You are given two reports by the government agency.  

Report 1:
F ederal law provides a variety of powers for the President to use in response to crisis, exigency, or emergency circumstances threatening the nation. They are not limited to military or war situations. Some of these authorities, deriving from the Constitution or statutory law, are continuously available to the President with little or no qualification. Others—statutory delegations from Congress—exist on a standby basis and remain dormant until the President formally declares a national emergency. Congress may modify, rescind, or render dormant such delegated emergency authority. Until the crisis of World War I, Presidents utilized emergency powers at their own discretion. Proclamations announced the exercise of exigency authority. During World War I and thereafter, Chief Executives had available to them a growing body of standby emergency authority that became operative upon the issuance of a proclamation declaring a condition of national emergency. Sometimes such proclamations confined the matter of crisis to a specific policy sphere, and sometimes they placed no limitation whatsoever on the pronouncement. These activations of standby emergency authority remained acceptable practice until the era of the Vietnam War. In 1976, Congress curtailed this practice with the passage of the National Emergencies Act. The exercise of emergency powers had long been a concern of the classical political theorists, including the 18 th -century English philosopher John Locke, who had a strong influence upon the Founding Fathers in the United States. A preeminent exponent of a government of laws and not of men, Locke argued that occasions may arise when the executive must exert a broad discretion in meeting special exigencies or "emergencies" for which the legislative power provided no relief or existing law granted no necessary remedy. He did not regard this prerogative as limited to wartime or even to situations of great urgency. It was sufficient if the "public good" might be advanced by its exercise. Emergency powers were first expressed prior to the actual founding of the Republic. Between 1775 and 1781, the Continental Congress passed a series of acts and resolves that count as the first expressions of emergency authority. These instruments dealt almost exclusively with the prosecution of the Revolutionary War. At the Constitutional Convention of 1787, emergency powers, as such, failed to attract much attention during the course of debate over the charter for the new government. It may be argued, however, that the granting of emergency powers by Congress is implicit in its Article I, Section 8, authority to "provide for the common Defense and general Welfare;" the commerce clause; its war, armed forces, and militia powers; and the "necessary and proper" clause empowering it to make such laws as are required to fulfill the executions of "the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof." There is a tradition of constitutional interpretation that has resulted in so-called implied powers, which may be invoked in order to respond to an emergency situation. Locke seems to have anticipated this practice. Furthermore, Presidents have occasionally taken an emergency action that they assumed to be constitutionally permissible. Thus, in the American governmental experience, the exercise of emergency powers has been somewhat dependent upon the Chief Executive's view of the presidential office. Perhaps the President who most clearly articulated a view of his office in conformity with the Lockean position was Theodore Roosevelt. Describing what came to be called the "stewardship" theory of the presidency, Roosevelt wrote of his "insistence upon the theory that the executive power was limited only by specific restrictions and prohibitions appearing in the Constitution or imposed by the Congress under its constitutional powers." It was his view "that every executive officer, and above all every executive officer in high position, was a steward of the people," and he "declined to adopt the view that what was imperatively necessary for the Nation could not be done by the President unless he could find some specific authorization to do it." Indeed, it was Roosevelt's belief that, for the President, "it was not only his right but his duty to do anything that the needs of the Nation demanded unless such action was forbidden by the Constitution or by the laws." Opposed to this view of the presidency was Roosevelt's former Secretary of War, William Howard Taft, his personal choice for and actual successor as Chief Executive. He viewed the presidential office in more limited terms, writing "that the President can exercise no power which cannot be fairly and reasonably traced to some specific grant of power or justly implied and included within such express grant as proper and necessary to its exercise." In his view, such a "specific grant must be either in the Federal Constitution or in an act of Congress passed in pursuance thereof. There is," Taft concluded, "no undefined residuum of power which he can exercise because it seems to him to be in the public interest." Between these two views of the presidency lie various gradations of opinion, resulting in perhaps as many conceptions of the office as there have been holders. One authority has summed up the situation in the following words: Emergency powers are not solely derived from legal sources. The extent of their invocation and use is also contingent upon the personal conception which the incumbent of the Presidential office has of the Presidency and the premises upon which he interprets his legal powers. In the last analysis, the authority of a President is largely determined by the President himself. Apart from the Constitution, but resulting from its prescribed procedures, there are statutory grants of power for emergency conditions. The President is authorized by Congress to take some special or extraordinary action, ostensibly to meet the problems of governing effectively in times of exigency. Sometimes these laws are of only temporary duration. The Economic Stabilization Act of 1970, for example, allowed the President to impose certain wage and price controls for about three years before it expired automatically in 1974. The statute gave the President emergency authority to address a crisis in the nation's economy. Many of these laws are continuously maintained or permanently available for the President's ready use in responding to an emergency. The Defense Production Act, originally adopted in 1950 to prioritize and regulate the manufacture of military material, is an example of this type of statute. There are various standby laws that convey special emergency powers once the President formally declares a national emergency activating them. In 1973, a Senate special committee studying emergency powers published a compilation identifying some 470 provisions of federal law delegating to the executive extraordinary authority in time of national emergency. The vast majority of them are of the standby kind—dormant until activated by the President. However, formal procedures for invoking these authorities, accounting for their use, and regulating their activation and application were established by the National Emergencies Act of 1976. Relying upon constitutional authority or congressional delegations made at various times over the past 230 years, the President of the United States may exercise certain powers in the event that the continued existence of the nation is threatened by crisis, exigency, or emergency circumstances. What is a national emergency? In the simplest understanding of the term, the dictionary defines emergency as "an unforeseen combination of circumstances or the resulting state that calls for immediate action." In the midst of the crisis of the Great Depression, a 1934 Supreme Court majority opinion characterized an emergency in terms of urgency and relative infrequency of occurrence as well as equivalence to a public calamity resulting from fire, flood, or like disaster not reasonably subject to anticipation. An eminent constitutional scholar, the late Edward S. Corwin, explained emergency conditions as being those that "have not attained enough of stability or recurrency to admit of their being dealt with according to rule." During congressional committee hearings on emergency powers in 1973, a political scientist described an emergency in the following terms: "It denotes the existence of conditions of varying nature, intensity and duration, which are perceived to threaten life or well-being beyond tolerable limits." Corwin also indicated it "connotes the existence of conditions suddenly intensifying the degree of existing danger to life or well-being beyond that which is accepted as normal." There are at least four aspects of an emergency condition. The first is its temporal character: An emergency is sudden, unforeseen, and of unknown duration. The second is its potential gravity: An emergency is dangerous and threatening to life and well-being. The third, in terms of governmental role and authority, is the matter of perception: Who discerns this phenomenon? The Constitution may be guiding on this question, but it is not always conclusive. Fourth, there is the element of response: By definition, an emergency requires immediate action but is also unanticipated and, therefore, as Corwin notes, cannot always be "dealt with according to rule." From these simple factors arise the dynamics of national emergency powers. These dynamics can be seen in the history of the exercise of emergency powers. In 1792, residents of western Pennsylvania, Virginia, and the Carolinas began forcefully opposing the collection of a federal excise tax on whiskey. Anticipating rebellious activity, Congress enacted legislation providing for the calling forth of the militia to suppress insurrections and repel invasions. Section 3 of this statute required that a presidential proclamation be issued to warn insurgents to cease their activity. If hostilities persisted, the militia could be dispatched. On August 17, 1794, President Washington issued such a proclamation. The insurgency continued. The President then took command of the forces organized to put down the rebellion. Here was the beginning of a pattern of policy expression and implementation regarding emergency powers. Congress legislated extraordinary or special authority for discretionary use by the President in a time of emergency. In issuing a proclamation, the Chief Executive notified Congress that he was making use of this power and also apprised other affected parties of his emergency action. Over the next 100 years, Congress enacted various permanent and standby laws for responding largely to military, economic, and labor emergencies. During this span of years, however, the exercise of emergency powers by President Abraham Lincoln brought the first great dispute over the authority and discretion of the Chief Executive to engage in emergency actions. By the time of Lincoln's inauguration (March 4, 1861), seven states of the lower South had announced their secession from the Union; the Confederate provisional government had been established (February 4, 1861); Jefferson Davis had been elected (February 9, 1861) and installed as president of the confederacy (February 18, 1861); and an army was being mobilized by the secessionists. Lincoln had a little over two months to consider his course of action. When the new President assumed office, Congress was not in session. For reasons of his own, Lincoln delayed calling a special meeting of the legislature but soon ventured into its constitutionally designated policy sphere. On April 19, he issued a proclamation establishing a blockade on the ports of the secessionist states, "a measure hitherto regarded as contrary to both the Constitution and the law of nations except when the government was embroiled in a declared, foreign war." Congress had not been given an opportunity to consider a declaration of war. The next day, the President ordered the addition of 19 vessels to the navy "for purposes of public defense." A short time later, the blockade was extended to the ports of Virginia and North Carolina. By a proclamation of May 3, Lincoln ordered that the regular army be enlarged by 22,714 men, that navy personnel be increased by 18,000, and that 42,032 volunteers be accommodated for three-year terms of service. The directive antagonized many Representatives and Senators, because Congress is specifically authorized by Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution "to raise and support armies." In his July message to the newly assembled Congress, Lincoln suggested, "These measures, whether strictly legal or not, were ventured upon under what appeared to be a popular and a public necessity, trusting then, as now, that Congress would readily ratify them. It is believed," he wrote, "that nothing has been done beyond the constitutional competency of Congress." Congress subsequently did legislatively authorize, and thereby approve, the President's actions regarding his increasing armed forces personnel and would do the same later concerning some other questionable emergency actions. In the case of Lincoln, the opinion of scholars and experts is that "neither Congress nor the Supreme Court exercised any effective restraint upon the President." The emergency actions of the Chief Executive were either unchallenged or approved by Congress and were either accepted or—because of almost no opportunity to render judgment—went largely without notice by the Supreme Court. The President made a quick response to the emergency at hand, a response that Congress or the courts might have rejected in law but, nonetheless, had been made in fact and with some degree of popular approval. Similar controversy would arise concerning the emergency actions of Presidents Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Both men exercised extensive emergency powers with regard to world hostilities, and Roosevelt also used emergency authority to deal with the Great Depression. Their emergency actions, however, were largely supported by statutory delegations and a high degree of approval on the part of both Congress and the public. During the Wilson and Roosevelt presidencies, a major procedural development occurred in the exercise of emergency powers—use of a proclamation to declare a national emergency and thereby activate all standby statutory provisions delegating authority to the President during a national emergency. The first such national emergency proclamation was issued by President Wilson on February 5, 1917. Promulgated on the authority of a statute establishing the U.S. Shipping Board, the proclamation concerned water transportation policy. It was statutorily terminated, along with a variety of other wartime measures, on March 3, 1921. President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued the next national emergency proclamation some 48 hours after assuming office. Proclaimed March 6, 1933, on the somewhat questionable authority of the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917, the proclamation declared a "bank holiday" and halted a major class of financial transactions by closing the banks. Congress subsequently gave specific statutory support for the Chief Executive's action with the passage of the Emergency Banking Act on March 9. Upon signing this legislation into law, the President issued a second banking proclamation, based upon the authority of the new law, continuing the bank holiday until it was determined that banking institutions were capable of conducting business in accordance with new banking policy. Next, on September 8, 1939, President Roosevelt promulgated a proclamation of "limited" national emergency, though the qualifying term had no meaningful legal significance. Almost two years later, on May 27, 1941, he issued a proclamation of "unlimited" national emergency. This action, however, did not actually make any important new powers available to the Chief Executive in addition to those activated by the 1939 proclamation. The President's purpose in making the second proclamation was largely to apprise the American people of the worsening conflict in Europe and growing tensions in Asia. These two war-related proclamations of a general condition of national emergency remained operative until 1947, when certain of the provisions of law they had activated were statutorily rescinded. Then, in 1951, Congress terminated the declaration of war against Germany. In the spring of the following year, the Senate ratified the treaty of peace with Japan. Because these actions marked the end of World War II for the United States, legislation was required to keep certain emergency provisions in effect. Initially, the Emergency Powers Interim Continuation Act temporarily maintained this emergency authority. It was subsequently supplanted by the Emergency Powers Continuation Act, which kept selected emergency delegations in force until August 1953. By proclamation in April 1952, President Harry S. Truman terminated the 1939 and 1941 national emergency declarations, leaving operative only those emergency authorities continued by statutory specification. President Truman's 1952 termination, however, specifically exempted a December 1950 proclamation of national emergency he had issued in response to hostilities in Korea. This condition of national emergency would remain in force and unimpaired well into the era of the Vietnam War. Two other proclamations of national emergency would also be promulgated before Congress once again turned its attention to these matters. Faced with a postal strike, President Richard Nixon declared a national emergency in March 1970, thereby gaining permission to use units of the Ready Reserve to assist in moving the mail. President Nixon proclaimed a second national emergency in August 1971 to control the balance of payments flow by terminating temporarily certain trade agreement provisos and imposing supplemental duties on some imported goods. In the years following the conclusion of U.S. armed forces involvement in active military conflict in Korea, occasional expressions of concern were heard in Congress regarding the continued existence of President Truman's 1950 national emergency proclamation long after the conditions prompting its issuance had disappeared. There was some annoyance that the President was retaining extraordinary powers intended only for a time of genuine emergency and a feeling that the Chief Executive was thwarting the legislative intent of Congress by continuously failing to terminate the declared national emergency. Growing public and congressional displeasure with the President's exercise of his war powers and deepening U.S. involvement in hostilities in Vietnam prompted interest in a variety of related matters. For Senator Charles Mathias, interest in the question of emergency powers developed out of U.S. involvement in Vietnam and the incursion into Cambodia. Together with Senator Frank Church, he sought to establish a Senate special committee to study the implications of terminating the 1950 proclamation of national emergency that was being used to prosecute the Vietnam War "to consider problems which might arise as the result of the termination and to consider what administrative or legislative actions might be necessary." Such a panel was initially chartered by S.Res. 304 as the Special Committee on the Termination of the National Emergency in June 1972, but it did not begin operations before the end of the year. With the convening of the 93 rd Congress in 1973, the special committee was approved again with S.Res. 9 . Upon exploring the subject matter of national emergency powers, however, the mission of the special committee became more burdensome. There was not just one proclamation of national emergency in effect but four such instruments, issued in 1933, 1950, 1970, and 1971. The United States was in a condition of national emergency four times over, and with each proclamation, the whole collection of statutorily delegated emergency powers was activated. Consequently, in 1974, with S.Res. 242 , the study panel was rechartered as the Special Committee on National Emergencies and Delegated Emergency Powers to reflect its focus upon matters larger than the 1950 emergency proclamation. Its final mandate was provided by S.Res. 10 in the 94 th Congress, although its termination date was necessarily extended briefly in 1976 by S.Res. 370 . Senators Church and Mathias co-chaired the panel. The Special Committee on National Emergencies and Delegated Emergency Powers produced various studies during its existence. After scrutinizing the U . S . Code and uncodified statutory emergency powers, the panel identified 470 provisions of federal law that delegated extraordinary authority to the executive in time of national emergency. Not all of them required a declaration of national emergency to be operative, but they were, nevertheless, extraordinary grants. The special committee also found that no process existed for automatically terminating the four outstanding national emergency proclamations. Thus, the panel began developing legislation containing a formula for regulating emergency declarations in the future and otherwise adjusting the body of statutorily delegated emergency powers by abolishing some provisions, relegating others to permanent status, and continuing others in a standby capacity. The panel also began preparing a report offering its findings and recommendations regarding the state of national emergency powers in the nation. The special committee, in July 1974, unanimously recommended legislation establishing a procedure for the presidential declaration and congressional regulation of a national emergency. The proposal also modified various statutorily delegated emergency powers. In arriving at this reform measure, the panel consulted with various executive branch agencies regarding the significance of existing emergency statutes, recommendations for legislative action, and views as to the repeal of some provisions of emergency law. This recommended legislation was introduced by Senator Church for himself and others on August 22, 1974, and became S. 3957 . It was reported from the Senate Committee on Government Operations on September 30 without public hearings or amendment. The bill was subsequently discussed on the Senate floor on October 7, when it was amended and passed. Although a version of the reform legislation had been introduced in the House on September 16, becoming H.R. 16668 , the Committee on the Judiciary, to which the measure was referred, did not have an opportunity to consider either that bill or the Senate-adopted version due to the press of other business—chiefly the impeachment of President Nixon and the nomination of Nelson Rockefeller to be Vice President of the United States. Thus, the National Emergencies Act failed to be considered on the House floor before the final adjournment of the 93 rd Congress. With the convening of the next Congress, the proposal was introduced in the House on February 27, 1975, becoming H.R. 3884 , and in the Senate on March 6, becoming S. 977 . House hearings occurred in March and April before the Subcommittee on Administrative Law and Governmental Relations of the Committee on the Judiciary. The bill was subsequently marked up and, on April 15, was reported in amended form to the full committee on a 4-0 vote. On May 21, the Committee on the Judiciary, on a voice vote, reported the bill with technical amendments. During the course of House debate on September 4, there was agreement to both the committee amendments and a floor amendment providing that national emergencies end automatically one year after their declaration unless the President informs Congress and the public of a continuation. The bill was then passed on a 388-5 yea and nay vote and sent to the Senate, where it was referred to the Committee on Government Operations. The Senate Committee on Government Operations held a hearing on H.R. 3884 on February 25, 1976, the bill was subsequently reported on August 26 with one substantive and several technical amendments. The following day, the amended bill was passed and returned to the House. On August 31, the House agreed to the Senate amendments, clearing the proposal for President Gerald Ford's signature on September 14. In its final report, issued in May 1976, the special committee concluded "by reemphasizing that emergency laws and procedures in the United States have been neglected for too long, and that Congress must pass the National Emergencies Act to end a potentially dangerous situation." Other issues identified by the special committee as deserving attention in the future, however, did not fare so well. The panel, for example, was hopeful that standing committees of both houses of Congress would review statutory emergency power provisions within their respective jurisdictions with a view to the continued need for, and possible adjustment of, such authority. Actions in this regard were probably not as ambitious as the special committee expected. A title of the Federal Civil Defense Act of 1950 granting the President or Congress power to declare a civil defense emergency in the event of an attack on the United States occurred or was anticipated expired in June 1974 after the House Committee on Rules failed to report a measure continuing the statute. A provision of emergency law was refined in May 1976. Legislation was enacted granting the President the authority to order certain selected members of an armed services reserve component to active duty without a declaration of war or national emergency. Previously, such an activation of military reserve personnel had been limited to a "time of national emergency declared by the President" or "when otherwise authorized by law." Another refinement of emergency law occurred in 1977 when action was completed on the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). Reform legislation containing this statute modified a provision of the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917, authorizing the President to regulate the nation's international and domestic finance during periods of declared war or national emergency. The enacted bill limited the President's Trading with the Enemy Act power to regulate the country's finances to times of declared war. In IEEPA, a provision conferred authority on the Chief Executive to exercise controls over international economic transactions in the future during a declared national emergency and established procedures governing the use of this power, including close consultation with Congress when declaring a national emergency to activate IEEPA. Such a declaration would be subject to congressional regulation under the procedures of the National Emergencies Act. Other matters identified in the final report of the special committee for congressional scrutiny included investigation of emergency preparedness efforts conducted by the executive branch, attention to congressional preparations for an emergency and continual review of emergency law, ending open-ended grants of authority to the executive, investigation and institution of stricter controls over delegated powers, and improving the accountability of executive decisionmaking. There is some public record indication that certain of these points, particularly the first and the last, have been addressed in the past two decades by congressional overseers. As enacted, the National Emergencies Act consisted of five titles. The first of these generally returned all standby statutory delegations of emergency power, activated by an outstanding declaration of national emergency, to a dormant state two years after the statute's approval. However, the act did not cancel the 1933, 1950, 1970, and 1971 national emergency proclamations, because the President issued them pursuant to his Article II constitutional authority. Nevertheless, it did render them ineffective by returning to dormancy the statutory authorities they had activated, thereby necessitating a new declaration to activate standby statutory emergency authorities. Title II provided a procedure for future declarations of national emergency by the President and prescribed arrangements for their congressional regulation. The statute established an exclusive means for declaring a national emergency. Emergency declarations were to terminate automatically after one year unless formally continued for another year by the President, but they could be terminated earlier by either the President or Congress. Originally, the prescribed method for congressional termination of a declared national emergency was a concurrent resolution adopted by both houses of Congress. This type of "legislative veto" was effectively invalidated by the Supreme Court in 1983. The National Emergencies Act was amended in 1985 to substitute a joint resolution as the vehicle for rescinding a national emergency declaration. When declaring a national emergency, the President must indicate, according to Title III, the powers and authorities being activated to respond to the exigency at hand. Certain presidential accountability and reporting requirements regarding national emergency declarations were specified in Title IV, and the repeal and continuation of various statutory provisions delegating emergency powers was accomplished in Title V. Since the 1976 enactment of the National Emergencies Act, various national emergencies have been declared pursuant to its provisions. Some were subsequently revoked, while others remain in effect. Table 1 displays the number of national emergencies in effect (some may refer to these as "active") and the number of national emergencies no longer in effect (some may refer to these as "inactive"), by President. Detailed information regarding the 31 national emergencies in effect may be found in Table 2 . Similar information regarding the 22 national emergencies no longer in may be found in Table 3 . The second column in Table 2 and Table 3 identifies the national emergency declaration, which is either an executive order (E.O.) or a presidential proclamation (Proc.). Table 3 includes declared national emergencies that are no longer in effect. The development, exercise, and regulation of emergency powers, from the days of the Continental Congress to the present, reflect at least one highly discernable trend: Those authorities available to the executive in time of national crisis or exigency have, since the time of the Lincoln Administration, come to be increasingly rooted in statutory law. The discretion available to a Civil War President in his exercise of emergency power has been harnessed, to a considerable extent, in the contemporary period. Due to greater reliance upon statutory expression, the range of this authority has come to be more circumscribed, and the options for its use have come to be regulated procedurally through the National Emergencies Act. Since its enactment the National Emergencies Act has not been revisited by congressional overseers. The 1976 report of the Senate Special Committee on National Emergencies suggested that the prospect remains that further improvements and reforms in this policy area might be pursued and perfected. An anomaly in the activation of emergency powers appears to have occurred on September 8, 2005, when President George W. Bush issued a proclamation suspending certain wage requirements of the Davis-Bacon Act in the course of the federal response to the Gulf Coast disaster resulting from Hurricane Katrina. Instead of following the historical pattern of declaring a national emergency to activate the suspension authority, the President set out the following rationale in the proclamation: "I find that the conditions caused by Hurricane Katrina constitute a 'national emergency' within the meaning of section 3147 of title 40, United States Code." A more likely course of action would seemingly have been for the President to declare a national emergency pursuant to the National Emergencies Act and to specify that he was, accordingly, activating the suspension authority. Although the propriety of the President's action in this case might have been ultimately determined in the courts, the proclamation was revoked on November 3, 2005, by a proclamation in which the President cited the National Emergencies Act as authority, in part, for his action.

 

 Report 2:
USPS has a wide range of domestic competitive products that are a growing sector of its business. The volume of USPS’s competitive products increased from approximately 750 million pieces in fiscal year 2008 to 4.9 billion pieces in fiscal year 2017. Revenue from these products increased from about 10 percent of all USPS mail revenues in fiscal year 2008 to about 28 percent in fiscal year 2017 (see fig. 1). USPS forecasts that continued growth in e-commerce will increase the volume of its competitive products, especially for the “last-mile” delivery service to consumers—which involves delivery from retail locations and fulfillment centers (i.e., where online orders are processed, packaged, and shipped out to USPS for delivery) to customers. USPS reported that in fiscal year 2017, revenue from competitive products exceeded USPS’s expectations by $500 million due to the growth in e-commerce and successful marketing and sales campaigns. USPS expects increased competition, though, in the first- and last-mile delivery services—collection and delivery of packages—from other delivery providers. To remain competitive in the competitive product delivery market, USPS officials have stated that information gained from scanning is leveraged to provide customers with real-time visibility for the location of a competitive product in USPS’s delivery process as well as accurate estimates of the delivery time of USPS’s competitive products. Further, USPS’s latest strategic plan states that this information is one factor used to reduce its own costs through optimizing its network, including processing facilities, post offices, and numerous other facilities across the United States, and streamlining its operations. USPS delivers competitive products across the nation, which it divides into seven postal areas comprised of 67 postal districts (see fig. 2). Managers at each level—postal area, postal district, and post office—are responsible for overseeing and reporting on the performance of the level below them. For example, each district manager is accountable to the area vice president. Postmasters, who manage individual post offices, are accountable to district managers and also monitor the performance of employees at their post office. To track the movement of competitive products, USPS leverages automation (i.e., scanning by postal-processing equipment) and passive and active scan technology (i.e., scanning devices used by postal employees) to capture barcode information. In addition, when competitive products are not able to go through all the automated scans, USPS employees are to manually scan barcodes that have been placed on each item. These barcodes link the item with information in USPS’s databases such as: the delivery address, the type of USPS product, and when the item was accepted by USPS. According to USPS procedures, competitive products could be scanned up to 13 times to generate visibility necessary for USPS, mailers, and customers to track their packages as they move through USPS’s network (see fig. 3). For example, the first scan of the product—the “Acceptance” scan—is made when the item is dropped off at the post office or by a carrier if the product is picked up at a mailbox or customer address. The last scan—the “Acceptable Delivery Event” scan—generally means the item was successfully delivered to the addressee or that a delivery attempt was made (e.g., the product requires a signature but the recipient was not at home so another attempt will need to be made or the recipient will need to pick up the product). The interim scans reflect the product’s progress through the postal network, including through mail-processing plants and equipment. The scan data are transmitted to USPS’s data systems throughout the day. Scan information from these systems is available to USPS managers as well as mailers and customers who wish to track the progress of their items. USPS’s employees use devices to scan competitive products in postal facilities and on delivery routes (see scans 1, 2, and 11–13 in fig. 3). Carriers usually use a handheld Mobile Delivery Device (MDD) to scan a package’s barcode. MDDs contain Global Positioning System (GPS) technology and transmit package scanning data and carrier location data using a cellular network. USPS employees working inside post offices or other facilities use similar scanning devices without GPS technology, such as the handheld Intelligent Mail Device (IMD) to perform the manual scans (see fig. 4). USPS reports we reviewed indicate that competitive products are almost always scanned and scanned correctly. USPS has an overall organizational goal of accurately scanning 100 percent of all mail pieces—both competitive and other products—that have a barcode. This includes scanning each competitive product at several points from acceptance, as described earlier. However, individual management employee-performance goals for scanning are set slightly lower than 100 percent, as USPS officials stated that they recognize that some scanning issues, such as for missing or damaged barcodes, may occur across post offices. According to USPS data we reviewed for the first three quarters of fiscal year 2018, all but one of USPS’s 67 districts met USPS’s scanning goals for all five required scans for competitive products. Additionally, in one district we visited, a USPS internal report showed that every group of post offices in the district met its scanning goal for the arrival-at-unit scan for the week, the preceding 4 weeks, and the year-to- date periods, and all but one group of post offices met their scanning goals for the acceptable delivery scan for the same measurement period. In addition, representatives for mailers we interviewed that use USPS’s competitive products stated that they were generally satisfied with USPS’s scanning performance. Representatives of all the major mailers we spoke with that rely on USPS’s delivery network said they believed that USPS is generally scanning competitive products accurately, although issues still occur. Representatives of mailers told us that they receive scanning data from USPS for their items throughout the day, with some mailers receiving the data every 15 minutes, a rate that allows them to track their items through USPS. Some mailers use this information to calculate the expected time of delivery and monitor USPS’s progress against their own estimates of delivery time to measure USPS’s performance. Representatives for major mailers we spoke with said they also get complaints from customers if items are late, lost, or inaccurately scanned, so the customers provide another source of information on any scanning issues. Four of the five representatives for major mailers we interviewed that sent items via USPS competitive products told us that they have seen improvement in USPS’s scanning performance in recent years. Additionally, all of the representatives for mailers we spoke with stated that USPS has increased the amount of scanning and the information provided from the scans in recent years. Although USPS has a high scanning rate, some missed and inaccurate scans for competitive products do occur, errors that could potentially affect millions of competitive products. For example, several USPS OIG reports between 2016 and 2018 found that instances of missed or inaccurate scans still occurred both nationwide and that in nine USPS districts they analyzed, were due in part, to post office personnel not always following proper scanning procedures and post office supervisors not adequately monitoring how scanning procedures were implemented. For example, the USPS OIG analyzed approximately 2 billion delivery scans over a 6-month period in 2017 and found that 1.9 million delivery scans (about 0.1 percent) occurred at the post office instead of at the delivery address and were considered improper scans. Furthermore, examples of USPS’s internal reports we reviewed containing scanning performance results showed that a small percentage of competitive mail items had not been scanned. For example, one USPS internal report for a district we visited showed that for one week, USPS employees in the district missed about 0.73 percent of the expected delivery scans for competitive products. Due to USPS’s large volume of competitive products, a small percentage of products not scanned can represent large numbers of items. For example, about 155,000 competitive products were missing a delivery scan in one district’s 2018 year-to-date report we reviewed. Additionally, the representatives of mailers we interviewed also reported occasional scanning issues with USPS’s competitive products. Most of the mailers’ representatives stated that when they see competitive items missing scanning data, it is generally an isolated situation and USPS usually fixes the issue. According to these representatives, USPS provides them with points of contact to work with to resolve scanning issues immediately and on a regular basis. However, one major mailer’s representative we spoke with stated that even though USPS’s employees are generally good at scanning packages, inaccurate delivery scanning is an issue. The representative stated that about 8 to 10 percent of the company’s products sent through USPS were scanned by carriers as delivered, but not at the customer’s delivery address—contrary to USPS’s standard operating procedures for scanning. The representative stated that, although this percentage has decreased in recent years, the mailer would like to see that number decrease further because delivery to the destination address assures them that the item was left as close as possible to the customer. USPS is taking some steps to address missed or inaccurate scans. For example, USPS officials stated that the current electronic scanning device carried by almost all carriers on their routes does not prevent scanning a mail item as delivered to an address that is not the delivery address associated with the item’s barcode information. They also stated that USPS is updating scanning devices to alert carriers when they scan items as delivered when not physically at the correct delivery address. According to USPS officials, as of May 2018, 80 percent of hand-held electronic scanning devices used by USPS carriers had this functionality and that this functionality is being fine-tuned. This capability, though, still does not preclude all scanning errors, as it only affects the final delivery scan. USPS officials also stated that employees may still encounter scanning issues, such as damaged barcodes, which could lead to missed scans. USPS has not based its operational policies and procedures, such as those that support the accurate scanning of competitive products, on any standards for internal controls. USPS officials told us that they have not used any specific criteria for designing, implementing, and operating an internal control system for meeting its operational policies and internal controls, such as those that help ensure competitive products are accurately scanned. According to USPS officials, USPS does not follow the COSO Framework to design, implement or evaluate its operational internal controls as they believe that the COSO Framework standards are traditionally related to internal controls over financial reporting. In addition, USPS officials stated that USPS is not required to follow Standards for Internal Control in the Federal Government, and therefore USPS does not follow these standards as well. Instead, USPS officials stated that USPS has designed its operational policies and internal controls over the years based on its unique responsibilities, management experience, and sound business practices. However, officials could not identify any specific standards or framework they had followed. We have reported that standards for the design, implementation, and operation of their internal-control system provide an overall framework for establishing and maintaining an effective internal-control system—which is a key factor in achieving an entity’s mission. Further, internal controls help managers achieve desired results through effective stewardship of public resources. USPS has options to choose from in selecting standards for internal controls. Two widely used standards are the COSO Framework and Standards for Internal Control in the Federal Government, which was adapted for federal entities from the COSO Framework. Both standards are designed to help an entity design, implement, and maintain an effective internal-control system. Such a system should encompass all aspects of an entity’s objectives, including operations, reporting, and compliance objectives, and can help an entity adapt to shifting environments, evolving demands, changing risks, and new priorities. Non-federal entities can adopt either of these standards in their efforts to design, implement, and operate an effective internal control system. As stated above, we found that the COSO Framework to be a reasonable and relevant set of internal control standards to evaluate USPS’s operational internal-control activities. However, we and the USPS OIG have applied both the COSO Framework and Standards for Internal Control in the Federal Government in evaluating USPS’s operational internal controls in recent reports. Without standards for an effective internal-control system for its operational policies and procedures for scanning competitive products, USPS may miss opportunities to improve how it achieves its mission to deliver those important products. USPS management has designed standard operating procedures to provide assurance that competitive products are scanned accurately. We found some of these procedures to be consistent with the COSO Framework, which states that an organization should deploy control activities through policies that establish what is expected and procedures that put policies into action. USPS has developed a scanning policy for its products, stating that “properly scanning all barcodes will result in World Class Visibility and be instrumental in retaining and growing our shipping business and providing valuable data to drive improved operational performance and reduce costs.” USPS also has procedures that establish the responsibilities of employees for accurately scanning barcodes for competitive products at various points in the mail flow. Although USPS officials stated that employees should rely on prompts from their scanning devices to ensure scans are done correctly, USPS communicates these procedures in three main ways: documents, such as City Carrier Handbook and Rural Carrier Handbook, that outline scanning procedures and that explain carriers’ duties, including scanning; job aids, such as posters showing proper scanning procedures (see fig. 5); and, standard work steps or guidance that lists procedural steps either for competitive products or for scanning mail in general (see fig. 6). Following these procedures is important to fulfill USPS’s scanning goals. As stated above, the USPS OIG found instances of missed or inaccurate scans for competitive items in recent reports. Further, the USPS OIG also recently found that USPS employees at all 15 postal facilities it visited in the Los Angeles District did not follow correct scanning procedures for USPS’s competitive Parcel Return Service product, leading to inconsistent counts for these products. Such errors can put USPS at risk of not collecting revenue for these products. The USPS OIG has made several recommendations in its recent reports to USPS management to reinforce the importance of these procedures to employees. USPS officials agreed with some of these recommendations and stated that they are taking action to address them. While reinforcing these procedures can be helpful, we found that USPS’s scanning procedures may not provide the necessary assurance for accurate scanning because they are not consistent. For example: The USPS’s City Carrier Handbook states that mail with a barcode should be scanned at the delivery point (or address). However, a standard operating procedures document for city carriers at a post office we visited stated that carriers must scan each delivery confirmation mail piece but did not specify that this scan had to be at the delivery point or address. Locally developed procedures may not be uncommon, as one district manager told us that USPS headquarters allows managers to make a certain amount of flexibility to adapt the standard operating procedures for each post office. The USPS document, SCANNING at a Glance: Delivering 100% Visibility, states that all mail items that require delivery scanning should be scanned at the delivery address, but this document also provides additional scanning procedures not contained in the City Carrier Handbook and other standard operating procedures documents we examined. In particular, the document contained procedures for scanning to account for mail being held for customers on vacation; scanning items correctly to account for mail not delivered to business that were closed; and for mail that was refused by the addressee. This inconsistency in USPS’s scanning procedures has likely occurred because many of the documents have been updated at different times and have not always reflected new operations. For city carriers, the online version of the USPS’s City Carrier Handbook was last updated in April 2001. USPS officials stated that the most recent update regarding scanning was issued in November 2015 via a separate Postal Bulletin. Further, a separate standard operating procedure document for city carriers at a post office we visited was dated June 2006. For rural carriers, the most recently updated scanning procedures we found was dated 2013. As a result, some of these documents are not updated with the latest information on new scanning procedures. In a related example, the USPS OIG recently found that employees at three of the six USPS facilities the USPS OIG visited did not have an adequate understanding of the procedures for processing election and political mail due, in part, to guidance that was not updated, even though the procedures were centrally documented on an internal USPS website. USPS officials recognized this issue and stated that these handbooks are not updated regularly as the content of the handbooks are subject to labor negotiations. Therefore, new procedures are presented to USPS employees outside of the handbooks. However, given that these efforts rely on employees to orally communicate information, having consistent documented procedures is even more important. In addition to stating that the organization should deploy control activities through policies and procedures, the COSO Framework states that senior management should communicate objectives clearly through the organization so that other management and personnel understand their individual roles in the organization. By not having consistent procedures, USPS risks not clearly communicating to its employees how they should carry out scanning procedures and therefore contributing to scanning errors. As discussed below, USPS officials told us that management updates its procedures typically through regular meetings with employees, which are documented in handouts or slides. USPS officials stated that management stresses the importance of scanning and that employees should follow the prompts on their electronic devices when scanning competitive products. However, employees can still scan competitive products as delivered even if they are not, as device prompts can be misread, misinterpreted, or ignored. Furthermore, even with current prompts, scanning errors can and do occur. Consistent procedures, clearly communicated to employees, have become increasingly important as USPS hires new employees to handle, in part, anticipated growth in the volume of competitive packages. For example, GAO analysis of USPS data showed that USPS’s carrier workforce increased by 6.4 percent between fiscal years 2015 and 2017. The USPS OIG has found that these new employees require training and guidance to properly perform their roles and to reduce turnover. In addition to deploying policies and procedures to achieve an organization’s objectives, the COSO Framework states that an organization should internally communicate objectives and responsibilities that are necessary to support the functioning of internal controls. This process can be accomplished through training and meetings. Specifically, the COSO Framework states that training should enable individuals to develop competencies appropriate for assigned roles and responsibilities, among other things, and that active forms of communication such as face-to-face meetings are often more effective than passive forms such as broadcast e-mails and intranet postings. To communicate how its procedures should be correctly implemented, USPS has developed both initial and on-going training for employees. USPS officials stated that new employees are formally trained in scanning procedures when they start their employment. For example, carriers are trained how to use USPS’s electronic scanning devices, when to scan competitive items, the correct codes to use for different delivery situations (i.e., signature required, vacation holds, how to code where a package was left at a delivery address). Any new procedures can be introduced through presentations given by managers during meetings, as described below. Required regular meetings may be tracked by USPS management to ensure they are completed. Some district officials we spoke with stated that they certify that their employees have received required training and send that certification to area and USPS headquarters officials. Additional training also helps USPS reinforce correct scanning procedures. When scanning procedures are not being followed or scanning goals are not met at a post office, USPS officials stated that reminders of the correct procedures designed to reinforce USPS’s scanning procedures are presented to employees through presentations, posters, job aids, and additional documents such as carriers’ handbooks. For example, the representative of the major mailer we spoke with that had 8 to 10 percent of competitive products not scanned to the final delivery address stated that training was needed for both new and experienced carriers to reinforce that they should scan items at the delivery address. To further ensure the accurate scanning of competitive products, USPS reported that it holds internal and external meetings. Specifically, these meetings are designed to: Reinforce procedures: Post office managers can use stand-up talks— weekly meetings between management and employees at the post office—to discuss scanning issues with employees and opportunities to address those issues. For example, the postmaster at one post office we visited stated that this post office reinforces the standard work procedures designed to improve the scanning performance of employees during these meetings. Carriers and clerks can ask questions and learn why they are asked to do something or how to do a specific task, allowing for additional training and reinforcement of procedures. For example, we reviewed a handout developed by USPS headquarters to provide managers with talking points for service talks. This handout provided information on carriers delivering and scanning accurately and instructions on scanning at point of delivery on rural routes. Introduce new procedures: USPS officials told us that post office managers use stand-up talks to introduce new procedures and processes with carriers and clerks. For example, postmasters stated that they used these meetings to introduce and train carriers on new scanning features at the post offices. USPS district and area management develop and disseminate memos and handouts to assist managers conducting these meetings. We reviewed handouts USPS provided to managers for service talks. These handouts provided information on the rollout of some of the most recent scanning procedure changes. Continuously improve operations: District managers we interviewed stated that post offices with low scanning performance scores are placed on a district’s list of underperforming post offices. USPS district managers we interviewed told us that they meet with these post offices to determine how each post office plans to improve its scanning performance. District management also conducts audits of underperforming post offices and post offices that are in need of improvement. Our review of one district office’s service review checklist identified the key areas of audit for underperforming post offices. Reassess procedures: Representatives of mailers we interviewed told us that they meet with USPS representatives to discuss ways USPS can share scanning information for competitive products. Given that inaccurate scans can and do occur, it is important that postal managers explore and investigate any instances of missed or inaccurate scans. To do so, USPS managers—including area vice presidents, district managers, and postmasters—use a variety of reports as tools to ensure that the required scans are made at the appropriate place and time, and take action to monitor the status of competitive products, track lost items, and identify scanning issues. USPS headquarters designs reports used by managers to review performance at the local level across the country. Managers at each level are responsible for overseeing and reporting on the performances of the level below them. For example, the postmaster monitors performance of employees at the post office and is accountable to the district manager. In turn, each district manager is held accountable by the area vice president. To monitor performance of scanning of competitive products, these managers have access to several USPS data systems to generate reports. They can use the reports to monitor scanning performance of carriers and clerks at each post office and to identify the causes of scanning issues, such as missing or incorrect scans. Managers can also use these reports to track the status of competitive products or to investigate customer complaints of lost items. Some examples of reports available to managers include the following: Report 1: USPS officials told us that each post office receives this report from their District Office. The report identifies competitive products that do not have all the required scans, such as scans when the item arrives at the post office or when a delivery attempt was made. For example, one district official sends postmasters weekly reports on competitive products that do not have all the required scans. The officials told us that these reports help managers investigate the cause of incorrect scans identified in the report and how to prevent future occurrences. Report 2: USPS officials told us that this report is generated by district managers to proactively identify scanning irregularities, such as scans that may be out of sequence or multiple competitive products that are scanned at the same time but are for different addresses. District management can query postmasters about these scans and ask them to investigate the reason for the irregularities and determine if the scan was appropriate. Report 3: USPS officials told us that this report is generated by postmasters to monitor scanning status and performances for each competitive product that has received an arrival scan but lacks a delivery scan. While this may indicate a problem, it could also just reflect that the final scan had not been made by the end of the day or the scan that had not been uploaded into the USPS data systems when the report was generated. While having these reports are helpful, their full potential to help USPS managers may be limited because USPS lacks detailed and up-to-date standard operating procedures for how managers should use these reports or conduct other activities to efficiently investigate and resolve scanning issues. USPS’s Scanning Performance: Delivery Standard Operating Procedures for managers are a list of bullet points outlining managers’ responsibilities to meet scanning performance target goals and not a list of detailed procedures for managers to follow, such as how to use Report 1 to identify items that do not have all the required scans. In addition, USPS officials told us that this list has not been updated since approximately October 2005. The COSO Framework states that organizations should internally communicate information, including objectives and responsibilities for internal control, necessary to support the functioning of internal control. Further, it states that a process should be in place to communicate required information to enable all personnel to understand and carry out their internal-control responsibilities. Absent such communication, managers may take different actions to address problems or may have difficulty knowing where to find the appropriate information to locate a missing item to resolve a customer’s complaint quickly. For example, one post office manager told us that he will look at the scanning history in the USPS data systems to determine if the item received an acceptable delivery event scan or what the status of the item is on the route, while another post office manager told us he will use GPS data to see where the scans were made to determine if the item was delivered to the right address. If managers do not know where to find the appropriate information, they may spend more time investigating and be less efficient in resolving issues. Further, not having detailed standard operating procedures means managers may not be aware of all the reports available to them. For example, some post office managers told us that they use Report 3 while other post office managers told us that this report was not available to them. Without using Report 3, some managers told us that they look in several sources to find the same information needed to resolve the issue, such as locating a lost package. Some managers told us that USPS management discontinued the report because it was being misused by some managers. Specifically, managers told us that some managers were manually entering scanning or service-performance information retroactively to improve their performance scores. However, they told us that USPS management recently made Report 3 available to managers again but changed features to reduce any misuse. Additionally, USPS may miss opportunities to prevent scanning issues from happening again by not clearly communicating how managers should use the various reports to address specific scanning issues. For example, the USPS OIG recently determined that instances of missed and inaccurate scans for competitive products were a result of USPS management not adequately monitoring the implementation of those procedures. Without detailed procedures to guide managers in finding and using specific information in available reports and other tools, managers will not have consistent information to use to investigate and resolve customer complaints quickly or accurately. In addition, new managers may not know where to go for the most appropriate information and how to use this information to address some issues. As competitive products have become essential to USPS’s economic viability, it is increasingly important for USPS to accurately track them to remain competitive in this market. While USPS may be scanning most mail accurately, there continue to be instances where mail is not scanned accurately or is missing scans. Given the volume and growth in these competitive products, even a small percentage of inaccurately scanned products could be a large number of such products. Since USPS’s procedures were developed absent standards for internal control, the adoption of a set of internal control standards could enhance USPS’s efforts to continuously improve the design, implementation, and evaluation of its operational internal controls for scanning of competitive products. Further, since USPS’s standard operating procedures for scanning are located in numerous documents and are not always consistent—and given USPS’s reliance on stand-up talks and meetings to keep employees current—USPS employees may not always have accurate scanning procedures easily accessible to them. Having consistent standard operating procedures is increasingly important to ensure that employees are making accurate scans. Additionally, standard procedures that guide managers to investigate and resolve scanning issues would help managers more efficiently address these issues and ideally prevent these issues from happening again. To improve USPS’s competitive products scanning, we recommend that the Postmaster General take the following three actions. The Postmaster General should identify and adopt a set of internal control standards that can be used as the basis for operational internal-control activities, such as those for scanning competitive products. (Recommendation 1) The Postmaster General should improve the communication of standard operating procedures for scanning competitive products by, for example, updating or consolidating USPS documents, job aids, and standard work steps. (Recommendation 2) The Postmaster General should create standard operating procedures for managers on how to address inaccurate scans and use available reports to investigate and resolve scanning issues. (Recommendation 3) We provided a draft of this product to USPS for its review and comment. USPS’s comments are reproduced in appendix I. USPS stated that it cannot agree with our recommendation to identify and adopt a set of internal control standards for USPS’s operational internal control activities at this time. Although USPS has adopted an internal control framework for its financial internal control activities, USPS does not know what the benefits and costs are of adopting internal control standards for its operational internal control activities. As a result, USPS agreed to conduct a cost study to determine whether to commit resources to identifying and adopting a set of internal control standards for its operational internal control activities. We are encouraged that USPS is planning to conduct such a study and anticipate that performing this study will result in the implementation of an appropriate set of internal control standards. USPS agreed with the two recommendations regarding scanning procedures and committed to completing corrective actions by November of 2018. In its general comments, USPS noted that our reference to the USPS OIG’s report, Processing Readiness for Election and Political Mail for the 2018 Midterm Elections did not appear germane to the scanning of competitive mail. We recognize that this report was focused on a different type of mail, but as USPS noted in its letter, we use the OIG report as a related example of how USPS has taken efforts to improve the communication of its scanning procedures to employees. Therefore, we determined that our use of the report is appropriate. We have added information from the OIG report to characterize the OIG’s recommendations and USPS’s actions to address those recommendations. USPS also provided technical comments, which we incorporated as appropriate. We will send copies of this report to the appropriate congressional committees, the Postmaster General, the Chairman of the Postal Regulatory Commission, and other interested parties. In addition, the report will be available at no charge on the GAO website at http://www.gao.gov. If you or your staff have any questions about this report, please contact me at (202) 512-2834 or rectanusl@gao.gov. Contact points for our Offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on the last page of this report. GAO staff making key contributions to this report are listed in appendix II. In addition to the individual named above, Kyle Browning (Assistant Director); Greg Hanna (Analyst-in-Charge); Michael Hansen; Thanh Lu; John Mingus; Faye Morrison; Malika Rice; Amy Rosewarne; Crystal Wesco; Elizabeth Wood; and Matthew Zaun made key contributions to this report.

Question: Write a one-page summary of the report 1.

Answer: The President of the United States has available certain powers that may be exercised in the event that the nation is threatened by crisis, exigency, or emergency circumstances (other than natural disasters, war, or near-war situations). Such powers may be stated explicitly or implied by the Constitution, assumed by the Chief Executive to be permissible constitutionally, or inferred from or specified by statute. Through legislation, Congress has made a great many delegations of authority in this regard over the past 230 years. There are, however, limits and restraints upon the President in his exercise of emergency powers. With the exception of the habeas corpus clause, the Constitution makes no allowance for the suspension of any of its provisions during a national emergency. Disputes over the constitutionality or legality of the exercise of emergency powers are judicially reviewable. Both the judiciary and Congress, as co-equal branches, can restrain the executive regarding emergency powers. So can public opinion. Since 1976, the President has been subject to certain procedural formalities in utilizing some statutorily delegated emergency authority. The National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. §§1601-1651) eliminated or modified some statutory grants of emergency authority, required the President to formally declare the existence of a national emergency and to specify what statutory authority activated by the declaration would be used, and provided Congress a means to countermand the President's declaration and the activated authority being sought. The development of this regulatory statute and subsequent declarations of national emergency are reviewed in this report.