[background noises] [background noises] welcome everybody to todays hybrid hearing pursuant to house rules some members will appear in person and others will appear remotely via webex. Some members are appearing in person and let me first remind ereveryone that pursuant to the latest guidance on the house attending physician all individuals attending this hearing in person must wear a face mask. Numbers werefa not wearing a may facemask will not be recognized and let me also make a few reminders for those numbers appearing in person, you will see members and witnesses appearing remotely on the monitor in front of you when you are speaking is what is known in web acts as active speaker you. A timer is visible in the room directly in front of you. Members appearing remotely i know youre all familiar with web ex by now but let me remind everyone of a few points. First, you will see each person speaking during the hearing whether in person or remote as long as yous have your web acts set to active speaker review. If you have any questions about this, please Contact Committee staff immediately when second have a timer that should be visible on your screen when you are in the active speaker s with thumbnail. Numbers who wish to pin the timers to their screen should Contact Committee staff for assistance. Per the house rules require that we see you please have your cameras turned on at all times. Fourth, members appearing remotely who are not recognized should remain muted to minimize background noise and feedback. With this i will recognize members verbally. But numbers retain the right to seek recognition verbally in regular order. Members will recognize in seniority order for questions lastly if you want to be recognized outside of regular order you may identify that in several ways and you may use the chat function to send a request you may send an email to the majority staff or you may unmute your mike to seek recognition. Obviously, we do not want people talking over each other so their preference is that members use the chat function orce email to facilitate formal verbal recognition. People staff will ensure that i am married aware of your request and i will recognize you. Begin the hearing in just a moment and they tell me they are ready to begin the lifestream. Chairwoman, point of order, imagine the mask you dont have on. I am talking. If you are talking you can have your mask off. I thought you said during questions you have to have it on. To come into the room you have to have the mask on but as you talk as you and i know its hard to talk with the mascot so it can be removed when you are asking questions. The committee will come to ord order. Without objection of the chair is authorized to declare a recess of the committee at any time without objection the gentlewoman from North Carolina, ms. Adams, as well as the gentleman from illinois mr. Quigley will be permitted to join the committee and be recognized for questioning the witnesses. In addition the gentlewoman from North Carolina, mr. Walker, will be recognized at the proper time to introduce his constituents. I now recognize myself for an Opening Statement. Good morning. I would like to welcome postmaster general louis dejoy and the chairman of the postal board of governors, Robert Duncan to this oversight hearing and i thank you all for being here. And all of our districts we are hearing from constituents about significant delays in the delivery off mail, medicine, fod and other supplies. These delays are especially concerning and potentially lifethreatening during the Coronavirus Crisis. These are not isolated complaints and they are widespread in our offices have been receiving thousands of calls and emails about the detrimental effects these delays are having on our veterans, seniors, Small Businesses and families across the country. When we asked leaders about these delays they downplayed them and they dismissed them as temporary and they discounted them as minor, unintended consequences of reforms being put into place but then we saw National Headlines describing these delays in much more detaie and i have a document here that lists or headlines from almost every state in the country talking about these delays. For example, in my home state of new york i quote, mail is delayed five, six days in new york city and Postal Workers Union says. In kentucky Ranking Member homestake quote, Postal Services cost cutting is frustrating kentuckians and raising election concerns. In california the home state of our vice chairman mr. Gomez quote, like armageddon rotting food, dead animals and chaos at postal facilities amid cutbacks. This list goes on and on. Last friday when mr. Joy was confronted in the senate with these widespread reports he said he felt bad about what he call called, the dip in service. But then after mr. Joys testimony in senate we obtained an internal Postal Service document entitled pmg briefing and this is a presentation prepared directly for the t postmaster general and it is dated almost two weeks ago august 12. According to this document these delays are not just but this document warns the postmaster general of significant and widespread drops across the board and firstclass marketing periodicals and other categories. This document shows these delays are not a myth or Conspiracy Theory as some of my colleagues have argued. These deep declines did not start in april or may when the Coronavirus Crisis hit us but in july when mr. Joy came on board and began making his changes. Our entire country is experiencing these delays as a result of lewis to joys actions such as his decision to restrict the number of trips from Processing Plants to delivery units. Perhaps mr. Joy got his sweeping changes would not cause any delay and in my opinion that would be incompetent at best. Or perhaps this was intentional and maybe mr. Joint was warned that his changes would cause delay but he disregarded those warnings and that would be extremely reckless in the middle of a Global Pandemic with less than three months before an important election. Or perhapsps there is a far simpler explanation and perhaps mr. Dejoy is just doing exactly umwhat President Trump said he wanted on National Television, using the blocking of funds to justify sweeping changes to hobble male in voting. All of these options are bad but when you install someone as postmaster general after he donates millions of dollars to your campaign but rushes to make changes without conducting evequate analysis and when he withholds Key Information from congress and doesnt level with us and people begin to ask what in the world is going on and given all of this is not surprising that the Postal ServiceInspector General has already opened an investigation into mr. Joys controversial onchanges. We will be asking mr. D joy some hard questions today. We will also be asking mr. Duncan as chairman of the board about his own role in choosing mr. Dejoy as postmaster general and about his own role in vetting mr. Dejoy for conflict of interest, including mr. Dejoys ownership of the major Postal Service competitors and mr. Duncans own role in allowing these delays to happen under his watch. Whatever the cause of these massive delays the American People want to go back to the way things were and they dont want these changes and they want them reversed. We they dont want anyone messing with the post office and they certainly dont want it politicized. They want to have confidence that their mail, their medicinew and their ballots will be delivered on time. I look for to hearing from our witnesses and i now recognize the distinguished Ranking Member mr. Cromer for an Opening Statement. Thank you, chairwoman maloney. I appreciate you calling this hearing today on the United StatesPostal Service even though it wouldve been nice to do so before we voted on the bill saturday. We all agreed the Postal Service needs to be reformed to better serve the market people and we all worked Postal Service to be as efficient and effective as possible to assure americans perceive their perceptions on time, Small Businesses thrive and mailin ballots are delivered in a timely fashion. But meaningful reforms is going to take bipartisanship in something we have seen very little of in the last few days. Democrats fabricated baseless Conspiracy Theory about the Postal Service and hastily passed a bill saturday but before hearing from you, mr. Dejoy. The bill had no Prior Committee action and to that the bill and no hearings, no markups and because of this rust process the bill was significantly admitted by the democrats before it went to the rules committee that then proceeded to the house floor process that prevented any amendment to the bill. There waso no republican input, not it any step in the process. Just this morning we have learned that the u. S. Postal service opposes the bill that you all past saturday. They read the bill and realized that it ties their hands and will make it harder and more expensive to deliver the mail and at least this legislation is consistent with the obama biden years at the Postal Service, more delays, more financial losses. This chain of events show democrats are not serious about meaningful reform in the president does not support the bill, the Postal Service does not support the bill and the senate will likely not take up the bill. This is a political stunthe. During saturdays debate chairwoman maloney unveiled a 60 page powerpoint that she just received overnight from an apparent whistleblower. Madam chair, i dont need to remind you that youre an atom r shifts record with whistleblowers is less than stellar. The deck is dated august 12 proving it played no role in the creation of your bill which was unveiled the day before. The deck contains delivery performance data and that data since the u. S. Postal service thirdquarter report it shows delays in july and august and im very interested to hear from mr. Dejoy today about what he has learned about the causes of these delays. How much of an effect is an ongoing pandemic and increasing employee sick leave having on u. S. Postal Services Delivery performance and how does that compare to any temporary growing pains from efforts to make the Postal Service more efficient and selfsufficient . I say i am interested to hear mr. Dejoys response because i do not know the answer to those questions and i dont l believe the chairwoman does either. Fthis is why i repeatedly said that this committee is doing things backwards. When we make policy its our job to understand why it happened. How would you find out why . Ever hearing on the topic with the postmaster general and and certainly before you pass the bill and returning to today let me say the postal issues are something i have not heard about a great deal in my rural district for example, i distantly remember when the Obama Biden Administration a mail facility was closed resulting in letters that once took a day to get from point a to point b not to you three, four days and i heard a lot about the Postal Service for my grandmother who spent her entire career at 27 years as a Rural Mail Carrier in the heart and some of these go out to the postal families who lost loved ones during this pandemic and as her grandson in the congressman representing the First District of kentucky and is Ranking Member of this committee i want to see them return to being a viable institution and t i am disappointed at the hysterical frenzy ripped up by my colleagues by their friends and the left on the media and lets look at the repeated claims again, do they need a bailout to survive in november . No, mail volume has declined the Package Delivery has shot through the roof. This increased usps revenue by 1. 5 billion and has nearly 50 million cash on hand and can operate until it august 20, 2021. They removed blue postal boxes and mail sorting machines . No, the Postal Service is more than adequate capacity to handle the vote by mail and everyone in the u. S. Were to request to send their mail that was still less than one days average volume. The blue boxes and mail sorters were both components of longstanding programs and responses to significant volume, 33 reduction over the past 15 years. For records under president obama approximately 12000 blue mail the boxes were removed and we didnt hear one word from the other side when he did that. The mail sorters were on track to be removed because they were sitting idle and simply taken up floor space for more productive activities. Is the Postal Service telling states they wont deliver ballots on time . No, what the Postal Service is doing and has for years is try to warn states who vote by mail laws dont into account with the Postal Service can and cannot do. Usps can treat ballots as first class mail or better than firstclass mail but they cannot break the law and the time and space. The letters the democrats characterize as threats and propaganda are good faith efforts to present weeks of certainty and confusion such as what happen very recently with chairwoman maloneys race. The charges about overtime those olme from an effort to reduce billions of dollars in overtime in extra truck trips the Postal Service spends every year. If overtime an extra truck trips are normal or normal everyday part of your Business Operations it means something is wrong and you better fix it. On friday before the senate screwed Committee Hearing mr. Dejoy acknowledged the recent dip in service and took responsibility for this ibperformance lapse. The logical step is to understand why this happened and come up with a plan and even though your bill would prevent that, madame chairwoman, i hope that today helps in that process and i yield back. I think the gentleman for his statement and i ask unanimous consent to place in the record the Service Performance measurement postmaster general briefing, an official report from the post office data, research, facts and in this report the facts speak for themselves and they show that t under the first two months of the postmaster general work the service fell anywhere from six10 in all the major categories. My bill merely funds the post office and returns it back to the way it was so that the services can get the mail out to the people during a pandemic and before a very important election. After the pandemic we can revisit and have other statements and work go forward but lets not dismantle the services to the American People, the veterans, the seniors, the people deserve to get their mail in a timely way and most districts are having people calling frantically where is my mail, where is my medication so facts speak for themselves and i am placing this into the record. I now recognize the sink was chairman of the subcommittee on Government Operations who has done a great deal of work in this area, mr. Conley, for an Opening Statement. And q madam chairwoman. Thank you for your leadership. I was proud to cosponsor your bill that passed the house with 26 republicans showing the courage to address an emergency with respect to the most esteemed institution of government in america. We have an obligation, constitutionally, to ensure that something that has been a part of the American Fabric since 1775 has attention. The Postal Service is not only planning for its economic survival but fighting to maintain 120 years of professional service, rid of rotten systems that served elected officials and not those who rely on mail every day. We are here today to save the Postal Service and we have in front of usnt a newly appointed post mr. General and the fhairman of the board of governors that selected them for that post. We have a pmg who six weeks into the complex and aweinspiring new job in an midst of a Global Pandemic and just weeks before a consequential National Election where the Postal Servicel will play an unprecedented role decides to announce a sweeping reorganization that he admits and willw down mail undoubtedly infuse confusion idrug Postal Service and into r neighborhoods all across america. He announces these and other abysmally unsorted changes without engaging staff, unionss and the trade organizations, mailers, mail rec