistent with 39
U.S.C. 101b, which requires the Postal Service to provide a maximum degree of effective and regular postal services to rural areas, communities, and small towns where post offices are not selfsustaining. The Postal Service notes that, by distinguishing on the basis of mailing distance and not on the nature of the origin or destination, the service standards would affect urban and rural mailers similarly. Moreover, the service standards are measured only after acceptance at a postal facility, and
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would not alter that status quo.
Accordingly, whether post offices are present in a communityand hence 39
U.S.C. 101bis irrelevant to the present changes.
Various commenters suggest that the changes may infringe 39 U.S.C. 403c, which bars the Postal Service, in providing services, from making any undue or unreasonable discrimination among users of the mails or granting any undue or unreasonable preferences to any such user. Notably, upon consideration of detailed briefs on both sides of this precise question, the PRC
concluded that the service standard changes are not unreasonable and do not facially violate 39 U.S.C. 403c. The Postal Service certainly agrees with the PRCs assessment in that important respect. Nevertheless, it is important to examine carefully the nature of the comments alleging discriminatory impact of the changes.
In accord with PRC precedent, three conditions must be met to establish a claim of unreasonable discrimination:
1 One or more mailers must be offered less favorable rates or terms and conditions than those offered to other mailers; 2 the two sets of mailers must be similarly situated; and 3 there must be no rational or legitimate basis for differing treatment. Order No. 718, Order on Complaint, PRC Docket No.
C20091 Apr. 20, 2011, at 28. Several commenters suggest that the service standards would implicate these conditions, but the Postal Service does not find this argument persuasive.
Most broadly, some commenters seem to suggest that any geographical disparities resulting from the service standards will suffice to satisfy the first two 39 U.S.C. 403 c criteria. However, the relevant question is not where customers live, but how far their mailings travel. The Postal Service is not degrading service standards in selected states or for selected mailers, but rather is lengthening the service standards for all mailings that traverse longer distances based on objective distance criteria that will apply nationwide. Furthermore, the Postal Service notes that when considering whether First-Class Mail service, as a whole, would inappropriately discriminate among customers following this service standard change, longer-distance mailers will continue to benefit from the uniform First-Class Mail rate, whereby they pay less per mile than shorter-distance mailers.
Moreover, with respect to expected delivery times, many longer-distance mailers subject to lengthened service standards will continue to enjoy a delivery speed i.e., distance traveled
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