In terms of the process, assuming in theory, if it hadnt already improved already, is certainly going to set you up for improvement and cost reductions and cost savings in the future. Substantial portion of our delays are related to covid. I wont go as far as to not say we had maybe a 4 or 5 Service Level delay, all sorts of mail, marketing mail, everything. It got stuck on the dock. Were drastically bringing that down. Once that is aligned, we should have a smooth running system, much more High Performance rate. Some disruptions due to change, but the changes are necessary for cost savings and improvement in the future . Senator cinema. Thank you chairman, i want to thank postmaster general dejoy for joining us today. During this pandemic, its even more true. Over the past week my office has heard from over 8,000 arizonans about the postal office. That want to ensure that the Postal Service will continue to deliver prescription drugs, assist Small Businesses and support their right to vote. Arizona has led the way for years. The Postal Service must act to support our upcoming election especially since we will see increases in vote by mail due to the pandemic. Our hearing today shouldnt just be about election mail. My constituents have also shared stories about prescriptions that took so long to arrive, they worry where the medication is spoiled. Others are concerned their Small Business will go under without reliable Postal Service or rent checks and bill payments now take a leak longer to reach their destination than just a few months ago. Mr. Dejoy, im pleased you made a request for me and my colleagues to answer questions about the Operational Services of the Postal Service. Its critical you and your team maintain the commitment for customers to get the service they rely on every day and successfully communicating with congress, stakeholders and election of pishls is a big part of that effort. In arizona we spent 85 to 95 of the electorate to vote by mail, approximately 2. 4 million ballots moving through arizona in the weeks before the election. Given that significant volume, unexpected challenges will rise and adjustments will need to be made. Ive been working closely with the arizona secretary of States Office to ensure that they and other local officials get their questions answered regarding mail issues so we can have fair elections. Ill continue to share the questions with you and your team. Top concern is Timely Delivery of ballots. Will local postal managers will authorized to make decisions and have postal employees make extra trips, late trips, work overtime to deliver ballots to ensure that plants and post offices dont fall behind in processing election mail . Yes, maam. Effective october 1st we will have redundant resources aggressive efforts to make sure everything is moving and flowing timely. I appreciate that. Could you tell me what steps your office is taking to communicate this policy to postal managers, Election Officials, stakeholders, even to the public in arizona so everyone feels confident so citizens have fair access to voting by mail . Yes, maam. In general, i think we started back in february, reached out, had over 50,000 contacts with Election Officials around the country. As you know, weve sent a number of letters. We are making videos that will go online with the Union Leadership and myself to communicate out our commitment well continue to work with the state boards. Our board, we decided to put together a Bipartisan Committee on the board to kind of oversee everything that were going to be doing. So we are emphasizes in fact, i think in september were going to send a letter to every american with what our process is going out to every american zen. I feel good. I appreciate the question, and i feel good about what the whole organization, from the board of directors down to our letter carriers and plant personnel, were very, very proud of what were doing and were going to deliver for the American People. Thank you for that. I appreciate it. Postal processing critical piece to ensure that every day mail arrives in a timely fashion and that all the votes are counting. We want to make sure those Processing Plant operations remain smooth and efficient. Earlier this week you said you wouldnt close any postal processing facilities before the election. But i dont think you specifically ruled out consolidations of Processing Plants. My question is, is the Postal Service planning to modify or reduce capacity at any postal processing facilities before the election . And if so, what specific steps are you taking to ensure the Postal Service can continue to meet Service Standards for election and regular mail in the communities served by those communities. Senator, i promise you we are not making any changes before the election. I appreciate that. It was a very concise and direct answer. I love it. As you know, i recently wrote to you regarding the cherry bell Processing Plant in tucson. Its very important to mail service in that community and throughout arizona. If the Postal Service considers consolidations or closing of facilities in the future, would you require new studies for any facility or other similar analysis before moving forward with a consolidation or closure . Thank you, senator. Im not totally familiar with it. Theres a whole process, pretty detailed process that we need to go through before we close a facility. If that facility ever gets that, ill make sure we reach out to you in advance and let you know. Theres a Public Awareness process, Detailed Analysis as to how the mail is going to be processed. Its not an easy thing to do. But we have it marked down and well keep you posted if that ever gets on our list of interested locations. I appreciate that. Just for your awareness, the original a and p for cherry bell was done in 2011. Weve had significant clothe throughout arizona since then. We want to make sure decisions are made with up to date data. Ill follow up with you soon. This is important for arizona and very important for Southern Arizona in particular. Go ahead, mr. Dejoy. I know my time is almost done. When you next consider operational changes, id ask you to take into account the negative Customer Experiences that folks have shared with us like spoiled medicine or missing rent checks. Weve been getting more complaints about Service Getting worse since some of these most recent changes. We ask that you take into account these negative Customer Experiences when making decisions in the future. My team is happy to share some of those direct experiences with you. Thank you for your guidance, maam. Appreciate it. Thank you so much for being with us today. Mr. Chairman, thank you for this opportunity. I yield back. Thank you senator cinema. Let me just again thank you, mr. Postmaster general for appearing here on pretty short notice and subjecting yourself to this hearing process. Just to quick summarize a few things we heard today, obviously the postal system is every bit as affected by covid as the rest of the nation. Its been economically devastating. For anybody to assume that service would maintain its high level of standards in the midst of a pandemic i think is quite unrealistic. As you stated, i think the operational changes that you implemented are designed for longterm improvement but created some destruction as well. Coming from a manufacturing background, i realize you have to have a good process, things have to run on time. You recognize that as well. Again, im highly supportive of those efforts. I think it should be commended, not condemned. As i stated, theres no doubt there have been some unusual delays. Covid, some operational changes. As i check with our constituent service folks, what they are also finding is the high volume of calls concerning postal complaints, the vast majority seemed very highly scripted, like this could be a very well organized effort which doesnt surprise me in the slightest. There are fundraising emails from senate candidates, the Democratic Senatorial Committee dating back as far as april complaining about this postal issue. I have no doubt the democrats are getting these issues and problems up into something its not, a very false narrative, as i said, designed to extract a political advantage. Mr. Postmaster general, im very sorry that you are on the targeting end of this political hit piece. I think its very unfortunate, very tragic. As somebody else pointed out, this is part of the problem while we have not had postal reform is how people will take advantage of it. Again, the i appreciate senator inslees statements. Youve only been on the job 60 days, a great background. I appreciate your willingness to serve this role. We truly appreciate the hard work of the men and women of the u. S. Postal service doing a good job delivering our mail, but we need reforms moving forward. We might have an opportunity here. There may be another covid relief package. It will probably will include something for postal. If theres going to be dollars allocated, what im asking you for is the information and data and suggestions for true reforms. I think thats whats always been lacking as ive been in this position in terms of postal reform, always a taxpayer bailout absent of the types of reforms we need to make legislatively. I look for your guidance, i look for your data. A short coming from my dealings with the u. S. Postal service here. We just dont get the data we really need to e enact effective legislation. Id like to enact effective legislation thats going to require cooperation with you and the postal workers. Again, thank you for your service. Thank you for stepping in this role. I apologize for the fact that youve become a target in a political hit job. Its very unfortunate. Would you yield to me for a minute or two, please . Absolutely. Thanks so much. As you may recall, mr. Chairman, one of our colleagues, the late tom coburn and i worked for years on major changes in the Postal Service, real reforms. Weve done that, developed bipartisan consensus around that. We can do that again. Among the things weve heard here today, an interest in medicare integration. I think we ought to look at that. Theres an acknowledgment that there need to be Major Investments in the fleet, the postal fleet. The average age of the fleet of postal vehicles, 27 years old. There are investments that need to be made for additional modern package processing equipment in our Distribution Centers across the country, and i think the ability to come up with a bipartisan consensus on how to help the Postal Service, not just get through a pandemic, but be relevant and vibrant in the years to come. The secret to vibrant to democracy, the two cs, communicate and compromise. With all due respect to our postmaster general, im pretty good at bipartisan compromise. I reached out to you when you were initially selected by the postal board of governors. Later on i tried to reach you again and again for weeks and couldnt even get a call back. I wasnt the only one. Youve got to be willing to communicate. Youve got to be willing to communicate. Theres people in the administration who do a great job of that, our trade representative is one. Mnuchin, secretary of treasury is one. I would urge you to emulate them. This is a shared responsibility. Not on the post office or the men and women who work at the post office. Its on us as well. Its a shared responsibility. Our country is counting on us. Were counting on our democracy. Last thing ill mention, ben franklin, first postmaster general. Remember what he said coming out of the constitutional convention, what have you done, what have you created . A vibrant Postal Service and the ability of people to vote, democratic, republican. When people cast their votes and know theyll b counted. Thats critical. We have a president , sadly, who wants to undermine the Postal Service, undermine the people who need to vote by mail. Thats unacceptable. Hopefully we can do better. For myself, some of my colleagues will try to do better than that. We can always do better n. Order to form a more perfect union, it can be done. Mr. Chairman, if i could say a few comments briefly. Senator peters. Postmaster dejoy, i want to take an opportunity to thank you as well for appearing before us willingly and certainly on very short notice. I also want to be very clear about what ive been hearing and i think youve heard from my members, to counter a little bit of what the chairman said. These are real concerns im hearing. These are not manufactured. These are people talking about medicine not coming. I shared a story with an individual who, because of the lack of medicine skipped doses and was actually hospitalized. Those are very real. When i hear those kinds of stories, we stand up. Thats my job. Its the job of every senator here to stand up for our constituents, for the people back home who are being hurt to make sure their voices are heard. Thats what this is about, about making sure peoples voices are heard. Thats what this hearing is about. This is why were standing up and making sure the Postal Service does what they have done with incredible integrity and professionalism for 245 years. We want to make sure that standard continues going forward. I fully appreciate that the covid has created significant problems for the Postal Service. I wont show my chart again. If you look at my chart, the service was there through a lot of the pandemic. Its just been in the middle of july where you see it dropping off dramatically. Covid has been with us since march. But weve seen a dramatic drop since mid july which is the time i got all those communications and my colleagues have gotten those communications. They are not manufactured. Theyre real people. I want to be clear about that. Postmaster dejoy, youve answered only of our questions today. I thank you for that. Theres still many, many left that are unanswered. I think we all look forward to seeing the documents we have requested. We can do our oversight function, deliver to us in a timely fashion. I appreciate your willingness to do that. Ill continue my investigation of the recent delays and Postal Service practices that have been put in place. I urge you and your staff to be fully forthcoming with any additional requests. That kind of transparency is critically important in this job. I know you have a very hard job. Frankly, i think youve made it harder on yourself because of the lack of transparency we have seen these last few weeks. In the coming Weeks Congress certainly must provide Postal Service with the resources and oversight you need to reliably deliver mail to the American People, not just through this selection. We have to make sure we get through the election, through the pandemic. We want to make sure we put the Postal Service on sound financial footing to last for another 245 years and beyond. Thank you again. I am in no way, shape or form denying these complaints are genuine and we take them seriously. Theres also no doubt a lot of this is being ginned up. Many of those complaints are highly scripted and being done for political purpose. Theres no doubt about that. We have a new postmaster general in the office less than 70 days. From my standpoint, i think the first thing you need to do a start the job, roll up his Shirt Sleeves and try to get to work and figure out what he needs to do to reform the process. Looking forward to a totally transparent process here. Theres a lot of fiction, a lot of false narrative ginned up by democrats on the left. I want the data as well. Mr. Postmaster general, im sure you will work with us in the future. Thats what im basically giving you the opportunity to do. The opportunity for a postal reform bill in this next covid relief package if there is one. Thank you again for your service. Thank the men and women of the United StatesPostal Service for their service as well. The hearing record will remain open for 15 days until september 3rd at 5 00 p. M. This hearing is adjourned. Thank you. And we have been watching and listening to that Virtual SenateHomeland SecurityCommittee Meeting with postmaster general louis dejoy. Craig melvin here. It was mr. Dejoys first time being grilled. It was virtual today. On monday he will appear again in person before the House Oversight committee. Both hearings will implications potentially for novembers election. We heard the new postmaster general defend his actions since hes been in the job. He promised some skeptical senators that the Postal Service could effectively handle those mailin ballots. He also told members he has operated independently of the white house. Prior to implementing the changes that you put forth in the postal system, did you discuss those changes or their potential impact on the november election with the presid