Achieving a major overhaul of our nation's postal laws has been PIA/GATF's top legislative priority for the past two years. Today's vote is the product of years of Senate debate, compromise and the lobbying of individual Senators by PIA/GATF and its member companies--you. The U.S. House's version of postal reform (HR 22) passed on July 26, 2005 by a wide bipartisan vote of 410-20. Despite these two monumental victories, the battle is not over yet. The next step in the legislative process is a joint Senate-House Conference, in which a select group of Senators and Representatives assigned to the conference committee will iron out differences between the Senate and House versions of postal reform legislation. Conferees have not yet been appointed, and a start date has not yet been set.

Prior contentious debate over postal reform's budget impact, the strength of proposed reforms and other policy points are expected to rear their heads during conference proceedings. Rest assured that PIA/GATF will continue its lobbying efforts to urge swift conference proceedings, as well as to ensure a strong final legislative product. PIA/GATF will keep you apprised of the developments as they become known.

Grassroots Lobbying Again, today's Senate victory was a product of focused advocacy efforts -- PIA/GATF could not have achieved passage of the S. 662 and H.R. 22 without your grassroots support. Please continue your grassroots efforts by sending an e-fax to your Senators to thank them for passage of S. 662. For your convenience, you may use PIA/GATF's online Legislative Action Center to send your company's fax. A pre-written thank you messages is available at: http://capwiz.com/printing/issues/alert/?alertid=8469116&type=CO.

It's critical that lawmakers know that the printing industry pays attention to key legislation and votes on Capitol Hill, so please thank your Senators today!

For more information, please do not hesitate to contact PIA/GATF Government Affairs at This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it or (703) 519-8105 (Jennifer Bradey, Manager of Grassroots & Political Affairs).