By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters] -The U.S. Senate overwhelmingly voted Tuesday to provide long-losing Postal Service with $50 billion over a decade of financial relief. It also requires its future retirees enroll in a government insurance plan.

The rare feat of bipartisanship in a divided Congress is the 79-19 vote. It follows the approval of the U.S House of Representatives’ bill in February, and it goes to President Joe Biden for signature.

USPS reported net losses exceeding $90 billion in 2007 despite increasing mail volume. It reported a $1.5 billion quarterly loss last month.

This bill will “ensure that this vital public service” can be “set on a course to financial sustainability long-term,” stated Senator Gary Peters. He is a Democrat and chair of the USPS committee.

Liz Shuler from AFL-CIO is the president of postal workers’ union. She said that this bill was the culmination “15 years” of effort to finance and strengthen USPS.

The bill has support from Amazon.com (NASDAQ):, Hallmark and the Greeting Cards Association.

Louis DeJoy, the Postmaster General of France, said that legislation will be combined with operational reforms to allow for “self-financing our operations” and enable them to continue delivering to 161 millions addresses six days a week for decades.

Some of the legislative financial reforms were proposed by Dejoy. His March 2021 reform plan includes legislative changes that will help to reduce the country’s financial losses of $160 billion over the next ten years.

In October, the USPS implemented new delivery standards that slow first-class mail deliveries. This move allowed USPS shift large amounts of air freight to surface transport, which in turn reduced costs.

The 2006 law that required USPS to pre-fund over $120 billion of pension and retiree liabilities, is one reason why the losses are so large.

New legislation eliminates USPS’s requirement to pre-fund retirement health benefits for retired and current employees. This is a federal obligation that no other business can meet. USPS estimates that it will reduce pre-funding liabilities and help save the agency approximately $27 billion in 10 years.

Future retirees must enroll in Medicare. 25% of post-retirees don’t enroll in Medicare, even though they may be eligible. This results in USPS paying more premiums than other companies. The USPS believes that the changes could help it save $22.6 billion in 10 years.

USPS will need to keep six days of mail delivered each week, develop an online performance dashboard per ZIP code and expand the special rates available for local newspaper distribution.