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Presidential Documents

Federal Register Vol. 83, No. 75 Wednesday, April 18, 2018

Title 3—

Executive Order 13829 of April 12, 2018

The President

Task Force on the United States Postal System

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, I hereby order the following:

Section 1. Policy. (a) The United States Postal Service (USPS) accounts for almost half of global mail volume and is regularly cited as the Federal agency with the highest public approval rating. However, a number of factors, including the steep decline in First-Class Mail volume, coupled with legal mandates that compel the USPS to incur substantial and inflexible costs, have resulted in a structural deficit where revenues are no longer sufficient to fund the pension liabilities and retiree health obligations owed to current employees. The USPS is on an unsustainable financial path and must be restructured to prevent a taxpayer-funded bailout. This finding is supported by the following considerations, among others: (i) the USPS has incurred $65 billion of cumulative losses since the 2007–2009 recession; (ii) the USPS has been unable to make payments required by law for its retiree health benefit obligations, which totaled more than $38 billion at the end of fiscal year 2017; and (iii) the Government Accountability Office has had the USPS on its highrisk list since 2009 because of a serious financial situation that puts the USPS mission of providing prompt, reliable, and efficient universal mail services at risk. (b) It shall be the policy of my Administration that the United States postal system operate under a sustainable business model to provide necessary mail services to citizens and businesses, and to compete fairly in commercial markets. Sec. 2. Establishment. (a) There is hereby established a Task Force on the United States Postal Service (Task Force), to be chaired by the Secretary of the Treasury, as Secretary and as Chairman of the Federal Financing Bank, or his designee, to evaluate the operations and finances of the USPS. In addition to the Chair of the Task Force (Chair), the Task Force shall be composed of the following department and agency heads, or their designees: (i) the Director of the Office of Management and Budget; (ii) the Director of the Office of Personnel Management; and

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(iii) any other department and agency head the Chair may designate. (b) The Task Force shall consult with the Postmaster General and the Chairman of the Postal Regulatory Commission. (c) The Task Force shall also engage: (i) the Attorney General, on issues relating to government monopolies operating in the commercial marketplace; (ii) the Secretary of Labor, on issues related to workers compensation programs; and (iii) State, local, and tribal officials as determined by the Chair of the Task Force with input from the Task Force members. (d) The Task Force shall meet as required by the Chair and, unless extended by the Chair, shall be dissolved once it has accomplished the objectives