Mailing groups challenge USPS stamp pricing rules

By Bill McAllister, Washington Correspondent

Four large mailing organizations have filed a legal challenge to new pricing rules that allow the United States Postal Service to raise stamp prices more than the rate of inflation.

In their Dec. 18 petition to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, the groups charge that the Postal Regulatory Commission exceeded its authority on Nov. 30, 2020, by approving rules that relax a price cap on stamp prices.

The groups alleged that the new regulations “are contrary to law, arbitrary and capricious and an abuse of discretion” under the Administrative Procedures Act.

“Petitioners are aggrieved by the [Postal Regulatory Commission] orders because the orders will likely result in a devastating increase in the postal rates petitioners’ members pay as part of the core nature of their business,” they said in their appeal.

Filing the petition were the Association of Magazine Media, Alliance of Nonprofit Mailers, Association for Postal Commerce and American Catalog Mailers Association.

Postal officials, who had long sought to break a congressionally imposed price cap on annual stamp rates, have said they are hopeful the new rules will allow the financially troubled Postal Service to raise more needed revenues.

The price cap allows annual stamp price increases provided that the increases do not exceed the rate of inflation.

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