House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight. Subcommittee on the Postal Service. Committee members heard testimony concerning H.R. 3717, the Postal Reform Act of 1996. This legislation is designed to reform the U.S. Postal Service in various ways, including updating the organizational modus operandi, making the Postal Service more independent of the U.S. Treasury and increasing the powers and responsibilities of the Postal Rate Commission.

As part of an oversight hearing, U.S. Postal Service administrators testified about modernization, costs, competition, and other issues. Postal employee union representatives and management organization representatives testified about contract bargaining, and the issue of outsourcing postal deliveries causing loss of delivery jobs.