Sen. Thomas Carper (D-DE) introduced a bill yesterday intended to give the US Postal Service greater flexibility to address its current financial problems by allowing it to reduce certain financial obligations, reduce home deliver, close post offices and operate automated kiosks in grocery stores. The USPS has been facing significant financial difficulties for some time.  Most recently, it posted a net loss of $3.5 billion for the third quarter of 2010 and is expected to be unable to meet its obligation to prefund future retiree health benefits with a payment of up to $5.9 billion that is due on Sept. 30. When the USPS found itself in a similar situation last year, Congress stepped in, allowing the USPS to delay $4 billion of the $5.4 billion required payment. The Postal Operations Sustainment and Transformation Act of 2010 being proposed by Carper, who is chairman of the Senate subcommittee that oversees the USPS, seeks to permanently address some of the USPS’ financial burdens beginning in fiscal year 2011. “If we act quickly, we can turn things around by passing this necessary bill that would give the Postal Service the room it needs to manage itself and avoid it becoming the latest victim of congressional gridlock,” said Carper, in a statement. The bill, if passed, would recalculate the US Postal Service’s payment into the Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS) using a new formula that would find the USPS has overfunded CSRS by approximately $50 billion. Other studies have determined that US Postal Service’s overfunding to be as high as $75 billion. Carper’s bill would give the USPS more than $5 billion each year from this overpayment to help it make its retiree health payments. In addition, the bill would reaffirm the US Postal Service’s authority to reduce delivery frequency when it felt like doing so was necessary. The US Postal Service proposed eliminating Saturday delivery for mail earlier this year in an effort to save money. However, the organization currently needs Congress’ approval to make such a move. Other provisions in the bill include giving the US Postal Service the authority to close post offices and operate automated kiosks or postal stations in grocery stores and other places where people go every day. The bill would also allow the US Postal Service to offer non-postal products as well as to ship wine and beer.