Phew—we can all take a breath that postal reform passed and now we are in the uncomfortable phase of legislative implementation. Trust that the most perfect language seen in legislation will lead to uncertainty when you get to this stage.

Now we are looking at all sorts of questions—

• What happens if the United States Postal Service files a rate case NOW?


• Don’t they have the power to do so until the new price cap regime kicks in?


• Could they possibly put in the most dramatic case ever just to have one last go at the old regime? The "mother of all rate cases?"

This type of speculation has led to some gray hairs.

Meanwhile, promises, promises. We hear that the Postal Service will likely not file such a case (due by December under the new law) because it would rather come under the CPI rate index to keep its customers pleased.

Others say—no way—the USPS will take its last breath of postal rate-setting power for a grand finale rate case that no one will ever forget due to its rate hikes. Members of Congress and the Postal Regulatory Commission have certainly frowned heavily on such post-postal reform behavior.

Will the collective weight of Congress, the regulators at the PRC, think tanks (that a few years ago speculated privatization was the solution for the USPS), trade associations, mailers groups, postal customers and professors and others force the Postal Service to go quietly towards a hoped for fairly logical CPI rate index?

Can mailers wait with confidence for a CPI adjustment in May of 2008 that is affordable?

Or should they brace themselves for a new set of rate hikes?

This is a quite frustrating scenario, but not unexpected. Meanwhile, three things are predictable:

• The CPI rate index will go into effect by springtime…


• The USPS will find it very difficult to live under the cap…


• Nonprofit mailers will diversify their approach to be less and less mail reliant, but it shall remain the "granddaddy" of fundraising.

Senny Boone, Executive Director, Nonprofit Federation