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80–008 2003

OVERSIGHT HEARING ON 

CONGRESSIONAL MAIL DELIVERY

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON HOUSE 

ADMINISTRATION 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

Hearing Held in Washington, DC, May 8, 2002

(

Printed for the Use of the Committee on House Administration 

(II)

COMMITTEE ON HOUSE ADMINISTRATION 

BOB NEY, Ohio, Chairman 

VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan 

JOHN L. MICA, Florida 

JOHN LINDER, Georgia 

JOHN T. DOOLITTLE, California 

THOMAS M. REYNOLDS, New York 

STENY H. HOYER, Maryland 

Ranking Minority Member 

CHAKA FATTAH, Pennsylvania 

JIM DAVIS, Florida 

PAUL VINOVICH, Staff Director 

BILL CABLE, Minority Staff Director 

(1)

CONGRESSIONAL MAIL DELIVERY IN THE U.S. 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

WEDNESDAY, MAY 8, 2002 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON HOUSE ADMINISTRATION, Washington, DC. 

The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:05 a.m., in room 

1310, Longworth House Office Building, Hon. Robert W. Ney 

(chairman of the committee) presiding. 

Present: Representatives Ney, Doolittle, Hoyer, Fattah, and 

Davis. 

Staff present: Paul Vinovich, Counsel; Channing Nuss, Deputy 

Staff Director; Fred Hay, Counsel; Reynold Schweickhardt, Technical Director; Jeff Janas, Professional Staff Member; Bill Cable, 

Minority Staff Director; Sterling Spriggs, Minority Technical Director; Matt Pinkus, Minority Professional Staff Member; and Ellen 

McCarthy, Minority Professional Staff Member. 

The CHAIRMAN. The committee will come to order. 

Today, the Committee on House Administration is holding an 

Oversight Hearing on Congressional Mail Delivery in the U.S. 

House of Representatives. There will be members that will be coming in and out during this hearing. With us today is Congressman 

Doolittle of California, and ranking member Mr. Steny Hoyer of 

Maryland is on his way. 

I will go ahead and begin just with a brief opening statement 

that I have. 

Today, of course, is May 8, 2002. It has been almost 8 months 

since the devastating attacks of September 11 of 2001. It has almost been about 7 months since mail delivery to the House of Representatives ceased and our buildings were evacuated as a result 

of the anthrax that was introduced into our mail system. 

We all recognize that, as a result of these attacks, things will 

never be quite the same. We are now all forced to look at what has 

become routine processes with new eyes. Assumptions about the 

way we conduct business in the House of Representatives has also 

changed forever. I am sure all of us here today recognize that reality—— 

Let me also be clear as we begin the hearing today that the efforts of so many of the individuals in this room and throughout our 

process, both in the House of Representatives and, more broadly, 

also for many people at the Postal Service as well as the private 

sector, that you all have worked tirelessly to respond to the new 

security realities to ensure that essential functions such as our 

mail delivery system continue to exist. 

2

In particular, I want to thank our CAO, Jay Eagen, and his staff 

who had to take a mail delivery process that had evaporated—it 

had worked well and had to completely reinvent the system to accommodate the concerns we are now faced with. We recognize what 

you and your staff have done, and the House deeply appreciates 

that. 

However, as we all convene here, there is a reason we are convening here today; and I have got to report that, regardless of all 

the efforts, the current mail delivery process is most certainly not 

meeting the critical needs of the Members of the House, our constituents, of the public at large due to the time frame from when 

it gets into the hands of the offices. I think we all know that that 

has to change. If we have been doing our best, we have got to get 

our heads together and do better. The current state of mail delivery 

in the House has simply got to be put on a faster path. 

I applaud also the patience of the Members of the House of Representatives and our constituents across the country as we work to 

perfect the process. Our patience, of course, is starting to wear 

thin. If you talk to Members—I am sure Mr. Doolittle and other 

members will have some comments about that—we have had 7 

months of goodwill, and we now have to get some more results. 

The past 10 days the committee has received mail that was postmarked from the month of October. I actually brought a couple of 

pieces today. I am told these are being sold on eBay. But I got a 

couple of pieces of mail, and they are postmarked December, and 

our postmark in here is May the 3rd on those pieces. 

The other problem, too, a lot of the Members receive invitations 

to events that are important to the constituents that invite us and 

information about urgent constituent matters which have occurred 

or bills or invoices that have become months delinquent. Those 

communications are critical. 

There are also constituents who send us some very important information—they have a problem with Social Security or other nature of a problem, and they need a response. People talk about 

computers. Not everybody in the hinterland has access to a computer, frankly. Otherwise, we could e-mail each other. So the mail 

is important. 

So I suggest that we need to think outside the box today for different solutions. Maybe we need to think in terms of reinvention, 

rather than simply modification. I will leave that to the experts, 

but, whatever it is, we have got to push ourselves to solve this 

problem, to do it quickly. 

I know here at the Committee on House Administration, with the 

help of our Chief Administrative Officer, Mr. Eagen, we are in the 

process of exploring digitization of the mail as an alternative to our 

current process, which may prove to be a viable solution as we 

move into the future. We are determined to have a digitized mail 

pilot program in place soon, at least speaking on behalf of myself, 

before implementation of such an alternative means of mail delivery is still months away and we can’t afford to continue to do business as we are at this time. 

I am very anxious again to hear from our witnesses, so I will 

close at this time. Before I do, I want to remind our witnesses 

today that certain details related to the subject matter of this hearVerDate Jan 31 2003 00:12 Apr 24, 2003 Jkt 080008 PO 00000 Frm 00004 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 E:\HR\OC\A008.XXX A008
3

ing on mail process may have security implications. As a result, it 

is necessary that all participants exercise discretion as to the specific procedural details or facts that you may offer as both part of 

your testimony and in response to questions that may be asked of 

you during the hearing. This is a public hearing. As such, I ask you 

to keep this concern in mind. 

With that, I want to turn to my colleagues and see if anybody 

else has an opening statement. 

Mr. DOOLITTLE. I have no opening statement. 

Mr. REYNOLDS. Mr. Chairman, I have no opening statement.

The CHAIRMAN. We will move on to the testimony. 

Giving testimony will be Jay Eagen, our Chief Administrative Officer of the House of Representatives. Also attending and available 

to answer questions will be Carl Johnson, Senior Account Manager 

of Pitney Bowes. Also giving testimony, Sylvester Black, Manager 

of Capital Metro Operations, and that would be United States Postal Service. Also attending and available to answer questions will be 

Michael Cronin, Manager of Operations Support of Capital Metro. 

STATEMENTS OF JAY EAGEN, CHIEF ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICER, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, ACCOMPANIED BY 

KARL JOHNSON, SENIOR ACCOUNT MANAGER, PITNEY 

BOWES; AND SYLVESTER BLACK, MANAGER, CAPITAL 

METRO OPERATIONS, ACCOMPANIED BY MICHAEL CRONIN, 

MANAGER, OPERATIONS SUPPORT, CAPITAL METRO OPERATIONS 

The CHAIRMAN. With that, I will start with Mr. Eagen. 

STATEMENT OF JAY EAGEN 

Mr. EAGEN. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Doolittle, Mr. 

Reynolds. With me is Karl Johnson, as the chairman indicated, 

from Pitney Bowes Management Services. Mr. Johnson is the onsite manager for the House mail operations. 

I am pleased to be able to provide you with information and answer your questions concerning the mail processing operation at 

the House. With my testimony, I intend to cover the following 

issues: 

First, an overview of the House mail delivery process prior to the 

anthrax attack; secondly, what the House mail system encountered 

last fall and during recovery as well as what decisions were made 

and when; third, the current mail delivery process for the Postal 

Service and Pitney Bowes here at the House; fourth, actual results 

of this new mail delivery process both for the Postal Service and 

for Pitney Bowes at the House, including results of numerous field 

tests of those processes; and, finally, our plans for the future. 

Prior to the anthrax discovery in the House and Senate buildings 

in October of last year, the U.S. Postal Service and the House mail 

operation were focused solely on speed and accuracy. Of course, 

mail was x-rayed for bombs and protected from theft, but these 

precautions did not significantly add to the processing time. 

Since October, two additional factors have been added: sterilization of the mail and quarantined storage of the mail until it can 

be delivered. Concerns about biological contaminants in the mail—

4

including anthrax and other pathogens—resulted in significant 

changes in the mail delivery process at the House. 

All the incoming, outgoing and internal mail processes for the 

House, with the exception of postal windows, have been handled by 

Pitney Bowes Management Services since February, 1996. Pitney 

Bowes processes U.S. Postal Service mail, including first-class letters and flats, third-class mail, packages and registered mail. Packages from shippers other than the U.S. Postal Service—and by that 

I mean Federal Express or United Parcel Service—were delivered 

by the shippers themselves to House offices. All mail and packages 

were x-rayed at the U.S. Capitol Police facility on V Street, S.E. A 

picture of this facility is on the charts before you. 

Pitney Bowes sorted all mail for the House in a location in the 

basement of the Ford House Office Building, and a picture of that 

facility is before you as well. 

Pitney Bowes tracked its delivery cycle times and generally delivered mail 24 hours after it was received from the U.S. Postal Service. 

Before you now is a timeline for the anthrax recovery that the 

House experienced last fall. 

The House stopped all mail deliveries on Friday, October 12, 

2001, as part of a new mail security screening process that included a quarantine. A letter containing anthrax spores was 

opened in Senator Daschle’s office on Monday, October 15. The 

House side of the Capitol and House Office Buildings were then 

closed the following Wednesday, October 17, to test for the presence of anthrax. Several machines used to x-ray mail at the P 

Street U.S. Capitol police facility were found to be contaminated 

with anthrax on October 18. By Friday, October 19, teams of government biohazard experts were performing environmental assessments of House Office Buildings and mail facilities. Anthrax contamination was found on a strapping machine in the Ford Building 

mail room on October 21. Several days later, contamination was 

found in several Member offices in this building, the Longworth 

Building. 

The Capitol then reopened on October 23; and the Cannon and 

Rayburn buildings reopened on Thursday, October 25. The Longworth building reopened on Monday November 5, except for the 

four Member offices where contamination was found. The Ford 

building reopened on Friday, October 26, but the south wing of the 

first floor remained closed until January, 2002. And, finally, the 

four remaining Member offices in Longworth reopened in January, 

2002. 

In summary, four Member offices in this building and the first 

floor of the Ford building were displaced for 15 weeks. The P Street 

off-site facility is scheduled to reopen later this month. It will have 

been closed for 28 weeks. 

Before you now is a chart that shows the mail delivery recovery 

process the House has gone through. 

Delivery of first-class letters and flats—and this is a flat, larger 

sized envelope—resumed in early December of last year. Delivery 

of packages from local shippers resumed in mid-December; and delivery of packages from national shippers, Fed Ex and UPS, reVerDate Jan 31 2003 00:12 Apr 24, 2003 Jkt 080008 PO 00000 Frm 00006 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A008.XXX A008
5

sumed on a limited basis in early January, 2002. This was delivery 

of packages from known sources. 

A decision was made that it was no longer appropriate to conduct 

mail operations in an office building that houses several hundred 

House employees as well as the House Child Care Center. This 

committee approved an occupancy agreement for an off-site mail 

processing facility on November 9, 2001. The facility is located in 

Capitol Heights, Maryland; and the posters before you show a picture of this facility. 

Since October, 2001, the U.S. Postal Service has implemented additional procedures to ensure the safety of government officials and 

employees, including the House and Senate. Among the new safety 

procedures, mail is irradiated before it is delivered to Federal Government offices for ZIP Codes beginning 202 through 205. Here at 

the House, mail and packages have been accepted back on the campus in phases. 

Before you is a chart that shows the mail process flow. 

After a citizen posts a mail item to a mailbox, the Postal Service 

receives all government ZIP Code mail at its Brentwood facility in 

Washington, D.C., from 300 regional centers from around the Nation. It is packaged and shipped to Bridgeport, New Jersey, for irradiation and then returned to Brentwood. At Brentwood, it is 

unpackaged and a 24-hour off gassing aeration process occurs. It is 

then shipped to the Postal Service’s D Street government mail facility where it is sorted by ZIP Code—meaning government ZIP 

Codes—and then delivered to each government agency. The Postal 

Service has estimated this process takes between 7 and 10 days. 

Upon arrival at the House facility, the first-class mail is clipped, 

and it is sampled. The samples are sent to a military lab for testing 

that takes 72 hours. And to be clear, the testing itself takes 72 

hours. The samples also have to be transported to that lab. The 

mail is quarantined until the results are received. Upon clearance, 

the mail is sorted and delivered to House offices. This process has 

been estimated to take between 4 and 5 business days. 

Packages are handled through a different process at the House. 

Prior to October, 2001, again, packages were delivered directly to 

House offices by the shipper, Fed Ex or UPS. After October, at the 

request of the House, shippers held packages until the first of January. Following approval of a policy by this committee in December, packages from national shippers were accepted beginning in 

January this year. 

Packages are no longer delivered by the shipper to House offices 

but are being delivered by Pitney Bowes employees. Packages are 

also being put through a process to make sure they are safe before 

being delivered to House offices. Packages from the U.S. Postal 

Service were accepted beginning March 24 of this year under a policy approved by this Committee on House Administration. Only 

packages approved by the recipient are being delivered. 

Overall, the volume of mail coming to the House today is considerably smaller than prior to October, 2001. A 29 percent reduction 

has been seen in today’s mail levels as compared to the months in 

2001 prior to anthrax contamination. A 37 percent reduction is evident in 2002 levels, when compared to the same period for the year 

2000. 

6

Before you is a chart that shows the April mail receipt trend. 

Analysis of the first-class mail received by the House—and this is 

mail that the Postal Service has indicated to the House is current 

mail—shows that a portion of the mail is postmarked outside of the 

10-day Postal Service estimate, although recent trends show improvement. 

Before you now is a chart that shows the samples for April 30, 

last week. The sample of first-class mail delivered on April 30 

shows only 12 pieces postmarked within 10 days, while more than 

half of the sample postmarked 60 days or longer. The average age 

of the postmark for April 30 was 121 days. Conversely, last Friday, 

May 3, a sample of first-class mail delivered by the Postal Service 

and described as current mail shows the average postmark was 9 

days. 

The House is also measuring its cycle times once the mail is delivered to the House. Turnaround is measured from the point that 

the envelopes arrive here at the House and delivered to the House 

customer. For the month of April, you will see a chart before you 

that shows you a week-by-week progress. The total turnaround was 

4.7 business days for the month of April. 

Looking to the future, our goal is to expedite the mail House delivery process without compromising the safety of Members and 

staff. Methodologies we are currently pursuing include improvements to testing and mail sorting so it can be delivered more quickly, and implementation of a digital mail pilot for the House, as the 

chairman referenced. 

Focus areas for House improvement of mail processing time include pursuing an alternate lab and alternate technologies to identify contaminants without the lengthy lab process now required. 

Pitney Bowes is about to begin the next phase of the off-site facility 

that will further automate and improve the package delivery process. 

In addition, the CAO is pursuing an initiative that has the potential to dramatically shrink the volume of hard mail coming into 

House offices. We call this initiative digital mail. Under this approach, mail would be received and opened at an off-site facility, 

and a digital copy would be made with a scanner. A digital copy 

would then be forwarded to House offices electronically within 24 

hours of receipt. 

We intend to complete specifications for a pilot program by next 

Friday, May 17, and immediately issue a request for bids from industry. Upon receipt of industry responses, a recommendation will 

be made to the committee for the pilot. The proposed digital mail 

solution will integrate with contamination testing and safety procedures as well as with correspondence management systems, or 

CMS systems, in Members’ offices. The selected vendor will electronically deliver digital mail to Member offices participating in the 

program within 24 hours of receipt and will deliver necessary originals after the 3-day necessary quarantine period. 

Especially when it comes to mail, I am frequently asked the 

question, when is it going to get back to normal? I consistently respond by saying, we are not getting back to normal. We are moving 

forward to normal. 

7

Accelerating the mail delivery process while keeping the mail 

safe for Members and staff is an enormous challenge because 

threats can come in many forms and it is extremely difficult to 

trace the offender. 

Before you is a chart of the record of one Ted Kaczynski. You 

may recall that it took almost 20 years to catch the Unabomber, 

from his first bombing in May of 1978 to his arrest in April of 

1996. His terrorist track record included periods of up to 6 years 

between bombings and also up to four bombings in a single year. 

In 1982, cyanide was placed in Tylenol that resulted in seven 

deaths and led to the national recall of the medication. This intrusion led to the addition of tamper prevention seals on nearly all 

over the counter medications and vitamins and even some food 

products. The perpetrator of the Tylenol poisoning has never been 

apprehended, and the $100,000 reward offered by Johnson and 

Johnson has never been claimed. 

In sum, the world we face was made more complex by the events 

of September 11 and October, 2001. Just as we can’t bring back 

those who were lost in New York, at the Pentagon or at the Brentwood mail facility, it is very unlikely we will return to old delivery 

mail methods. Instead, we need to aggressively improve and automate more secure solutions so constituent and other important and 

time sensitive communications are received as quickly and accurately as possible and seek new alternative means that in the long 

run may well be more effective. Speaking for myself and the employees of the CAO, we won’t rest until we have accomplished that 

job. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. We thank you for your testimony. 

[The statement of Mr. Eagen follows:]

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The CHAIRMAN. I defer to ranking member, Mr. Steny Hoyer. 

Mr. HOYER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

I apologize for being late. The Helsinki Commission is holding a 

hearing contemporaneously with this one, and the Foreign Minister 

of Portugal is now the chairman of the Office of the OSC, and the 

Counsel of Ministries was testifying. So I apologize to all of you for 

being late. 

I would like to make an opening statement, however, and, Jay, 

congratulate you for your excellent statement. 

Let me say to our witnesses, not one of us here today fails to appreciate the extraordinary circumstances that you have been forced 

to work under since all House mail deliveries were stopped on Friday, October 12, and a letter containing anthrax spores was opened 

on the Hill. Two postal workers, of course, lost their lives as a result of the cowardly attack. Many others were exposed to the hazard. Members of Congress and thousands of staff were displaced 

when the entire Capitol complex was temporarily shut down. 

I understand that the Brentwood postal facility is still shut down 

because it has not been decontaminated. As a result, some Postal 

Service employees are working in tents. Others who are sorting 

mail are sent to government facilities and are working in converted 

warehouses on V Street. 

I understand that the Postal Service as well as the House mail 

handlers have had to deal with a frightening and difficult set of circumstances and recognize that you are working hard and doing a 

good job, an outstanding job. Signs of progress which you referred 

to are encouraging. To paraphrase Mr. Eagen’s statement, which 

he just gave, we may not be getting back to normal in processing 

congressional mail but we are trying to move forward to normal. 

I also want to make this observation, and I think every member 

of the committee will agree. Constituent service and timely communications are the lifeblood of public office. Show me a public professional to who fails to respond or is slow in responding to constituents needs and concerns expressed in a letter and I will show you 

someone who is not going to be here long. Some may grouse about 

the necessity of such responsiveness, but I think it demonstrates 

democracy’s strength. 

As someone—Mr. Chairman, I know you have traveled extensively when the Iron Curtain existed and talked to literally thousands of citizens who had no thought that they could communicate 

with anybody in power and have anybody either listen and certainly, if they listened, they did not expect a response. 

A few years ago, so-called experts liked to talk about the 

paperless office of the future. Someday we may actually visualize 

that vision. Even if the paper does not get to all offices, as you 

pointed out, it may be digitized and get to our office, but there is 

going to be paperwork. 

Even with the ubiquity of e-mail, fax machines and other methods of communication, nothing gets our attention more than a 

heartfelt written letter from a constituent. That is true whether 

you are a freshman Member of Congress or you have been here for 

over 20 years. Thus, timely, responsive communications to constituents is not an option. It is an obligation and one that I know alVerDate Jan 31 2003 00:12 Apr 24, 2003 Jkt 080008 PO 00000 Frm 00026 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A008.XXX A008
25

most every Member embraces. In my office, I know that most of the 

mail we are receiving today was sent in mid-April. 

You went through those charts very quickly, and we will ask 

questions when the question time comes. I am not sure that I fully 

understood as you went through it, because you went through it 

pretty quickly, specifically what they were saying. 

But we are still receiving mail that was postmarked in—last year 

in December. Jim Moran at the legislative hearing, I think—Mr. 

Eagen, I know, was there—observed he was still getting Christmas 

cards, presumably mailed mid-December or later. 

So while I support the efforts and hard work of our witnesses 

here and the people you represent, I particularly want to hear your 

views on how we can work together to address this and other challenges that confront us. Congressional mail stream must continue 

to flow however that stream manifests itself at the point of receipt. 

Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for holding this hearing and 

thank you very much for being with us. 

Mr. Chairman, I know Mr. Davis indicated he wanted to say 

something, but he defers. 

The CHAIRMAN. I want to thank the ranking member and Mr. 

Davis and move on to Mr. Black. 

Also, on behalf of the Congress, I want to again thank the United 

States postal authorities and the postal workers. I was in Columbus, Ohio, touring the tremendous facility there. 

But, also, our sympathy goes out to the individuals that lost their 

lives and the people in the postal system that continue to process 

the mail and keep communications going in the United States. 

With that, I defer to Mr. Black.

STATEMENT OF SYLVESTER BLACK 

Mr. BLACK. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, and members of the 

committee. 

With me today is Michael Cronin, the Manager of Operations 

Support. 

We appreciate the opportunity to discuss the Postal Service’s efforts to provide safe and timely mail service to Congress and Federal agencies in the wake of last fall’s bioterrorism attacks. 

Like many American businesses, the Postal Service was hard hit 

by the events of September 11; and, like Congress, the Postal Service also suffered the direct results of bioterrorism. Individually and 

collectively, our organization found itself tested as never before. 

Tragically, two of our own were taken from us when the mail was 

used as an instrument of terror. 

Yet, through it all, the people of the Postal Service have maintained the world’s finest postal system. Postal workers around the 

Nation stood united and continued on their daily rounds—in lower 

Manhattan, in New Jersey, in Connecticut and here in Washington, 

D.C., and in every location that became a potential target of this 

silent, insidious and deadly attack. 

I am proud of each one of them, but, as manager of Capital 

Metro, I am particularly proud of the dedication and performance 

of every postal employee in Washington, D.C. None have been more 

affected than they have. Their determination and performance 

through the difficult months of the fall were nothing short of heroic 

26

and represent the best of public service. I salute each and every 

one of them. 

Let me share for a moment a sense of immensity of the network 

that supports daily mail service for our Nation. 

Each day, almost 680 million pieces of mail enter our system 

through, literally, millions of entry points. This mail funnels 

through some 335 central processing locations that, in turn, feed 

38,000 post offices, stations and branches that provide delivery to 

America’s 138 million homes and businesses. It is a daunting and 

challenging proposition to protect a system so accessible and so 

ubiquitous against the threat of bioterrorism. 

However, as we have learned, the very lives and health of postal 

employees, the American people, their government leaders and 

members of the media can be placed in jeopardy if we do not take 

the proper actions to limit the vulnerability—and the extent—of 

any future terror attacks using the mail. 

When we learned that the mail stream had been used to carry 

anthrax, we acted quickly. Our first concern was the health of our 

employees and our customers. We worked closely with public 

health officials to address the medical needs of our employees, and 

we informed the public of the potential risks as they became 

known. 

We closed contaminated facilities, including the Brentwood processing facility here in Washington. We tested others and, when 

necessary, we cleaned them. We provided our employees with 

masks and gloves. We changed maintenance procedures to limit the 

potential spread of anthrax in our buildings. We acquired, as quickly as possible, the means to sanitize mail that might be tainted 

with anthrax. And the Postal Inspection Service joined with the 

FBI and other law enforcement agencies in the ongoing investigation of the crime. It was our goal to do all we could to make sure 

that the mail we were bringing to America’s homes, businesses and 

government officials presented no threat. 

Let me go over in more detail how this process has evolved with 

regard to mail deliveries for Congress and the Federal agencies in 

Washington, D.C. 

When our tests found that the Brentwood facility was contaminated, we closed it. Medication was made available to our employees, and they were reassigned to other locations. Both incoming 

and outgoing mail was rerouted to other processing facilities in 

both Virginia and Maryland. 

Working with law enforcement officials, other Federal agencies 

and Congress, we identified certain mail as ‘‘target’’ mail. This was 

the mail that could not be delivered until we were confident that 

it did not present a risk to the recipients. This target mail included 

mail addressed to Congress and Federal agencies in Washington, 

D.C. 

At the same time, more than one million pieces of potentially 

contaminated mail was trapped in the Brentwood facility. We could 

not move any of this mail until we had identified and implemented 

a safe and efficient method of sanitizing it. We worked quickly—

and we worked carefully—to obtain access to the technology that 

would do this. With the input of the best experts available, we 

identified irradiation as the only technology both readily available 

27

and effective at neutralizing anthrax spores from the mail. We contracted for irradiation services at a facility in Ohio and, later, at 

another one in New Jersey. 

I would like to tell you about the irradiation process in a little 

more detail. Irradiation, as of today, represents the only process 

used by the Postal Service to sanitize mail. We will continue for the 

foreseeable future to irradiate letters, flats and packages addressed 

for government agencies in the 202 to 205 ZIP Codes. 

For those of you who currently receive mail in the targeted ZIP 

Codes, we are preparing this mail for transportation to Bridgeport, 

New Jersey. There the mail undergoes irradiation. 

After irradiation, the mail is returned to a temporary processing 

site where it is sprayed with an odor neutralizer called Odor Away. 

This is a nonhazardous, widely available commercial product that 

is commonly used in hospitals. After spraying, we ventilate the 

mail for up to 24 hours before it is sorted and processed for delivery. Processed mail is then transported to the appropriate Federal 

facility for delivery by the agency’s mail unit. 

When we first began the irradiation of mail, only small volumes 

of mail were able to move through our facilities each day. But, with 

experience, we were able to improve our processing and treat greater volumes of mail. By the first week of February, the backlog had 

been eliminated. As larger amounts of mail could be treated, larger 

amounts of mail were made available to Congress and to Federal 

agencies for delivery. We were able to eliminate the bottleneck of 

backlogged mail on the processing side. 

Unfortunately, this meant that the mail volume received by some 

Federal agencies and by Congress exceeded the capacity of their internal distribution operations. We stored that processed, treated 

mail until the internal recipients were able to accept it. We are no 

longer storing any mail for any government agency. 

Within the context of this ‘‘new normal’’—with incoming mail for 

addresses in the ZIP Code ranges of 202 through 205 being diverted to Bridgeport, New Jersey—the additional transportation 

and processing time generally adds 4 to 7 days to the regular delivery times. 

To this point, a number of staff members from this committee 

toured our temporary processing facility on Friday, May 3. They 

were able to see that the sanitized mail being processed for delivery was generally postmarked April 26 or 27, well within the 7 to 

10 days the Postmaster General told members of our oversight 

committee. 

Again, I should point out this is only for targeted mail. All other 

mail for homes and businesses in the District of Columbia is being 

delivered normally. In fact, despite losing their primary processing 

and distribution center, Capital District postal employees continue 

to provide mail service to the residents of Washington, D.C., near 

the pre-October 21 levels. 

We are continuing to work with manufacturers of irradiation 

technology to identify the best processes and protocols for handling 

and processing the mail both safely and efficiently. The electronic 

beam systems we purchased will be deployed in a configuration optimized for mail. This limited deployment will allow us to accuVerDate Jan 31 2003 00:12 Apr 24, 2003 Jkt 080008 PO 00000 Frm 00029 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A008.XXX A008
28

rately evaluate the operational impacts, costs and effects on mail 

and its contents. 

The Postal Service has the obligation—and the privilege—of providing every American in every community with safe, universal access to a system of affordable, dependable mail service. The people 

of our Nation rely on the mail. They welcome it. They trust it. We 

cannot let that change. 

After all, the Postal Service, alone among carriers, is a vital public service provided to them by their government. It is crucial that 

we maintain our national infrastructure so we can continue to protect that trust for all users, urban and rural, rich and poor, business and consumer, private citizen and public servant. This is the 

promise of universal service, and it is the only reason that the 

Postal Service exists. 

Mr. Chairman, let me again express my gratitude for the congressional assistance we have received to protect the Nation’s postal system from bioterrorism. We look forward to your support and 

leadership and that of every member of this committee as the Postal Service continues its essential work of binding this great Nation 

together. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will be happy to answer any questions. 

The CHAIRMAN. I want to thank the gentleman for his testimony. 

[The statement of Mr. Black follows:]

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Insert offset folio 022 here 80008A.022
35

The CHAIRMAN. On Monday of this week, the House Inspector 

General documented that over 17 percent of the mail received at 

our Capitol Heights mail facility had postmarks dating from March 

of this year or earlier. Based on the mail volume for the day, this 

means over 3,000 pieces didn’t meet that 7-to-10 day performance 

standards that the United States Postal Service has indicated is 

being met. Of this mail, nearly 10 percent, or approximately 1,600 

pieces, had postmarks from last year. So I just wanted to see the 

consistency with the information that all the backlog, has been 

processed through the system. 

So I am wondering, has it all been processed through the system, 

the backlogged mail, and where would the old mail be coming 

from? 

Mr. BLACK. There are several avenues. One, our backlog, there 

is no backlog in our possession. But what has happened is that 

there is a hygiene—an address hygiene problem with the ZIP 

Codes of 202 to 205. 

The CHAIRMAN. I am sorry. 

Mr. BLACK. Address hygiene as far as machines reading it and 

addresses not being consistent with the rest of America, for instance, Congressman and that it is Washington, D.C. There are 

issues that we have always encountered. In fact, when Brentwood 

was up, we had what we called a Government Mails Unit within 

the Brentwood facility; and, in that unit, what we did was take a 

lot of human oversight to make sure that the mail was properly addressed or properly given to the right unit. 

The other thing that is compounding everything today is that a 

lot of the agencies—what we call—this constitutes a loop mail situation where mail kind of goes to the wrong place and has to be reintroduced back into the system. Well, what happens if all the 

other agencies that received missent mail—if they are not diligent 

in reintroducing it back into the system, you do see tails. You see 

mail with long days of delivery. 

The CHAIRMAN. So the 3,000 pieces that didn’t meet the 7-to-10 

day could be pieces then you are saying that were misdelivered or 

didn’t have particular, correct addresses. 

Mr. BLACK. Yes, sir. 

The CHAIRMAN. And that would account for the 3,000. 

Mr. BLACK. It would account for some of it. 

And Mr. Eagen would probably tell you that we are not quite 

current here either with all the backlog of mail that we have 

turned over. 

Mr. EAGEN. I believe the reference the chairman had was to the 

current USPS mail delivery truck which is what the IG was sampling yesterday and today is what the Postal Service has characterized to us as current mail. It is not sampling other categories of 

mail. 

The CHAIRMAN. And you mentioned the loop, 20 percent of the 

mail is in the loop. Is that what—— 

Mr. BLACK. I am not sure of the exact percentage, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. EAGEN. Mr. Chairman, just to supplement in terms of the 

Members’ offices in terms of the statistics you were referring to, I 

think that there are probably three explanations for what a Member sees. 

36

For example, I have statistics for Mr. Hoyer’s office for yesterday 

for what your mail was; and we have three mail deliveries in the 

morning. In the first delivery, you got six pieces of mail: Four were 

April postmarks; one was November; one was January. In the midmorning delivery, you got 11 letters: Ten were April postmarks; one 

was January. Then, in the afternoon, the 2:30 delivery, you got a 

total of nine items: Five were April postmarks, three were December, and one was October. 

What we are seeing on our side of things, I have three reasons 

for delays. 

Mr. HOYER. The October guy is really ticked at me. 

Mr. EAGEN. Probably. 

One is, as I explained in my testimony, we consciously brought 

the mail back to campus in phases. We did so for security reasons, 

and we did so for capacity reasons. 

Again, the Ford mail room was lost. P Street facility is still 

closed. We sent a proposal to the committee on November 9, 3 

weeks after the anthrax, for leasing of a new facility in Capitol 

Heights, but that was an empty warehouse. We had to rebuild all 

the capacity inside that building. So we brought it back in phases. 

The last phase of approval was for Postal Service packages on 

March 24, a little over a month ago. There is naturally a backlog 

built up behind that both for the Postal Service who was holding 

it for us and then when we received those trailers, and we have 

been working that backlog off. 

Secondly, there are categories of items where we made a conscious decision, in consultation with personnel of the committee 

and talking to Member offices, items like old magazines and periodicals, people said we are not in a rush to get those. Make the priority the current stuff, the current first-class mail. So in some 

cases, especially with regard to old periodicals and magazines, we 

have been feeding those in over time. So that would sometimes 

identify when a Member gets older things. We have been feeding 

those in slowly, instead prioritizing the first-class mail. 

Our statistics are showing, from what the Postal Service is saying, current mail there is a portion of that mail that has significantly old postmarks in some cases, and I can’t offer an explanation for that. 

The CHAIRMAN. I just wanted to—I got two perfectly addressed 

letters here, and they are to Jeff Janas, and they are here in the 

Longworth building. One is postmarked December 12, the other is 

February 5, and they came in May 3. So also I looked down in our 

office, our personal office and have been watching the postmarks, 

and it was pretty consistent. It might have changed this week. 

But last week, if mail came in, it was the 18th of—I think it was 

March, and I received it last Friday. It was consistently—the next 

day was the 19th of March. It was consistently 1 month. So, somewhere along the line, we see the backlogs, but it can’t be done if 

this is coming in. I mean, I got these two letters perfectly marked. 

So if it is a misdelivery, that would be a problem. And I think that 

is what Members are seeing. So when does the backlog get cleared 

up? 

We also stopped using the Ohio—Lima facility, I was told, 

around the 11th of April. I was told we were stopping using the 

37

Ohio facility and we are using the New Jersey facility because 

there was no backlog. Can anybody answer that? 

Mr. HOYER. Before they answer, let me make an observation. I 

am just told in our office this morning we got two 2001 letters, 

whatever. They were perfectly addressed. I think there is a question pending. I just added to the example. 

The CHAIRMAN. And the bar codes aren’t blacked out. They do 

that for loop mail—and these aren’t blackened out, which meant 

that they work. So any Members—— 

Mr. HOYER. Both letters were in the same position. 

Mr. DAVIS. I think repetition is important here, because it demonstrates the magnitude and consistency. This is a letter that came 

in from December and appropriately addressed. This shows the 

level of confidence that people have in writing to us. I have seen 

your statistics as to how the mail has dwindled, and if I were writing out there—writing to my representative, I wouldn’t have much 

confidence in how much impact the mail is going to have; and that 

is something that is difficult to cure over time. So my question, 

which they have asked as well, is, is there anything we are not 

doing that we could be doing to take care of this backlog of that 

type of mail, and are there any tools we need to give to you that 

you don’t already have that would help you do more with respect 

to the backlog? 

The CHAIRMAN. Anybody like to answer that? Any volunteers? 

Mr. EAGEN. I guess I want to be clear with regards to the House. 

As far as the House is concerned, we don’t have a backlog. 

The CHAIRMAN. When you say we don’t have a backlog, what 

does that mean? 

Mr. EAGEN. We are processing the current first-class mail right 

into the 4.7 day cycle. 

The CHAIRMAN. Once you receive it. 

Mr. EAGEN. Once we receive it. That is the current State of the 

House mail operations for first-class mail and flats. 

The CHAIRMAN. Just to make this clear, no matter what the date 

was that you received it—in other words, if you received this and 

the date was December 12 and you received it, this took 4 days to 

cycle to us is what you are saying? 

Mr. EAGEN. Yes. 

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Mr. Chairman, before you receive it, does it go 

through like a 10-day sanitation cycle or something? Is that in 

there? 

Mr. EAGEN. Not at the House. 

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Before—all the mail, before it gets into your 4.7 

day cycle, goes through a very prolonged process as well, right? 

And that is how many days? 

Mr. BLACK. It adds 4 to 7 days. So we could safely say it adds 

10 days to the process. 

Mr. DOOLITTLE. So 10 days plus 4.7. 

Mr. BLACK. Right. 

Mr. FATTAH. Mr. Chairman, as the ranking Democrat on postal 

affairs, this is a subject matter of which I am familiar. 

I want to make one thing clear, because I heard a number of the 

comments, and I know what my colleagues are talking about, and 

I don’t want it to be mischaracterized. None of us want you to do 

38

anything that would not provide safe and safety to the Members 

and staff here, notwithstanding any impatience about the delivery 

of the mail; and I want to compliment all that has been done, both 

internally and through the U.S. Postal Service, of what has been 

a major concern in terms of the anthrax situation. 

But the issues in relationship to mail delivery to these ZIP Codes 

here in D.C. are complicated issues. I think what you are saying 

to us is that, in terms of once the—once we get possession of the 

mail here, that you are delivering it within the timetable. The 

question is what the Post Office is doing in terms of your timetable; 

and if you are saying it adds 10 days, is that with the closing of 

the Ohio facility? Does that shorten the time, lengthen the time? 

And are there other things we can do to help expedite it? 

But, again, none of this is a desire for you to cut any corners, 

because I would rather not get any of the mail if it was going to 

jeopardize my staff, colleagues and their health. I am sure I speak 

for all of my colleagues that that is not—we are not trying to push 

for corners to be cut. To the degree that people can send us a letter, 

hopefully, in a way in which, you know, it is safe and that you can 

get it to us in a reasonable amount of time. 

I just wanted to put that on the record because I didn’t want the 

press to misconstrue the comments that are taking place by the 

chairman and ranking member and others about your concerns. 

The CHAIRMAN. I have got a couple of questions, and I will yield 

to the rest of the members. I also want to follow back with this, 

and we want obviously safety for your staff, our staff of the House. 

I think we are trying to, in my mind, trying to get down to a point. 

The question I wanted to ask—to get, that is, in the most ideal 

situation—and I know we have one facility irradiating now. If I 

mail today from my home in St. Clairsville, Ohio, to myself in the 

Capitol, what is the maximum amount of time, going through the 

normal, safe process, that I will get that letter? And I would like 

to hear from both of you. 

Mr. BLACK. From the Postal Service’s viewpoint or standpoint, 

we are saying 7 to 10 days. Now that letter from Ohio would go 

in our logistics network and be delivered to the Washington, D.C., 

area. In the Washington, D.C., area, we are massing the mail for 

ZIP Codes 202 to 205 to be sent to Bridgeport, New Jersey, for 

sanitization. So those trucks are leaving Monday through Friday, 

taking mail to Bridgeport to be irradiated.

The process is adding—I believe Ohio would be in our 2-day 

standard. So it would be 2 days anyway. So we think that—what 

we are saying is that the addition is a day here, a day to get to 

Bridgeport, a day back process; and then we turn it over to the 

House mail unit. 

The CHAIRMAN. And then that adds 4.7 days. 

Mr. EAGEN. That has been our track record to date. 

Factor in, of course, that there are no mail deliveries in the 

House on Saturdays and Sundays. So there is another potential 2 

days that are going to be factored in, depending on when that cycle 

hits. 

The CHAIRMAN. The mail is all delivered by truck. It is not flown, 

correct? 

Mr. BLACK. Correct. 

39

The CHAIRMAN. The costs of flying would be prohibitive, I would 

assume. 

Then let me ask another question. If we brought an irradiation 

machine here off-site somewhere, how many days would that process take if I mailed a letter from Ohio to myself here? 

Mr. BLACK. Theoretically, it would cut out our transportation or 

the bulk of our transportation time, so it would probably shave a 

day to 2 days off the process. 

The CHAIRMAN. So we would still look then—a day to 2 days. We 

would still be looking at 8 days and your 4.7. 

And, correct me if I am wrong, what I am hearing is that, no 

matter what we do, if we put that machine across the street, we 

are going to have 8 to 10 days—no, we are going to have 12 days 

to get our mail, is that a correct assumption, no matter what we 

do ? 

Mr. EAGEN. I think there is opportunity, but it is months—if not 

a year—away. The scientists and research folks are telling us that 

they think there is good reason to believe that the sampling that 

presently—the test that takes 72 hours could be cut to 24 hours, 

but that is not immediately at hand. 

The CHAIRMAN. Now with digitization, though, as I understand 

it in talking to several companies, at least five or six, that mail 

could be taken from Brentwood, delivered to the digitization company, and that mail could be up within a 2-day period, I guess, safe 

to say, on-line for members to access, as I understand it. That is 

one of the reasons, I think, at least from my perspective, we need 

to look at that as a 2-day service. 

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Would you yield for a question? 

So under the digitization proposal, they wouldn’t go through all 

this sanitation process? 

Mr. BLACK. It would. It would still—at least our plan is now that 

mail would go through the irradiation process of the Postal Service. 

The CHAIRMAN. Let me ask this question: If the company says, 

give me the mail, give me the mail. You don’t have to do anything 

with it. We will take care of it at our end. And they would have 

something safe and secure, because they obviously don’t want to 

have their employees or their business go under. Now if that happened, then that is direct mail delivery, if that scenario is possible. 

Otherwise, you would have to still irradiate the mail and give it 

to a company to digitize. You would still be looking at about 11 

days, I guess. 

Are you done? 

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Yes. 

Mr. DAVIS. There is just one cost factor to that. Of course, the 

Postal Service is encumbering the cost of the irradiation, and if we 

were to pay for that the House would have to cover that part of 

the process. 

The CHAIRMAN. If we gave it to a digital company. 

Mr. EAGEN. Yes. Assuming that they would do the sterilization 

before they digitized it. 

The CHAIRMAN. It would be in the cost of—— 

Mr. EAGEN. Exactly. 

The CHAIRMAN. Right now, the Post Office is encumbering the irradiation. You don’t want to bill us. 

40

Mr. BLACK. We would like to. 

Mr. DAVIS. I just want to go back to what I was describing as 

the backlog issue, to be more specific. It seems to me there is some 

mail, and it is still happening, that I would describe as 2001 mail. 

Christmas cards are probably the best illustration. And I just want 

to understand from you all where does that bottleneck exist? Is 

part of the process at the United States Postal Service? Is it here, 

Jay, inside the House Office Building? Are we doing everything we 

can possibly do to get this December, 2001, mail and the like into 

our hands as quickly as possible and do you have all the tools you 

need to do that? 

Mr. EAGEN. Yes, I do think we do have the tools. 

Again, as I explained earlier, there is a portion of mail that, because of the policies that we have adopted, came to us in large bulk 

quantities. At this point in time, that is almost exclusively packages and periodicals. First-class mail is now current at the House, 

and the portion—there is a portion that comes in that is described 

as current mail that has those kinds of postmarks on it. 

Mr. DAVIS. Well, that is my question. With respect to this big 

quantity of mail that is sitting out there, which is not entirely—

some of which is first-class mail, what is the process we are using 

for getting that into the offices as quickly as possible? Because, obviously, it is still coming in, and it is dribbling and drabbling in. 

Mr. FATTAH. Would the gentleman yield? 

The CHAIRMAN. This was just handed to us. This was from Congressman Charles Taylor, who is chairman, as you know, of the Appropriations Subcommittee; and these are just an entire batch he 

just received. These are from his district, and they are dated February and December, and they were in the mail today. 

Mr. FATTAH. If I understand, you are just saying that when the 

mail gets here in the House, it is current in terms of the 4-day delivery time frame. Now when you get it, it could be 6 months old, 

but you are delivering it within 4.7 days, right? 

Mr. EAGEN. I am saying that the trucks that come to us on a 

daily basis from the Postal Service are described to us as current 

mail. 

Mr. FATTAH. And you are getting it to members under 5 days 

under your current scenario, but it has nothing to do when the 

mail was actually sent. This goes to the fact that it could be mail 

from a very long time ago, depending on how long it was in the system. But it is not a problem with the House. It may be a problem 

with the Postal Service. But in terms of the House and the Chief 

Administrative Office, you are delivering it at a current pace, except for these old periodicals. 

Mr. EAGEN. Periodicals and packages. 

Mr. DAVIS. So I guess the question then is directed to Mr. Black 

of the United States Postal Service. Do you have a huge quantity 

of mail? We know how challenging your job is and you are still 

playing catch-up, that you are going through to get to Mr. Eagen 

and the House of Representatives—again, I am referring to these 

first-class letters of December. What is the process you are using 

from a timing standpoint and what can we do to help speed up that 

process? 

41

Mr. BLACK. Well, sir, the issue is—and being respectful to Mr. 

Eagen—is that 3 weeks ago we gave them 15 trailers of mail that 

dated back to January that we had sealed as early as January, 

which really put us in the heart of the dilemma that we are currently going through. I don’t think that our protocol was good 

enough that that mail was segregated, that it was only periodicals 

or only bulk business. I think that what we are going to find is that 

when those trailers are completely worked out and we get the rest 

of the Christmas cards and the October mail that is commingled 

in there and I think once we work through that, I think we are 

going to find a lot of this old mail is going to disappear. 

We currently have no backlog trailers at all in the Postal Service’ 

possession, and it is not—again, if you take that statement on face 

value, what it is saying is that what we get in today goes out 

today. Now the problem being is that the Office of Social Security 

discovers that they have got a container of mail that has been sitting in their basement for 6 months, they can reintroduce that mail 

back into the system. 

And they could have a container of mail that has been there for 

6 months that doesn’t belong to them because of some of the things 

you are seeing on the cards. 

Every letter that you see where they block out the bar code is 

a mistake. It is a mistake. And what we have to do, the only way—

because of the great strides we have made in automation with our 

equipment, there are fewer and fewer hands that touch the mail. 

So it is conceivable where our biggest mistake was in this entire 

process—early on we trusted everything to automation. So it is conceivable that in January, December, November, that a piece of mail 

could have been reradiated multiple times if a human being did not 

go through and catch that, and that is what we have concentrated 

on since March—the first of March, where we actually put people 

back in the process so we can go through. Every one you see 

crossed out is crossed out by a person who says this is loop mail 

that either misread on the automation, or it was directed to the 

wrong place. So we have concentrated on cutting down, but we can 

only do that if it is reintroduced back into the system. 

The CHAIRMAN. If I could just for one—this mail that I have got, 

Mr. Taylor’s and mine and yours, none of it is blackened out on the 

bar codes, and, I mean, I just wanted to stress that. If it was all 

blackened out, we would know it was—— 

Mr. BLACK. Right. 

Mr. HOYER. Jay, I understand it takes 4.7 days, of which 3 days 

or 2 plus days, very close to 3, is the airing out and detection process. 

Mr. EAGEN. Right. 

Mr. HOYER. If we treated the mail that was delivered to us from 

the post office as okay, how long would it take under those circumstances to get to the Member’s office? 

Mr. EAGEN. I would estimate 24 to 36 hours if you eliminated the 

sampling and testing process. 

Mr. HOYER. So we are looking at 1 to 1.5 days for in-house handling of mail, and the additional 3.2 days is attributable to airing 

out, testing at Fort Detrick and receiving, in effect, a clearance. 

42

Mr. EAGEN. Not airing it out, sir. The testing solely. It is sampled, put in quarantine until the lab results come back. 

Mr. HOYER. All right. Now, Mr. Black, I have talked to General 

Potter, and obviously one of the issues here is that we are receiving 

literally millions of pieces of mail. We have, of course, identified no 

anthrax, as I understand it, since October. Am I correct? 

Mr. BLACK. Correct. 

Mr. HOYER. So that we are incurring an extraordinarily high cost 

for, in effect, processing, sanitizing and testing clean mail? 

Mr. BLACK. Yes, sir. 

Mr. HOYER. Now, I agree with Mr. Fattah that it is very nice to 

say, you know, we have only got four letters, and they killed two 

people at the Postal Service, Mr. Curseen and Mr. Morris. And I 

want to say something. I was one of those—I don’t know how many 

of you did—went down to D.C. General Hospital with a lot of folks 

that were in line from the Postal Service from Brentwood waiting 

to get either advice and counsel or medication, and they showed extraordinary courage and resolve. I didn’t speak to one—and I must 

have spoken to over 100 people on 2 days that I visited down there 

and walked the line and talked to the doctors and talked to the 

medical personnel that were receiving them. I didn’t talk to anybody who said that they weren’t going to stay on the job with the 

Postal Service. They weren’t interested in going back to Brentwood 

obviously, and we weren’t letting them go back to Brentwood, but 

they were determined to do their jobs. 

In talking to General Potter, clearly if we can get to the technology that will detect prior to going through this entire process, 

that is where we want to get, so that we have, in other words, 

some technology. And some—you have some 300-odd central points, 

so we have got millions, so we couldn’t deploy the technology in the 

box or the slot. That would not be a practical way to do it. But it 

seems to me that the way ultimately we are going to have to get 

at this, assuming we continue to have mail, is to have a technology 

that detects at the input time as opposed to processing millions of 

pieces of mail that have not been found to have anything wrong 

with them. 

Can you tell me, Mr. Black—maybe you are not the proper person to answer this—but where we are on the quest for that detection technology and input as opposed to processing through the—

as I am sure most of the members of the committee, I don’t know 

whether it was Mr. Curseen or Mr. Morris, he was standing at a 

door away from the machinery. What we presume happened—am 

I correct, Mr. Black, that at the point in time the mail was 

squeezed, the spores came out? The door was opened, and there 

was an outdraft, and he was in the outdraft and obviously took a 

breath at this point in time. That is how estranged he was from 

the particular letter that was infected with the spores. 

So, I mean, obviously this is an extraordinarily virulent and dangerous material. So, Mr. Fattah is right. We all want to be careful 

for everybody who is working for us, and forget about the Members. 

You know, they take the risk, but I have got young people in my 

office who open mail, handle it and transmit it to me. 

But where are we on the technology of detection? 

43

Mr. BLACK. Well, unfortunately, Congressman, I am not the one 

to ask. 

Mr. HOYER. I presumed that—my pipeline to the postal gurus, of 

course, is sitting behind you, Mr. King. Mitch tries to keep all of 

us informed. I don’t know whether he has any information on that, 

but, Mr. Chairman, it seems to me that we really need to focus on 

the research dollars for detection capability, because if at the 38 or 

40 central centers from these millions of entry points can detect at 

that point in time what we presume is going to be an extraordinarily tiny, tiny percentage of possibly infected mail, we can handle 99.999 percent of the mail in a fashion that will get to that 24- 

to 36-hour turnaround at our facility and do the 2- or 3-day delivery of which Mr. Black talks. 

The postal department, Mr. Chairman, has gone from first class 

mail throughout the United States in the last 8 to 9 years from 

somewhere in the neighborhood of 65 to 80 percent on-time delivery to where now they are consistently throughout the country—

in my district they are 95 percent on-time delivery of first class 

mail. They have done an extraordinary job in facilitating the flow 

of mail in a timely fashion. This anthrax thing kicked everybody 

in the head, and so to get back to that extraordinary performance, 

we need to find out at the input level, not at the processing and 

output level, which is what we are now doing—at the input level, 

where the danger exists. 

I know you have got a note from Mitch King. 

Mr. BLACK. Right. And we could have Tom Day, our vice president of engineering. There are some pilots going on, and he would 

be the one that is knowledgeable enough to tell us how that is 

working. They are doing some testing. 

Mr. HOYER. Jay, and then I am going to let others have questions because I went on too long, but do you have any comment on 

that, and have we looked at that? I know it is postal department 

responsibility. And by the way, you talked about billing us. I frankly think it is the Federal Government’s responsibility, ladies and 

gentlemen, to make the postal department whole for the extraordinary cost that they have incurred, just as we made the airlines 

whole. You know, we did billions of dollars for the airlines. We 

need to make sure the postal department, through no fault of its 

own has incurred a very substantial cost, be reimbursed for that 

cost as, in effect, an act of terrorism that we are going to try and 

compensate them for. But, Jay, do you have a thought on that? 

Mr. EAGEN. The Senate and the House have both been participating in a task force that was established by the Office of Homeland Defense with the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and the Postal Service is a member of that. That was 

the group that certified the radiation as the processing solution, 

and that same group is remaining in place to look at the alternative science solutions in the hope of finding them both on the 

front end, the middle end and the back end. The challenge, 

though—just one challenge is—remember, we are looking for more 

than anthrax, and so that testing has to be capable of looking for 

more threats than just what happened before. 

The CHAIRMAN. The voting bells have been called, so I want Mr. 

Doolittle—— 

44

Mr. HOYER. I understand that, but detection has to be broader 

than anthrax. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Doolittle. 

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

So you are currently testing for more pathogens than just anthrax? 

Mr. EAGEN. That is correct. 

Mr. DOOLITTLE. How many more? 

Mr. EAGEN. As the chairman indicated, we are hesitant to say. 

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Okay. I will note, too, we are getting Christmas 

cards every other day still in our office. The zip code you mentioned, 2—— 

Mr. BLACK. 202 through 205. 

Mr. DOOLITTLE. That is the White House, executive branch, Congress and the judicial branch, right? 

Mr. BLACK. Yes, sir. 

Mr. DOOLITTLE. And, Mr. Eagen, the 4.7 days, you said some 1.3 

or something is due for further sampling of mail. Did I understand 

you to say that right? 

Mr. EAGEN. What I said was that it is 72 hours for the testing 

part of that, for the 5-day window. 

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Well, but the post office is doing all the sterilization. Are we doing this on top of what they are doing? 

Mr. EAGEN. That is correct. 

Mr. DOOLITTLE. And that is felt to be necessary? 

Mr. EAGEN. Yes, sir, it is, because, again, we are looking for multiple pathogens—— 

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Oh, all right. They are just doing it for anthrax, 

and you are—— 

Mr. EAGEN. Well, the radiation has been certified to sterilize 

against a number of biological threats, but in the case of anthrax 

and some others, it doesn’t remove it from the envelope. The powder would still be there. The question is whether that powder is 

dead or not. 

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Okay. You have a minute to talk about the 

charts? 

Mr. EAGEN. Yes, sir. 

Mr. DOOLITTLE. So looking at—I am looking at this one, average 

elapsed time between postmark date and delivery to House offices, 

and this is based on all of the mail. Or this is the sampling you 

have done? 

Mr. EAGEN. Sample. 

Mr. DOOLITTLE. And so you are saying that for mail received on 

May the 6th, that with the average day, the 23 days, right? 

Mr. EAGEN. Right. 

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Okay. May I just ask about the—and this has 

been a case for some time—don’t we get—each of our offices gets 

five mail deliveries a day, is that right, or more? 

Mr. EAGEN. Two deliveries and five pickups. 

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Two deliveries and five pickups. And the two deliveries, is that because we get new shipments in so that you are 

doing a second delivery to respond to that, or is it just because you 

have to do that to deal with the volume of mail? 

45

Mr. EAGEN. Well, we have different deliveries that are coming in, 

some from the Postal Service, some from UPS, some from Federal 

Express, so forth and so on. We also have stuff that is being processed through the sorting system all day long, so there is a volume 

to accommodate that. 

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Okay. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Mr. Davis. 

Mr. DAVIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Just one more time on the backlog. First class mail, December 

2001, what I understood you to say, Mr. Black, is that recently you 

delivered a massive quantity of such mail to Mr. Eagen. So I guess 

my question to you, when you said earlier that you are current 

with the first class mail, which is a real tribute to your efforts, does 

that exclude this backlog that was recently delivered to you of a 

massive quantity? 

Mr. EAGEN. We have three trailers sitting at the Southeast Federal Center. That is primarily packages and periodicals. 

Mr. DAVIS. Is there anything we can do to help you more expeditiously segregate the first class mail in that and get it into the offices as quickly as possible? 

Mr. EAGEN. Well, that is why we have been measuring the current deliveries. The current deliveries of first class mail go to our 

facility at Capitol Heights, and our understanding is that is the 

current mail stream, and we are giving that the first priority. So 

it already is segmented. 

Mr. DAVIS. But I am asking about the mail that has been sitting 

there for several months now. That is not—— 

Mr. EAGEN. There is nothing sitting in our possession for several 

months. 

Mr. DAVIS. Okay. Well, Mr. Chairman, there is a conflict here in 

the testimony that we need to pursue further about where this 

backlog is and what can be done on top of everything else that is 

being done. 

Mr. EAGEN. Of the three trailers that are sitting in the Southeast 

Federal Center, one of them was delivered the day before yesterday. 

The CHAIRMAN. But the other thing I would like to add here, and 

unfortunately we are running out of time, but I would—we did 

have it confirmed there were six trailers, and now we are told there 

are 15. So there are other conflicts we would like to—— 

Mr. HOYER. I just want to observe, on May 6th, as I understand 

the figures here, 29 of the approximately 290—a little less than 

290—no. About 290, or 10 percent, were pre-2001 or 2002. Now, if 

we receive between 15- and 18,000—I understand from Mr. Cable 

May 6th was a relatively light day. If that is the case, that means 

there are between 1,500 and 1,800 letters per day that are 2001. 

Now, this is obviously—every Member, therefore, has examples, 

and I think what Mr. Davis is trying to get at is where have they 

been, and where are they, and how do we get to them to get rid 

of at least those 2001? The fact that we have advised, I think, all 

our constituents that we are not receiving mail, if you sent us a 

communication and you didn’t get a response, e-mail or send another letter, do whatever, and actually we are having a lot of mail 

46

sent to alternative locations. I presume a lot of Members are doing 

that as well. But, Jay, I think that is the consternation you are 

hearing. Where are these 1,800 a day? You know, that is about 

10,000 a week. 

Mr. EAGEN. The statistics you are quoting, I understand, are the 

inspector general’s sample from Monday—— 

Mr. HOYER. Yes. 

Mr. EAGEN [continuing]. Of the Postal Service truck as the door 

was opened as it arrived at Capitol Heights, no storage on the part 

of the House. That was when the truck arrived at the House for 

delivery of first class and other mail items. 

Mr. HOYER. Right. It came from somewhere, right? It came from 

the Postal Service. 

The CHAIRMAN. And there were 3,000 pieces. 

Mr. HOYER. Where are these pieces? How do we—you say they 

are in the loop. Social security, you said, for instance, found some 

and put it back in the loop. Why in heaven’s name did Social Security hold onto it that long? 

Mr. BLACK. Mike, do you want to take that? 

Mr. CRONIN. Yes, Congressman Hoyer. What we found as we dug 

into this process is that a couple of things happened. There was a 

lot of confusion around the time that we closed the Brentwood facility, and I think that perhaps some of the mail rooms around the 

city were not aware of the fact there was a problem with the mail 

right away and continued to receive mail or to accumulate mail in 

their mail rooms. 

What we have seen over the last 6 months is that from time to 

time almost at random various agencies come to us and say, Postal 

Service, we have mail in our mail room that has been there since 

October or November. We would like to reinduct it in the system, 

even though you have delivered it to us, and make sure—because 

we don’t know if it has been irradiated or not, and we want to 

make sure it is safe. And that has been going on for a few months. 

So those events when they happen, I can understand how the 

downflow of that event would be—there would be a sprinkling of 

old dates to various addresses within the city, but I am only aware 

of one case where there was a very significant amount of this mail, 

other than the mail that we were retrieving from P Street during 

the period February and March to reinduct in this process. 

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Cronin, would you agree that 1,500 to 1,800 pre2002 letters coming to this—the House itself is a pretty large number of pieces of mail, particularly ones coming on a daily basis? We 

are talking about, you know, 7,500 to 10,000 a week. 

Mr. CRONIN. Yes, I would. And one of the things I noticed in the 

data, Congressman, is that, you know, we had such disparate results in the 2 days that—where we were comparing performance, 

we went from 121 days in one sample to something like 11 days 

on the next sample. It raised a question in my mind—and I am no 

statistician, but there is a question in my mind about how projectable those results are. 

Mr. HOYER. So you are saying this may not be an average, it may 

be an anomaly? 

Mr. CRONIN. I am suggesting it may be an anomaly, yeah. 

47

Mr. HOYER. However—and I know we have to go, Mr. Chairman. 

The problem with it being an anomaly is that so many people talk 

to Mr. Ney and I and other people on this committee who happen 

to be getting the anomaly, so it becomes relatively frequent incidents of an anomaly, and we really need to have, I think, Jay, with 

the post office and, Mr. Chairman, perhaps with the Speaker and 

Mr. Daschle urging every government agency through the executive 

department to make a search for any mail that may fall into this 

category, extricating it from its storage spot, getting it into this 

system, and getting this backlog, which is old mail—forget about 

when anybody receives it—old mail through the system and get us 

operating on April/May mail. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. We have to go for the vote, but we are going to 

be forwarding a series of questions we need to put together and to 

get a proper response so we can get to the bottom of the issues that 

were raised today that weren’t made clear. But we appreciate your 

testimony today. 

I ask unanimous consent the Members and witnesses have 7 legislative days to submit material into the record and the statements 

and the materials be entered at the appropriate place in the record. 

Without objection, material will be entered. 

I ask unanimous consent that the staff be authorized to make 

technical and conforming changes on all matters considered by the 

committee at today’s hearing. Without objection, so ordered. 

That will complete our business for today and the hearing on 

congressional mail delivery. The committee is adjourned. Thank 

you. 

[Whereupon, at 11:25 a.m., the committee was adjourned.]

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