Washington, DC – January 21, 2020 – The Postal Regulatory Commission (Commission) today released its Fiscal Year 2019 Annual Report to the President and Congress. The report provides a summary of the main activities undertaken by the Commission throughout the year. Each year, the Commission is required to address in its report information concerning the operations of the Commission, including the extent to which regulations are achieving the objectives of the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act (PAEA). The Commission’s report must also include an estimate of the costs incurred by the Postal Service to provide certain services that the Postal Service would not otherwise have provided except for the requirements of the law. The Commission provides an estimate for the value of the postal monopoly. Changes were made to this year’s estimates in order to account for recent Postal Service data changes as well as other technical issues. Therefore, this year’s estimates are provisional. The Commission is considering comments received in Docket No. PI2020-1 to determine the most appropriate revisions to the methodology.
Throughout the year, the Commission had a number of significant accomplishments. In addition to reviewing and approving planned rate changes for Market Dominant and Competitive products, new product proposals, and formal complaint adjudication, the Commission continued its work on the system for regulating rates and classes for Market Dominant products. On December 5, 2019, the Commission issued a revised Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to reflect comments received on its initial rulemaking. The Commission also completed its analysis of the institutional cost requirement for Competitive products and ultimately adopted a formula-based approach to annually calculate Competitive products’ appropriate share of institutional costs. The Commission further continued an active role in international postal policy matters, including participating in an inter-agency process to negotiate a favorable outcome at the Third Extraordinary Congress that would allow postal operators to self-declare rates for the delivery of small packets.
The Commission’s complete Annual Report is hyperlinked above and available on its website at www.prc.gov.
Source: Postal Regulatory Commission