Lieberman Welcomes Appointment of Two
Connecticut Residents to Postal Commission
Nine-member
Commission to Investigate the US Postal Service
December
11, 2002
WASHINGTON- Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Joe
Lieberman (D-Conn)., Wednesday, welcomed two Connecticut
citizens - Yale University President Richard C. Levin and
PanAmSat President and CEO Joseph R. Wright - to a new
commission that will spend the next seven months looking for
ways to reform the U.S. Postal Service.
The nine-member Commission on the
United States Postal Service, appointed by the Bush
Administration, will examine Postal Service operations,
structure and finances to determine ways to maintain the
service’s viability in the face of stiff competition from
e-mail and financial setbacks revolving around last year’s
anthrax attacks through the mail. The Postal Service has not
turned a profit since 1999, due in part to a declining volume of
mail.
“The task of reforming the United
States Postal Service so that it can carry out its vital mission
in the future is a daunting one,” Lieberman said. “Recent
efforts to craft an approach that is acceptable to all sides
have resulted in disappointment.
However, the president has selected a number of
distinguished members for this new Commission and I am confident
that Dr. Levin and Mr. Wright will make innovative and positive
contributions, which I hope will ultimately lead to constructive
recommendations for the future of the Postal Service.”
Wright is
a former director of the Office of Management and Budget with
nearly 40 years of entrepreneurial, industry and government
experience. He directs PanAmSat’s global operations, including
strategic development, sales, marketing, regulatory affairs and
all financial issues associated with PanAmSat’s global
satellite services business.
Wright was OMB director under
President Reagan
from 1982 to 1989, serving in the Cabinet and the Executive
Office of the President. He was also deputy secretary of the
Department of Commerce from 1981 to 1982, and later was on the
President’s Export Council as chairman of the Export Control
Subcommittee.
Levin, a long time New Haven
resident, is a specialist in the economics of technological
change. He has also written about intellectual property rights,
the patent system, industrial research and development, and the
effects of antitrust and public regulation on private industry.
He has taught on microeconomics, industrial organization,
antitrust, the oil industry, the competitiveness of U.S.
manufacturing industries, and the history of economic thought.
He chaired the Yale economics department, and served as dean of
the graduate school. Levin received his bachelor's degree in
history from Stanford University in 1968 and studied politics
and philosophy at Oxford University, where he earned a B.Litt.
degree. In 1974 he received his Ph.D. in economics from Yale and
was named to the Yale faculty.
The co-chairmen of the new
commission are Republican Harry J. Pearce, chairman of Hughes
Electronics Corp. and a longtime General Motors executive, and
Democrat James A. Johnson, chairman of the board at the
Brookings Institution and a former head of Fannie Mae.
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