Rep. Boebert: Advocating for Colorado in Oversight Hearing on Post Office Rural Mail Delivery Times

the gentlewoman from Colorado Miss Beaufort is recognized for five minutes thank you Mr chairman Mr General did oy you testified that 98 of the nation's population is receiving their mail uh and packages in three days or less what percentage of mail is delivered on time in rural areas in America uh I I would say overall standard of of on first class mail is to the to the service standard is about 92 93 percent right now marketing now is 95 okay that those are pretty high numbers so I I asked that um because I've heard from my constituents um over the past few years in Rural America who are receiving terrible service from the Postal Service um I I know a lot of issues have been brought up today and we're working to get Solutions with you so thank you so much for being here and providing answers so we can try to work through this but you know the struggles that we're seeing are veterans and seniors not receiving important prescriptions um in a timely manner postal positions have been unfilled for long periods of time local post offices have been closed or had extremely Limited hours packages have been seen piling up in lobbies some people did not receive a single piece of mail for three weeks in my district wait times exceed an hour in some places and to make matters worse extremely poor customer service is something that I'm hearing a lot of Colorado City uh it's south of Pueblo went out with um went without its contract post office for approximately six weeks after the contractor who ran it quit because the postal service was not honoring his contracts people in my district literally had to drive 30 minutes to Pueblo to get their mail and uh I just I think you would agree that these things are unacceptable now now post Postmaster General dejoy an estimated 15 000 rural pharmacies were forced out of the Department of Defense Health agencies Cigna Express Scripts reimbursement plan and this has caused um rural veterans across Colorado's Third District to rely solely on the Postal Service to receive their prescriptions this has caused veterans to go without these prescriptions most of which are necessary for the quality of their life for upwards of weeks and due to the delay in in this delivery now this is not only happening in our rural areas such as Cortez Los Animas Del Norte Meeker Rangeley and just about all of these Mountain communities but it is even happening in major populated areas such as Grand Junction Colorado and in Pueblo as mentioned what steps are you taking to ensure that Postal Service no longer leaves our veterans going weeks without important quality of life prescriptions so specifically in Colorado when I was made aware of the the issue and I met with your two senators we put and we're doing this in all the areas making as I said I'm sorry when did you meet with the Senators [Music] a month ago two months ago okay uh but we we uh it really was from the December January and beginning of February activity that was out there uh that uh and we uh I put a SWAT team out in into the area and we put 12 or 13 uh uh move 12 or 13 carriers up we re-established contracts uh Highway contracts in the area uh uh we brought in put additional Management in in you know I think eight or nine different locations around the mountain area and we we got the service flowing back on on on time and as I said earlier the uh there's a lot of damage that was done and then coming through the pandemic these remote retail areas are the ones that are the longest for us to get back and the toughest for us to get back into uh you know stable operating condition and we're working we're working on it I think most of those areas uh you know in Colorado are significantly better than they were before I watched the uh you know days the days to deliver Miss mail to delivery thing points and so forth so I think have you had any recent uh yes so we we have had ongoing issues that have been brought to our attention and um specifically there was um a period in time in uh October of 2021 when I reached out to you personally and um I was denied a meeting um that we we couldn't get reached about me yes yes I did and um this was um just about the unacceptable service that we were seeing in La Vida at a at a post office um in my district and um a government relations um representative uh from Washington DC responded um and and said a lie stating that um staffing issues were not impacting operating hours and and they absolutely were so I am glad that you reached out to the Senators and spoke for them um I I'm grateful to hear what you are expressing to this committee um about the commitments that you were making um to address these issues and I I hope to work with you personally um in the future and with your staff as well because this is something that's very important to all Americans so thank you so much for your time and I yield back thank you Joel I'm in yields back your time uh the gentlewoman