[Federal Register Volume 75, Number 185 (Friday, September 24, 2010)]
[Notices]
[Pages 58449-58450]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2010-23927]
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POSTAL REGULATORY COMMISSION
[Docket No. RM2010-13; Order No. 537]
Postal Rates
AGENCY: Postal Regulatory Commission.
ACTION: Notice.
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[[Page 58450]]
SUMMARY: This notice establishes a docket to solicit comments on the
analyses, arguments, and proposals concerning technical issues related
to workshare discount design. The proceeding will allow certain issues
raised in an earlier proceeding to be fully addressed.
DATES: Comments are due: November 15, 2010.
ADDRESSES: Submit comments electronically via the Commission's Filing
Online system at http://www.prc.gov. Commenters who cannot submit their
views electronically should contact the person identified in FOR
FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT by telephone for advice on alternatives to
electronic filing.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Stephen L. Sharfman, General Counsel,
[email protected] or 202-789-6820.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Order No. 536 resolves several important
threshold legal and policy issues underlying the design of workshare
discounts. The Commission concluded that the pricing constraint on
workshare discounts established in 39 U.S.C. 3622(e) may apply within
or across products, as that term is defined and employed in the Postal
Accountability and Enhancement Act.\1\ It concludes that subsection
3622(e) implements a substantial portion of the policies that underlay
the Efficient Component Pricing rule as that principle has been
articulated in prior regulatory practice. It also concludes that
identifying the groups of mail between which worksharing relationships
should be recognized for purposes of subsection 3622(e) requires
identification of mail that serves the same market and is distinguished
from other mail serving that market predominantly by the costs that
worksharing activity avoids. The selection of an appropriate base or
reference group from which the costs avoided by worksharing are to be
calculated depends on what components of the base group are likely to
shift to the workshared group in response to changes in their relative
prices.
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\1\ Pub. L. 109-435, 120 Stat. 3198 (2006) (PAEA).
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Applying these principles to mail classes, Order No. 536 concludes
that there is a worksharing relationship between presort First-Class
Mail and single-piece First-Class Mail that is metered or bears
Information Based Indicia (IBI). In this docket, the Commission
solicits comments on the appropriate base group for measuring First-
Class Mail workshare discounts. Commenters should feel free to discuss
the merits of the current Bulk Metered Mail (BMM) base category as well
as a number of already suggested alternatives, including IBI mail, a
weighted average of BMM and IBI mail, ``Qualified PC Postage'' mail, or
some other group of single-piece First-Class Mail. It also solicits
comments on the specific cost characteristics that the base category
selected should have.
Order No. 536 also concludes that Saturation Mail is not in a
worksharing relationship with other groups of Standard Mail.
Accordingly, there is no need to further examine the issue of
identifying an appropriate reference category for pricing Saturation
Mail in a follow-on proceeding.
Order No. 536 contemplates that this follow-on proceeding will also
consider technical proposals to revise or refine the manner in which
avoided costs are modeled. The Postal Service's comments in Docket No.
RM2009-3, for example, mention its intention to propose changes to the
way some cost pools are classified for purposes of cost avoidance
analysis (whether they should be treated as proportional, fixed, or
non-worksharing related). The comments of the American Postal Workers
Union, AFL-CIO in that docket express a more general desire to re-
evaluate and modify the current method of classifying avoided cost
pools.
In Docket No. RM2009-3, various parties expressed an intent to
propose changes to the way delivery and other costs are estimated in
calculating the costs avoided by presort First-Class Mail. Comments
suggested de-averaging rates for First-Class Mail by indicia, the use
of two Cost and Revenue Analysis adjustment factors to develop
workshare discounts, and a form of pre-barcoding discount that would
recognize the savings generated by single-piece First-Class Mail that
is CASS-certified and bears an Intelligent Mail barcode. All of these
issues are eligible for consideration in this docket.
It is ordered:
1. The Commission establishes Docket No.RM2010-13 to consider
analyses, arguments, and proposals concerning technical issues that
relate to the design of workshare discounts, as described in the body
of this order.
2. Comments are due on or before November 15, 2010.
3. Pursuant to 39 U.S.C. 505, the Commission appoints Emmett Rand
Costich to represent the interests of the general public in this
proceeding.
4. The Secretary shall arrange for publication of this notice in
the Federal Register.
By the Commission.
Shoshana M. Grove,
Secretary.
[FR Doc. 2010-23927 Filed 9-23-10; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 7710-FW-S