The price of a first-class stamp rises from 46 to 49 cents tomorrow and the cost of a host of other mail products and services will also increase following regulators’ decision last month to grant the U.S. Postal Service a temporary emergency rate increase.
As FedLine noted a couple of days ago, both the U.S. Postal Service and a mailing industry coalition planned to contest (albeit for different reasons) the Postal Regulatory Commission’s ruling. In appeals Thursday with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, both camps followed through. You can read the USPS filing here and the industry’s here, but neither spells out the grounds for their respective appeals. They will have to do so by Feb. 24, under a schedule released Friday by the court clerk’s office.
In a news release, industry leaders called the PRC’s ruling mistaken and warned that it could boomerang on the Postal Service. “The evidence used to secure this increase, more than three times the rate of inflation, is fundamentally flawed, and thus inherently inaccurate,” said Mary Berner, president and CEO of MPA–The Association of Magazine Media. “Increased rates will only result in more lost volume for the Postal Service. . . . This counterproductive decision should be returned to sender.”
