January 15, 2026
Ms. Cortez Masto (for herself and Mrs. Blackburn) introduced the following bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
To modify the procedures used by the United States Postal Service for the closure or consolidation of any post office or any processing and distribution center, and for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
Section 1. Short title
This Act may be cited as the Protect Postal Performance Act
.
Sec. 2. Limitation on closure and consolidations of post offices
Section 404(d) of title 39, United States Code, is amended—
(1)
in paragraph (4)—
(A)
by striking The Postal Service
and insert (A) The Postal Service
; and
(B)
by adding at the end the following:
(B)
During such 60-day period, the Postal Service shall carry out a public hearing on the closure or consolidation, which may be attended in-person or virtually by any members of the public affected by the closure or consolidation.
(C)
Not later than 7 days after such hearing, the Postal Service shall publish a summary of the hearing on the Postal Service’s public website, and include in such summary a description of any comments made or otherwise submitted at such hearing and the percentage of such comments that were in support or against the closure or consolidation.
(D)
Notwithstanding any other provision of this title, the applicable post office may not be closed or consolidated until the date that is 180 days after the date the summary is published under subparagraph (C).; and
(2)
by adding at the end the following:
(7)
Notwithstanding any other provision of this title, a post office may not be closed or consolidated if such post office—
(A)
is not located within 15 miles of any other post office; or
(B)
is the closest post office for a population of 15,000 individuals or more.
Sec. 3. Postal Service processing and distribution centers; transportation optimization
(a) In general
Chapter 4 of title 39, United States Code, is amended by adding after section 416 the following:
417. Postal Service processing and distribution centers
(a) In general
The United States Postal Service may not close, consolidate, downgrade, or take any other similar action with respect to any processing and distribution center in a State if such action would result in no such center being located in that State in any geographically non-contiguous region of that State inhabited by more than 100,000 permanent residents.
(b) Limitation on changes to mail processing facilities
(1) In general
Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the Postal Service may not implement or otherwise carry out any changes to the operations of its mail processing facilities (including consolidation or partial consolidation, aggregation of processing, distribution, or delivery operations) until on or after the date that the Postal Regulatory Commission issues an opinion using the procedures under section 3661 on the proposed facility changes.
(2) Deadline
The Postal Regulatory Commission shall issue the advisory opinion required under paragraph (1) not later than 120 business days after the date the Postal Service submits to the Commission a proposed change to any such facility.
(3) Other requirements
The Commission shall issue an advisory opinion for each processing and distribution center at which the Postal Service has proposed changes, downsizing, and consolidations.
(4) Report
If an advisory opinion by the Commission under this subsection determines that a proposed change will lead to slower on-time mail delivery, the Postal Service shall publish a report on the Postal Service’s public website on practices and procedures the Postal Service will implement to ensure mail delivery remains on time. No such changes may be implemented or otherwise carried out for the period of 180 days beginning on the date such report is so published.
(c) Prohibiting on carrying out mail processing facility review
Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the Postal Service may not carry out the United States Postal Service Mail Processing Facility Review (or any successor program), and no Federal funds (including amounts in the Postal Service Fund under section 2003) may be obligated or expended to carry out such Review.
(d) Limitation of the closure of processing and distribution centers in regions that are not meeting on-Time delivery benchmarks
During any calendar year, the Postal Service may not close, consolidate, or otherwise move any operations or services from any processing and distribution center located within any Postal Service district that, during anytime within the immediately preceding calendar year, failed to meet—
(1)
at least 93 percent on-time delivery rate for 2-day single first-class mail; and
(2)
at least 90.3 percent on-time delivery rate for 3 to 5-day first-class mail.
(e) Definitions
In this section—
(1)
the term geographically non-contiguous region means an area of a State that is physically separated from the main body of the State by a significant body of water or land controlled by another State;
(2)
the term processing and distribution center means a central mail facility that—
(A)
distributes and dispatches part or all of both incoming mail and outgoing mail for a designated service area;
(B)
provides instructions on the preparation of collection mail, dispatch schedules, and sorting plan requirements to mailers; and
(C)
is a sectional center facility, a general mail facility, or a dedicated mail processing facility without a station or branch; and
(3)
the term State means the 50 States and the District of Columbia.
418. Local transportation optimization and regional transportation optimization changes
(a) In general
The Postal Service may not implement or otherwise carry out any local transportation optimization (in this section referred to as
LTO) and regional transportation optimization (in this section referred to asRTO) efforts that will decrease the number of times mail is either picked up or dropped off for any post office in the country.(b) PRC opinion
The Postal Service may not proceed with changing drop off and pick up schedules at post offices as part of the LTO or RTO plans without requesting a Postal Regulatory Commission opinion using the procedures under section 3661.
(c) Limitation
If the Postal Regulatory Commission does not recommend implementing the changes in an opinion under subsection (b), the Postal Service may not move forward with LTO or RTO optimization efforts anywhere in the United States.
(b) Clerical amendment
The table of sections for such chapter is amended by adding after the item relating to section 416 the following: