USPS pauses restructuring after pressure from Senator Lummis

WASHINGTON, D.C. – United States Postal Service (USPS) Postmaster General Louis DeJoy agreed to pause the planned changes to the mail delivery network that would have closed the Cheyenne and Casper Processing and Distribution Centers following repeated calls from U.S. Senator Cynthia Lummis (R-WY). The USPS agreed to temporarily pause the reforms that would have left the Cowboy State without a single Processing and Distribution Center and forced mail being sent from one Wyoming community to another to be sent to Colorado or Montana for sorting.

“I am encouraged the U.S. Postal Service finally listened to the people of Wyoming’s concerns and halted its disastrous plans to recategorize the Cheyenne and Casper Processing and Distribution Centers,” said Lummis. “Folks across the Cowboy State rely on timely mail delivery for their medicine, to pay their bills and to communicate with one another. I hope USPS continues to think about the true impacts this restructuring would have on our country’s most rural communities before downsizing any of our state’s processing facilities.”

Background

On May 8, 2024, Senator Lummis led a letter to Postmaster General DeJoy alongside Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee Chair Gary Peters (D-MI) and 27 of their colleagues requesting USPS pause its planned closing of Processing and Distribution Centers, including the Cheyenne and Casper facilities.

On April 17, 2024, Senator Lummis introduced the Postal Operations Stay Timely and Local (POSTAL) Act, which seeks to prevent the U.S. Postal Service from closing, consolidating or downgrading its Processing and Distribution Centers (P&DC) nationwide if such an action would remove the sole P&DC within a state or negatively impact mail delivery.

In March, Lummis introduced an amendment to the Fiscal Year 2024 appropriations bill that would prevent USPS from downgrading P&DC centers.

Last week, she also introduced an amendment to the Fiscal Year 2025 appropriations bill that would halt USPS from downgrading these

facilities.