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(Oregon News Service) Criticism of a plan to restructure U.S. mail service is mounting.

Postmaster General Louis DeJoy's 10-year plan, called Delivering for America, was announced in 2021 but has kicked into high gear this year. Intended to make the U.S. Postal Service more efficient and cut spending, the plan has involved moving mail through larger processing centers rather than smaller, local ones.

Senator Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., said it has led to a slowdown in mail delivery.

"He has had a plan for getting rid of our regional sorting centers or downgrading them," Merkley explained. "Which means that the mail from Bend and Medford and Eugene -- basically all over the state -- has to go just to Portland and be sorted there and then returned."

DeJoy has paused his consolidation of centers through the end of the year but said he will continue pursuing his Delivering for America plan. He was appointed to the position of postmaster general in 2020 during the Trump presidency by the Board of Governors of the Postal Service.

Merkley pointed out he has heard from constituents as delays in mail delivery increase. For instance, people are getting late fees for sending checks for bills or rent through the mail. He also noted medications are not making it to people in a timely manner.

"In some cases, they can't apply until they've run out of their medicine or nearly out, which means they have to apply at the last minute and by the time the slow mail operates, they have a space," Merkley observed. "They either miss their meds or they have to buy them locally at a much higher price."

Merkley added the Delivering for America plan is not realistic and should be reversed.

"Every other government service we provide we subsidize," Merkley stressed. "We don't expect it all to pay for itself 100 percent. Mail is so important to people, so important to our communities, so important to our small business, so important to our communication, so important to our sense of community that we should be sustaining it as a high quality service."