Mark Wilcox/Daily Mining Gazette The Houghton post office seen in this Feb. 1, 2026 photo. Rep. Jack Bergman has joined a bi-partisan caucus asking the USPS to reverse a decision involving postmark policy.

WASHINGTON — According to a press release issued Friday from Rep. Jack Bergman’s (R-Watersmeet) office, on Jan.31, co-chairs of the bipartisan Congressional Postal Service Caucus led eight members of Congress in a letter to Postmaster General David P. Steiner, demanding that he reverse a new policy in which a postmark will no longer reflect the date that someone originally mailed a letter. As a result of the Regional Transportation Optimization (RTO) plan, USPS can no longer reliably postmark mail on the day it is sent.

The letter is signed by Bergman and representatives from Illinois, New Hampshire, Washington, California, New York, Massachusetts, Texas and Virginia. The release says the lawmakers emphasized this change would harm Americans impacted by existing mail delays, make it harder for law enforcement to investigate and deter crime and fraud committed via mail, and undermine the ability of the Postal Service to accurately postmark letters and packages on the day they were sent by the customer. This will be especially harmful to Americans from rural areas where the Postal Service’s RTO plan has already slowed outgoing mail.

“As Members of the Congressional Postal Service Caucus,” states a release from U.S. Representative Nikki Budzinki (D-IL), “we are writing regarding the Postal Service’s December 24, 2025, final rule clarifying that a postmark will no longer reflect the date a Postal Service customer originally mailed a letter. We are concerned about how this rule clarification coupled with the delays stemming from the Regional Transportation Optimization Plan (RTO) may affect delivery of time-sensitive mail, and the ability of the Postal Service, law enforcement to effectively investigate and deter crime and fraud committed via mail, and the integrity of the United States Postal Service.”

On Jan. 2, the USPS released a statement through its newsroom, saying the Postal Service has not changed and is not changing it postmarking practices, which have been consistent since it began moving away from hand-canceling every item at Post Offices decades ago.

“Postmarks are generally applied by machines at our originating processing facilities and will continue to be applied at those facilities in the same manner and to the same extent as before,” the USPS release states. “Postmarks applied at those facilities will continue to contain the name or location of the facility that applied the postmark and the date on which the first automated processing operation was performed on that mailpiece.”

The USPS goes on to say that customers have used postmarking for their own purposes, but postmarking is not and has not been a service that the Postal Service has provided to the public for such purposes. The postmark has always fundamentally existed to perform functions (including cancelation of postage) internal to Postal Service operations.

Customers who wish to obtain a postmark aligning with the date of mailing may request a manual (local) postmark at a retail location. Customers who wish to retain a record or proof of the date on which the Postal Service first accepted possession of their mailpiece(s) may purchase a Certificate of Mailing. Registered Mail and Certified Mail services also provide mailing receipts for individual mailpieces.

The USPS announcement does not appear to have appeased caucus members.

“As Members of the Postal Service Caucus,” the signed letter states, “we remain concerned that the full implementation of the RTO plan will exacerbate postmark delays for rural communities that rely on timely service from the United States Postal Service. For these reasons, we ask that the RTO plan be reversed until the Postal Service can assure customers across the country that they will not experience delayed postmarking on time-sensitive mail simply because they do not live within 50 miles of an RP&DC (Regional Processing and Distribution Centers).”