Peters hails a pause in planned USPS changes to postal facilities, including in Michigan Michigan Advance

“In response to the concerns raised by you and your colleagues, I will commit to pausing the implementation of these measures at least until after January 1, 2025.” wrote DeJoy. “Even then, we will not continue these efforts without notifying you of our plans to do so, and then only at a moderate pace of implementation.”

Peters, a native of Bloomfield Township and chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, has repeatedly called on DeJoy to halt implementation of changes to the United States Postal Service (USPS) mail delivery network, including moving some of the mail processing operations to the Iron Mountain facility in Green Bay, Wis. Peters said DeJoy has also committed to pausing similar changes at facilities across the United States.

Peters led a bipartisan group of more than 20 senators sent a letter to DeJoy on May 8, it called for a halt to the facility and transportation changes in the USPS network plan until they could be studied to ensure they would not harm mail delivery service. Peters, who says he spoke directly to DeJoy about this, was very critical of the proposals after one oversight hearing convened in April about this.

“I am pleased to have secured this pause on the changes to the Iron Mountain Processing and Distribution Center, which will ensure that Upper Peninsula residents and businesses who rely on the Postal Service for reliable mail delivery are in will continue to deliver their mail. to count on that service,” he said. “I appreciate Postmaster General DeJoy’s efforts in working with me on this issue. However, I am still concerned about additional changes, including local transportation travel, impacting Michiganders. I urge the Postal Service to pause and reverse local transportation changes in addition to facility changes until we have more information about their effects. I will continue to push for a comprehensive investigation by the Postal Regulatory Commission to ensure that any changes made do not impact mail delivery. It is absolutely critical that we understand the full scope of these changes and their impact on the service and communities, before we move forward.”

Despite the pause, DeJoy indicated in his letter that the proposed changes would ultimately not impact service.

“We do not consider these planned actions to be a result of service provision at all; rather, they are important elements in achieving a network that can deliver greater service reliability in a cost-effective manner,” DeJoy wrote. “The professional workforce will not see layoffs, new equipment will be installed, facilities will not close, deferred maintenance will be carried out and working conditions will be significantly improved.”