Court Opinion

ID: 9479765
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 07:28:36.969242+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:47:16.158330
License: Public Domain

*315RUTH BADER GINSBURG,
concurring:
While I concur in the court’s opinion, I write separately to highlight a disturbing facet of this case. The Postal Service, as the historical record confirms, initially sought to maintain tight restraints on international remailing by private carriers. See 50 Fed.Reg. 41462 (Oct. 10, 1985). Its effort to confine the practice encountered the concerted opposition of the business community and the Department of Justice. In a volte-face, the Service then devised a rule broadly permitting international remailing. I agree with my colleagues that the Service did not draw from the rulemaking record reasons adequate to justify its action. I emphasize, however, that the Service, in accounting for its action, did not home in on comments in the record emphasizing that international remailing is different from domestic mail service, and suggesting that private competition in the international remailing market can be cordoned off safely without opening the way for seriatim inroads on the Postal Service monopoly.1 On remand, the Service could focus its sights more precisely on the international/domestic mail delivery differential.
In finding that the public interest requirement was met in this case, the Service rested on “almost universally consistent ... observations” that remailing was faster and cost less than U.S. airmail. 51 Fed.Reg. 29636, 29637 (Aug. 20, 1986). These savings in time and cost, the Service found, “enhanced] the ability of American firms to compete abroad.” Id. In conclusion, the Service acknowledged comments favoring allowance of international remail-ing operations made by the Department of Commerce, the Department of Justice, and the Office of Management and Budget. Id. The Postal Service monopoly would quickly crumble, however, if the public interest required suspension of the Private Express Statutes whenever a private carrier could serve U.S. businesses faster and at a lower price. Commenters accordingly featured something more. Because international mail is distinct and separable from stateside postal operations, they reasoned, the international remailing permission at issue would leave intact the solid core of the monopoly decreed by Congress.
Commenters stressed this key point: the domestic monopoly leaves all mailers in the same boat, but extending that monopoly to the international arena put U.S. businesses at a marked disadvantage relative to their foreign competitors. See Joint Appendix (J.A.) at 124, 137, 138, 164. Commenters further observed that outgoing international mail imposes on the Postal Service far fewer capital and operational costs than does domestic mail. The Postal Service simply packages overseas missives and puts them on a ship or plane; a foreign postal service does the delivery work. There are no “small towns” to be served by the Postal Service at great cost. See J.A. at 143, 306, 373. The cost-of-service differential suggests that, in comparison to the domestic arena, a monopoly in the international domain is less vital to the Private Express Statutes’ goal of assuring universal, affordable service.
Similarly, and of special relevance to the union’s concerns, commenters noted that the Postal Service freight forwarding operation for international mail is not labor intensive; therefore, these commenters said, international remailers posed no large threat to postal jobs. J.A. at 149. Furthermore, comments emphasized the limited character of the service at stake: international remailers deal with bulk mailings for large business mailers. J.A. at 210.
In sum, the comments invited close attention to the question whether international mail should be distinguished from domestic mail in implementing legislation, the Private Express Statutes, designed to “bind the Nation together” through universal service at a uniform price. See J.A. at 305. That question could be pivotal in the fur*316ther examination this court has ordered.2

. The remailing service at issue raises no question under international mail reciprocity agreements, as counsel for appellants conceded at argument. But see Reply Brief of Plaintiffs-Appellants at 9. Foreign governments would not have the problem of dealing with multiple originating mail suppliers, for the remailers simply *316deposit the letters they carry in the mails of foreign postal administrations.

. Some commenters, most notably the Department of Justice, questioned whether Congress intended to grant the Postal Service a monopoly over international mail as well as domestic mail. See J.A. at 196-202; see also id. at 261, 395, 473, 516, 640. In view of the firm position of the Postal Service that the Private Express Statutes apply to international shipments of letters, see 51 Fed.Reg. 21929, 21930 (June 17, 1986), lower courts properly reserve this question for legislative clarification. See Chevron U.S.A. Inc. v. NRDC, 467 U.S. 837, 843, 104 S.Ct. 2778, 2781, 81 L.Ed.2d 694 (1984).