Today, the U.S. Postal Service announced via its Postal Explorer webpage that it will move forward the expected rollback of the 4.3% exigent rate increase for market dominant products. The revised prices reflecting those reduced rates are contained in their webpage. The exigent rate increase went into effect in January of 2014. Expiration of this temporary increase has been expected, as the cost recovery established by the Postal Regulatory Commission will be fulfilled around the end of March or first part of April.

As the USPS noted in their statement, Congressional or Court action is still possible which could extend or make the rate permanent, but absent such action, the Postal Service intends to provide formal notice to the PRC 45 days prior to the date it projects the exigent surcharge revenue target will be reached. 

David LeDuc is Senior Director, Public Policy at SIIA. He focuses on e-commerce, privacy, cyber security, cloud computing, open standards, e-government and information policy. Follow the SIIA public policy team on Twitter at @SIIAPolicy.