ALAWON: American Library Association Washington Office Newsline Volume 9, Number 91 November 14, 2000 In this issue: POSTAL RATE COMMISSION ANNOUNCES SUGGESTED RATE SCHEDULE On Monday, October 13, the U.S. Postal Rate Commission announced the results of R-200-1 Omnibus Rate Case Proposal. The Postal Service's proposed increase for library mail (or standard mail category b) was a 5 percent increase. That would equal an .07 cent increase for a 3 pound package from the $2.03 agreed-upon rate of last year, or $2.10 for a 3 pound package. The Postal Service stated that this increase was based upon legislation introduced (H.R. 22), but not finalized at the time of the filing. The Postal Rate Commission sustained the request for library mail at $2.10 for a 3 pound package. The rate case has stretched over ten months, and during that time there appeared to be no action on suggested legislation H.R. 22, the Postal Modernization Act of 1999. In the waning days of the 106th Congress, however, a postal bill, S. 2686 was approved by Congress and signed into law by the President on October 27. The legislation set a cap for the library rate increase of five percent below the cost of the standard book rate. The Commission, in its press release stated that because of the recently passed law fixing library rates below those for standard book rate (or a new designation of media rate) that the library rate was less than it would have been without the legislation. On page ii of the U.S. Postal Rate Commission Opinion and Recommended Decision, V. 1, the percentage increase for media mail would be 6.3 percent, while the library rate would be 4.9 percent. The postal service had recommended a large increase for periodicals which also was adjusted downward by the Postal Rate Commission. For example, the Postal Service had recommended an increase of 14.2 percent for regular rate periodicals, which was adjusted to a 9.9 percent increase by the Postal Rate Commission. Emily Sheketoff, Executive Director of the ALA Washington Office, said "we are disappointed by the proposed increase, considering the recent history of very large postal rate increases for library materials, but we are grateful that the Congress passed legislation which would give library material some safeguard against unreasonable rate increases in the future." Although the postal service adjusted their cost data to reflect analyses from 1999, the contention of ALA and other mailers was that the costs did not fairly represent the mailing categories and expert testimony to that effect given during the rate case, seems to have been ignored by the Postal Rate Commission. ALA participated as an intervenor in the rate case and was represented by Attorney David Levy of Sidley and Austin. The recommended rate schedule will still have to be approved by the Postal Service's Board of Governors. The earliest a rate increase would begin is January 2001. ****** ALAWON (ISSN 1069-7799) is a free, irregular publication of the American Library Association Washington Office. All materials subject to copyright by the American Library Association may be reprinted or redistributed for noncommercial purposes with appropriate credits. To subscribe to ALAWON, send the message: subscribe ala-wo [your_firstname] [your_lastname] to listproc@ala.org or go to http://www.ala.org/washoff/alawon. To unsubscribe to ALAWON, send the message: unsubscribe ala-wo to listproc@ala.org. ALAWON archives at http://www.ala.org/washoff/alawon. ALA Washington Office, 1301 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W., Suite 403, Washington, D.C. 20004-1701; phone: 202.628.8410 or 800.941.8478 toll-free; fax: 202.628.8419; e-mail: alawash@alawash.org; Web site: http://www.ala.org/washoff. Executive Director: Emily Sheketoff. Office of Government Relations: Lynne Bradley, Director; Mary Costabile, Peter Kaplan, Miriam Nisbet and Claudette Tennant. Office for Information Technology Policy: Rick Weingarten, Director; Jennifer Hendrix, Carrie Russell and Saundra Shirley. ALAWON Editor: Bernadette Murphy.