The nation’s postmaster general says delivering mail six days a week may no longer be feasible for an agency facing deficits in the billions.

John E. Potter told a congressional panel Wednesday that cutting mail delivery by one day a week may be necessary to curb a projected loss of more than $6 billion for this fiscal year. He asked a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs subcommittee to lift the six-day delivery requirement mandated in 1983.

“It is possible that the cost of six-day delivery may simply prove to be unaffordable,” he said.

But the proposal was not well received by some subcommittee members.


“I am very disappointed that Postmaster Potter would come before the committee and advocate, as a potential solution to this economic crisis, the elimination of the requirement of six-day-a-week delivery,” said Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), ranking member of the Homeland Security committee.

Potter attributed the Postal Service’s $2.8 billion debt at the end of fiscal 2008 to decreased mail volume and higher costs. The service has been hit hard by an increase in e-mail usage. Mail volume dropped by 4.5%, or more than 9 billion items, last year, to about 202 billion items, according to the service.

But lawmakers aren’t convinced that reducing service days is the best solution.

“Rather than helping it recover, I believe cutting services would ultimately be a death spiral for the postal service,” because business would look elsewhere, Collins said.


“Cutting back the days of postal service should be a last, not first, option to keep the postal service afloat during these difficult economic times,” said a spokesperson for Sen. Thomas R. Carper (D-Del.), who is the subcommittee’s chair.

Potter also asked that Congress alter the postal service’s payment schedule for funding retiree health benefits, which he described as a “crippling cost burden.”

He said the agency had cut costs by freezing executives’ salaries, halting new construction and reducing its workforce by more than 120,000 employees since 2002.