U.S. Postal Serv. v. Postal Regulatory Comm'n, 12–1221.

• Decision Date: 11 June 2013
• Docket Number: No. 12–1221.,12–1221.
• Citation: 717 F.3d 209
• Parties: UNITED STATES POSTAL SERVICE, Petitioner v. POSTAL REGULATORY COMMISSION, Respondent Association for Postal Commerce, et al., Intervenors.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — District of Columbia Circuit

717 F.3d 209

UNITED STATES POSTAL SERVICE, Petitioner

v. POSTAL REGULATORY COMMISSION, RespondentAssociation for Postal Commerce, et al., Intervenors.

No. 12–1221.

United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit.

Argued March 18, 2013.

Decided June 11, 2013.

On Petition for Review of Orders of the Postal Regulatory Commission.

David C. Belt, Attorney, U.S. Postal Service, argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the briefs was Michael J. Elston, Chief Counsel.

Daniel Tenny, Attorney, U.S. Department of Justice, argued the cause for respondent. With him on the brief were Stuart F. Delery, Acting Assistant Attorney General, Michael S. Raab, Attorney, Stephen L. Sharfman, General Counsel, Postal Regulatory Commission, and R. Brian Corcoran, Deputy General Counsel.

Before: HENDERSON, GRIFFITH, and KAVANAUGH, Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge KAVANAUGH.

KAVANAUGH, Circuit Judge:

Through snow and rain and heat and gloom of night, the Postal Service delivers the mail. But the Postal Service does so under the watchful eye of a separate independent agency, the Postal Regulatory Commission. As relevant here, the Commission regulates the rates that the Postal Service may charge for mail.

This case concerns the rates that the Postal Service charges for presorted mail. Presorted mail generally refers to bulk mail that the mailer presorts by destination before giving it to the Postal Service. The Postal Service charges less for presorted First–Class Mail than for single-piece First–Class Mail. The discount encourages presorting, and presorting lowers costs for the Postal Service because the Postal Service does not itself have to do the sorting.

The Commission claims that the Postal Service is giving too large a discount for presorted mail. In its order in this case, the Commission explained that the Postal Service's lower rate for presorted mail is the result of what the governing statute calls a “workshare discount.” As defined by the statute, a “workshare discount” is a “rate discount[ ] provided to mailers for” performing certain tasks—like “presorting”—that the Postal Service otherwise would perform itself. 39 U.S.C. § 3622(e)(1). The statute says that the workshare discount for presorted mail may “not exceed the cost that the Postal Service avoids as a result of workshare activity” like presorting. 39 U.S.C. § 3622(e)(2). Here, the Commission found that the Postal Service's discount for presorting exceeds the cost that the Postal Service avoids as a result of presorting. Therefore, the Commission determined that the Postal Service must revise its discount for presorting.

The Postal Service is unhappy because it believes that it needs to offer bulk mailers large discounts so that bulk mailers will continue to use the U.S. Postal Service rather than, say, email. The Postal Service's primary legal argument is that the statutory limits on the amount of a workshare discount do not apply here because presorted First–Class Mail is not the same “product” as single-piece First–Class Mail. But the statutory language governing workshare discounts does not refer to products. We think the correct statutory analysis here is extremely simple and supports the Commission: The discount that the Postal Service offers for presorting is a “rate discount [ ] provided to mailers for ... presorting.” 39 U.S.C. § 3622(e)(1). Therefore, it is clear that, as the Commission concluded, the amount of the discount that the...