remain. a local postmark will be available for first class mail for anyone who wants to take that to retail. and delivery times to residences and customers will be unchanged and unaffected. so mail delivery would be the same time each day that it is now. and for our commercial mailers. mailer who is presort mail and continue to receive appropriate postage discounts. they can expect that there could be changes. we discussed the changes this afternoon and they're giving us very detailed information. we can start looking should this go forward at how to best support each of them. i have you'll please wait until i'm finished.

i'll appreciate it. thank you. it's currently under review at the area in hadquarters. there may be changes to the study based on those reviews. we'll continue to take comment through january 19th. we can take all the comments and send them forward to area office and headquarter office to be considered further at that point. we take very seriously the obligation to the entire mailing industry. it's a trillion dollar industry that employs 8 million people across the united states. we're soliciting your input tonight to make the decision decisions that you heard your comments, your suggestions are heard. and that we continue to make the mail strong for you and the industry for years to come. we'll leave the slide up there for you to remind you we have 15

days after tonight. we want to be sure in addition to the information that's been written down here from your questions and comments tonight that you also are encouraged to mail those to us as well. so mike, i'm going to turn it back to you. >> thank you very much. appreciate it. before we get into question and comment section from the -- >> your microphone. >> thank you. >> before we get into the general question and comment part of the presentation, we have some very distinguished guests that i would like to invite up to speak. i would like to begin with governor schumer, please. [ applause ] thank you so much. i'm honored to be here. i'm going to be very brief because i want to hear from -- i know we want to hear from the

hard working employees of the u.s. postal service that do such an extraordinary job delivering our mail. thanks so much all of you for being here and our congressional delegation for helping to organize this forum tonight. i feel blessed as your governor to serve in the state with the best congressional delegation in america. [ cheers and applause ] they don't get any better than senator leahy. they're hometown boys so thank you very much. and before i say a few words about the idiocy of shutting down the white river processing

facility -- [ cheers and applause ] i want to thank our congressional delegation for the announcement that just came through from washington where they with their extraordinary power can convince the congress who does almost negative to send hundreds of millions of dollars back to the state of vermont to help us rebuild from the worst flood in our history. thank you, bernie. thank you, patrick. thank you, peter. we're proud of you. couple of quick words. i was born and raised here. we understand what flows in the white river junction processing facility would mean to vermont. we're a rural state. we require mail to get to us. not only to communicate with our loved ones, but to run our businesses, create jobs, and

economic opportunities. it is critical for the 250 hard working people who process the mail right here and do a great job of it. we start building jobs in vath and it's critical to have a service that delivers mail when we send it, not three or four or five days later than we send it. and i say this to the u.s. postal service you do a great job. it doesn't get any better. in my other business i run a small business. we rely on this white river junction facility to get our product to the market to allow

us to employ vermonters. they don't do it any better than here. they send high school students all over the world to developing countries. and the one thing that helps us is that the u.s. postal service gets mail reliably to people when we get it there. we dread sending mail to third world countries that we're dealing with because their services don't. this will join them in having a back water postal service that cost us jobs and cost us economic opportunities. so i'll close by saying this. we in rural vermont where cell service is at time nonexistent

need the postal service more than anyone else in america. keep it open. keep it strong. keep our hard working postal employees working and go somewhere else to find pretend savings. [ applause ] and i ask this one question. if the studies the in the madison avenue videos in fact suggest that there are going to bf savings through employees but we're somehow not going to lose any jobs i ask what kind of math you're using. [ applause ] so ifl be standing together with our congressional delegation to do everything we can to bring sense to the u.s. postal

service. keep the white river junction postal center open. keep us growing jobs and economic opportunities in vermont. thank you. [ applause ] >> okay, thank you governor. [ cheers and applause ] thank you, governor. at this time i would invite senator leahy, please. senator. [ applause ]

>> does this sound better? okay. normally i would go first, but i'm not going to tonight because senator sand ers has worked so hard on this on the floor. i'll speak after. i want to read just one thing. we got a lot of christmas cards this year, a lot one is from chris richardso. is he here? chris, there you go my family and i want to take a second to thank you for what you've done for the postal office, the employees, the families, the customers. chris, i want you to snow senator sand ers, congressman, governor and i will not stop one

home standing up for you. bernie, it's yours. >> thank you. let ne begin by thank iing you t only for being here, but thank you for the extraordinary work you do every single day. sometimes we take you for granted. we shouldn't. you're doing a great job. thank you for that. [ applause ] i also want to thank the post office. this meeting was originally scheduled for december 18th. that was a very bad time. i appreciate you rescheduling the meeting for a

appropriate time. let me begin by picking up on a point already made. we're in the middle of the worst recession since the great depression. 25 million americans are underemployed or unemployed. on the floor of the house, senator leahy and i and others are doing everything we can to try against very strong opposition to try to create the millions of jobs our economy needs. we are also trying to make sure that our veterans fete the jobs they are entitled to. in the middle of that, it's insane to talk about throwing 100,000 americans out of work. [ applause ]

the post offices made a case which is certainly true. this is the 21st century. many of us use e-mail. we know that there must be changes in the postal service. but in my view if the postal service does the right thing, and we're working on legislation to do that, there are business mod ols available to grow the postal service rather than cutting, cutting and cutting. now this is the business model that's in the service right now. they want to eliminate 252 processing plants, or they're looking at that. they want to shut down thousands

of rural post offices which in in m parts of the country are the centers. it's where people come together. including is 15 in the state of eliminate saturday mail delivery. when you do all of that in my view slow down mail delivery. when i put a piece in the mailbox, it may get there in two days, three days, maybe even five days. when you begin to do that you're at the start of a debt spiral for the post office. [ applause ] because who is going to use the

post office if the strongest attribute of speedy delivery no longer exists? now one of the things we have worked on is i had a very strong fear that what the post office wanted to do is ramrod the cuts before the post office could act. it doesn't matter if they don't have the time to dole with the comprehensive legislation. we agreed to a five-month moratorium on cuts. the importance on that is when we return to washington in january, at the end of january, one of the first orders of business in the senate will be comprehensive postal reform.

. what is disappointing about the postal presentation, i really have a hard time understanding you, it is absolutely true. first class mail service is out. but one of the great financial problems facing the post office in addition to the decline in first class mail, in addition to the recession is the absolutely unfair financial requirements being made on the postal service. and it's very hard more me to understand how in a presentation this is not dealt with. the postal service as a result, not their fault. as a result of congressional action some years ago is required to come up with about $5.5 million every single year

for future health care retirees. there is no other agency of government that comes close to having this requirement, and it's best we can understand there is no corporation or company in america that has to do that. i talked recently to the man who is head of office of personnel management. and he agreed that this is an unnecessary requirement. there is already enough the future health benefit program to pay off benefits for the next 20 years. the post office does not need to come up with 5.5 billion. that number can be very significantly reduce d and that is the heart of the legislation. and we are working on it. will that solve all the problems? no, but it's a good start.

[ applause ] second of all, they're now agreed upon over $11 billion. if the post office can recoup that money, must the cuts in what they have to pay to retire. that will come close to giving the postal service the $20 billion they need in the next four or five years to reach the talking about. [ applause ] in addition to that, on the house side, congressman welch is on board with the legislation which would provide the $55 billion in overpayment made to the civil service retirement system be returned to the post office as well.

[ applause ] so here's the point. does the postal service have the but we hav place burden bs on them that no other agencies of government has or no private sector has. we have to give them three, four, fieed to begin the kind of resorgs. now the business model up there now is cut, cut, cut. but it must be an entrepreneurial approach.

we must be aggressive. right now, i'll give you some examples. right now i walk into a post office, and i say to the clerk, can you notarize this letter for me? you know what the clerk says? it's against the law for me to notarize that letter. it's against the law. if i say to the clerk, can you give me ten copies of this letter? can't do it. post office is not allowed to do that. it's not doing that today. if i'm in a rural post office and i say, by the way, can you sell me a fishing or hunting license? can't do that? it's against the law. every day. that we have infrastructure all over the country.

how can that be more aggressive in generating more business? we can come up with a solution a lot more puz positive than what they are bringing forth. for the last several months i've been working closely with senator leahy on all these issues. let me now reintroduce patrick leahy. >> thank you, bernie. john and tracy told me that there is some trouble hearing in the back. and i said to bernie before he got up here, i said don't usually speak up so he can hear you. so thank you.

serious for a moment. one of the hats i wear representing all of you. i want to remind you. people talk about this as a post office. only one is referred to it gives them the right to establish the postal system. it's been this way since the country was founded and all you people at the post office can be proud of that. and it's it's not too subtle

that means congress needs to been sulted before they implement reforms to threaten to destroy it south. every day i wear this pin. it was given to me when i was first sworn in the senate. part of that constitution is how we establish the postal service. i am not yielding one iota of my oath to uphold the constitution. and neither will senator sanders or congressman welch. and i know the governor is we us on that. and you can count on that, too.

now you've not been shy in letting us now hoe you think. i appreciate that. the mail handler's union, to others that have spoken up, thank you for doing that. you know, all of us work together in 2006 to prevent the closure of a similar facility. now they're glad they didn't close it. senator sand ers and congressman welch feel that way. we haven't changed our mind about closing the facility. it's not in case of us trying to hang onto something that is outdated and gone. make it work. and make the constitution work. and keel the postal service running. it's part of america, let's not forget that.

now, we do not have the fastest moving congress these days. we seem to have a lot of gridlock, but we're all going to work hard and seek help from republicans and democrats alike to make sure that we can protect them and the service they can't from the postal service. we're talking about processing but i don't think they should be bansing the budgets on the backs of rural processes. neither on mail processing facilities. we are a special state. we work only if everything does work. so i don't need to tell you all the shings i have here, because you know them. but stop and think for a moment. if you're going to do cuts that

slow up the service, that slow up the abilities, doesn't that harm the future competitiveness of the post office? doesn't it? how in heaven's name does that help it? they need to find new markets. the postal service will not cut its way to greatness. it can grow itself way to greatness. >> the third member of the delegation and again, i just want it to be known that every

member of the delegation is with us this evening. and we're thankful that you're all here. and i would like to ask congressman welch to please step forward. >> thank you. we're going to hear from you very soon. my office was right down the road. after two years i got to tour where all the magic happens. we're here. you're concerned about your jobs and rightly so. the heartland four corners. the heartland three rn i walked in and shook hands

saying how long have you worked here? and your life has been serving us. and we appreciate it. we know that you've been an anchor in the communities for each and every one of us. we want to say from the bottom of our hearts, thank you for your service. you're going to keep doing it. t that easy. and folks t 25 million people that are not in a job, that want a job, sometimes wonder why anyone should protect someone else's job when they don't have one. and you know, it's a moment when we have to remember that we are

all in this together. it's something that our country is in danger of forgetting. the pressure is real on you. but you see folks coming in at christmas time, trying to figure out if they can afford the stamps to send a pack saj to a grandchild. it's tough for a lot of folks and we have to be smart. the postal service has been with us for 237 years. now we're talking about electronic processing. but you think that there weren't huge changes that had to occur in those 237 years? benjamin fr up and going until now? of course.

but why? woh your jobs are service is worth saving. and our plan, and our goal has to be how do we save it? how together do we t ve changes. but when we have a plan, and it's we're going to take off this excessive birthday of billions and billions of dollars. overfunding. this is not to avoid meeting your obligation. it's to impose and inflict this financial burden that makes it impossible for us to be successful and for us to make the slow and gradual change that needs to be made. not just so that you can have your job, which is extremely important, but so that this community and white river junction, this state of vermont that we all love, this country of