Hoyer Testifies About 5th District Mail Delays

Congressman Steny H. Hoyer testified virtually last week before the House Oversight and Reform Subcommittee on Government Operations’ field hearing examining USPS service deficiencies in the Baltimore region.

Congressman Hoyer also sent a letter to Postmaster General Louis DeJoy and urged the postmaster to look into significant postal service problems facing Southern Maryland residents.

“… I’m concerned about the delivery of mail, throughout, not only our state, but as the former chairman of the Postal Committee on the Appropriations Committee, I had numerous hearings about performance of a service vital to the American people. So, thank you very much for holding this hearing,” Mr. Hoyer said.

The congressman said that postal delays have denied many of his constituents the ability to pay bills on time, despite mailing their payments early. He said it is unacceptable that delays have resulted in Marylanders receiving failure-to-pay notices from utility companies and subsequently risking utility shutoffs.

“Several constituents reported that their passport applications were unable to be processed by USPS employees at multiple locations in Southern Maryland. One constituent from Laurel contacted me after a USPS truck hit a personal vehicle on the street and would not pull over or stop to help. That’s not the Postal Service, at large, but it is a problem that needs to be addressed in a wholesome and effective way. These issues are indicative of the national decline in USPS service performance and its particularly egregious performance failures in Baltimore and throughout Maryland,” he said.

“This [is a] serious national problem. America cannot function without a USPS that works. Let me say, tangentially, that the Postal Service delivers hundreds of millions of pieces of letters at about 159 million postal points every day at a one percent mistake level, which all of us would like to replicate ourselves. That is a huge number of people who are not being served as well as we need them served. Across America, postal delays threaten the health of seniors and those with pre-existing conditions who depend on USPS to deliver their prescription drugs reliably,” he continued.

Read a complete transcript of Congressman Hoyer’s testimony here.

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For more information about House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer, visit his Leader member page.