postal service i want to again thank senator collins and cementer carper for their leadership in this area and see how pleased i am and i know we all are that in the tradition of our committee we achieve a bipartisan agreement here. we are going to be battered from all sides when we go forward with this, but this really is a national problem. this is a national problem and we aren't going to solve it by putting partisan politics were being rigid about a particular remedy that each one of us have and that is the spirit that has propelled a were discussions to this point so i want to thank my colleagues for all that they've done and particularly want to thank all of the members of the respective staff who if you look at them carefully are suffering from sleep deprivation and other elements associated with being asked to do a lot of work in a short time. senator collins. >> thank you mr. chairman. first let me say how much i appreciate the hard work of german lieberman, cementer carper, cementer brown, that has brought us here today. it has taken a great deal of hard work but we have dev