'Do Not Mail' Proposal Hits Postal Resistance
A plan to help New Yorkers keep unwanted mail at bay is encountering resistance from the very organization in charge of delivering it: the United States Postal Service.
Facing a potential $1 billion deficit, the postal service is fighting back against a proposal to create a "do not mail" list in New York, as well as against 17 other "do not mail" bills in other states.
The "do not mail" proposal before the state Senate, introduced by Senator Carl Kruger, a Democrat of Brooklyn, would allow residents to add their names to a state registry and keep unwanted mail away. Violators would be fined $1,000 for each infraction, and income from the fines would be used to promote the registry.
Postmaster General John Potter took up the issue in the U.S. Senate this week, testifying before a subcommittee on Wednesday that if the "do not mail" bills were approved they would "threaten the viability of mail in and among the affected states" and "come at the expense of jobs, the viability of local businesses and the reduction in municipal, county, and state revenue," according to his prepared statement.
Mr. Kruger, who first introduced the bill in 2007, said it's not his fault the postal system survives off of third-class bulk mail. "That's their problem," he said.
The postal service's opposition to "do not mail" bills was reported in the Washington Post yesterday. A City Council member who had proposed a bill to give residents the right to ban unwanted fliers, menus, and advertisements from apartment lobbies and stoops, Simcha Felder, said the postal service should be helping people send and receive the mail they want.
A spokeswoman for the postal service, Joanne Veto, said that the agency's mission is to deliver mail to everyone in America. "We would oppose anything that gets in the way," she said.
