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House of Representatives Wants to Eliminate Paper Mail from Constituents
The U.S. House of Representatives is soliciting bids from vendors to digitize all incoming first class mail. Their goals are: • to “reduce vulnerabilities to the House and associated facilities when processing mail” (in other words, they want to reduce the risk of anthrax and other contaminants); In the bid request documents, the House admits that it takes about fifteen days from the time a letter from a constituent is postmarked until it is now delivered to their representative’s office. Ten of those days are used by the U.S. Postal Service to process the mail, then ship it from D.C. to New Jersey for irradiation, then return it. In-house processing, including air sampling and a quarantine period, takes an additional five days. This makes most “urgent” letters regarding upcoming votes completely obsolete, and increases the value of well-written e-mail messages as well as phone calls and faxes. The document also admits that the average daily inbound mail volume over the last thirty-two months is down 30%. No reason is given for this, but other forms of communication appear to have replaced mail (long before the anthrax threat became real). Current volume is 53,000 letters and flats per day, six days per week, with peak volumes of up to 100,000 per day. The pilot plan, which may run for as little as 30 days once it is developed, will include 50 member offices and 2 Committees. “The potential target population for digitized mail at full implementation includes all 400 Members, Committees and Subcommittees as well as Leadership, Officers and House Offices - Not to Exceed 700 Mail stops. The potential exists for an additional 900 District Offices to be included at some point in the future.” July 2002 Update Oct. 2002: A reader asked about the original source of this article. The solicitation for service was posted at the web site of the House "Chief Administrative Officer - Office of Procurement" which is http://www.house.gov/cao-opp/. The solicitation is no longer online, but its document name was RHIR2002079.pdf. | ||
