Politics

The U.S. Postal Service, facing mounting losses, said Thursday it is moving ahead with plans to close hundreds of mail sorting hubs and cannot wait for Congress to pass legislation to help it out of its financial hole.

But the closing of 232 processing centers will be phased in over three years instead of the faster pace postal officials announced last fall.

“After input from our customers, we’ve modified our approach,” Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe said at a news conference. “But the sobering reality is that the First Class mail [volume] will not return.”

A U.S. Postal Service sign outside a post office in Fairfax County (Andrew Harrer - Bloomberg) “We simply do not have the mail volumes to justify the size and capacity of our current mail processing network,” he added.

The agency will consolidate — with full-scale closures in some cases and smaller operations in others — 140 mail processing centers in the next year, starting with 48 in July, officials said. The rest will occur in January and February, after the fall election and the busy fall mailing season.

Another 89 hubs will close or shrink operations in 2014. Postal officials said they will release a list of the first round of closures late Thursday. About 13,000 jobs will be lost from the closures, mostly through attrition, officials said.

An attempt to bring to a House vote a plan to allow federal employees to phase into retirement has suffered a setback but there is still a chance the proposal will come to a vote, potentially as soon as today, Capitol Hill officials said.

Under a proposed amendment to the pending defense spending bill, a federal employee could retire when eligible but at management’s discretion could continue working for the government part-time, receiving a prorated annuity and a prorated salary.

The amendment was not among those approved Wednesday evening by the House Rules Committee for a separate floor vote, but it still might be considered under a procedure in which numerous proposals are bundled for a collective vote, Capitol Hill officials said Thursday morning. However, chances of that happening were uncertain.

The plan, initially proposed by the Obama administration, passed the Senate in March as an amendment to a bill involving transportation policy that has since stalled. In April the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee approved the plan as a freestanding bill, with bipartisan support.

Jennifer Dinoia (Courtesy of Jennifer Dinoia)

Jennifer Dinoia — breast cancer survivor, mother of three, Foreign Service spouse and blogger whose posts on family life earned her a coveted spot on the State Department blog roll — is no longer in good standing with her husband’s employer.

She used the “n” word: Nipple. And her blog disappeared from the State Department site.

A Senate committee approved legislation Wednesday allowing same-sex partners of federal employees to receive employment benefits.

The Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee passed the Domestic Partnership Benefits and Obligations Act with a bipartisan voice vote. It must be approved by the full Senate and the House before enactment.

Although the vote was held just days after President Obama came out
Sen. Joe Lieberman ( I-Conn.), chairman of the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee. (Jacquelyn Martin - AP) in favor of gay marriage, the timing of the vote was a coincidence, said Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.), chairman of the panel

A Senate committee plans to vote Wednesday on legislation that would give same-sex partners of federal workers some key benefits, a week after President Obama endorsed marriage for same-sex couples.

The Domestic Partnership Benefits and Obligations Act (S. 1910) is scheduled to go before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee for a vote.

It would allow same-sex domestic partners of federal workers to get retirement, health, transportation and other benefits. The bill is co-sponsored by Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), ranking member Susan Collins (R-Maine) and 21 Senate Democrats.