U.S. Postal Service Seeks $5 Billion From Congress

Postmaster General John Potter told a Senate panel on Thursday that the U.S. Postal Service needs an immediate infusion of $2 billion to cover its lost revenues, and at least $3 billion to ensure the safety of the mail from anthrax in the future, news services reported.

Testifying before the Senate Appropriations subcommittee, Potter said that the safety of the mail should be considered a matter of homeland security.

In his prepared testimony, Potter also detailed how the service spent the $175 million it received from the Homeland Security funds that were approved in September, CNN reported.

Earlier this week, Robert Rider, chairman of the Postal Service Board of Governors, said that the USPS will need to spend a great deal of money to protect the mail, but the costs should not be passed onto consumers as part of a rate hike, the Associated Press reported.

Recently, the chronically strapped service has floated the idea of a three-cent increase on the price of a first-class stamp. Analysts had projected before the attacks that the USPS would to lose $1.65 billion in fiscal 2001.

Meanwhile, more than 1 million pieces of mail are still sitting in storage in the Washington, D.C. area, waiting to be decontaminated. The mail, which was being handled at the Brentwood postal facility, will be screened for anthrax, the Washington Post reported.

This facility handled the infected letter to Sen. Tom Daschle (D-S.D.). Two employees have died after contracting inhalation anthrax. It is believed that the numerous other cases of anthrax traces being detected are a result of that letter.

A spokesperson for the USPS said that about 3 million pieces of mail normally move through the building each day. Of the mail that is still quarantined – some of it will be sent to Ohio for sterilization, but any time sensitive mail will be destroyed.

Meanwhile the anthrax scare is making it harder for the USPS find volunteers to open answer the influx of letters to Santa Claus it receives each year, according to the Wall Street Journal.

ome post offices, like the one in North Pole, Alaska, are already getting 200 letters to Santa each week, the Journal said.

A spokesman said that the letters, often written by young children, bear a resemblance to the items shown in the service’s “Suspicious Mail Alert” posters. Often the letters feature poor penmanship and sometimes gifts of cookies, candy canes or even hay for the jolly one’s reindeer – giving them an odd shape which the USPS had said could be a warning sign.

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