(The Center Square) – A bipartisan group of 26 U.S. senators from 17 states are urging leaders of the U.S. Postal Service to delay execution of its strategic plan.

“We call on you to pause planned changes to the U.S. Postal Service's processing and delivery network under the ‘Delivering for America' plan, until you request and receive a comprehensive Advisory Opinion from the Postal Regulatory Commission to fully study the potential impacts of these changes,” according to a letter signed by the Senators and addressed to Postmaster General Louis DeJoy and the Board of Governors.

Democratic Nevada Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto and Jacky Rosen signed the letter and highlighted ongoing demands to change the plan, made along with U.S. Rep. Mark Amodei, R-Nev. They highlighted planned changes to a facility in Reno, which will be downsized from a regional hub to a local center and its regional operations moved to Sacramento, Calif.

“We call on USPS to pause all changes, pending a full study of this plan by its regulator,” the letter stated. “While USPS claims these changes overall will improve service while reducing costs, there is evidence to the contrary in locations where USPS has implemented changes so far. USPS must stop implementation, restore service in those areas where changes were implemented, and fully understand the nationwide effects of its plan on service and communities.”

“Delivering For America,” a 60-page, 10-year plan published by USPS, states the organization is optimizing mail and packaging processing capabilities as it lost $87 billion during the last 14 years.

“The Plan's strategic initiatives are designed to reverse a projected $160 billion in losses over the next ten years by achieving break-even operating performance,” according to the publication.

Changes in how people use the Postal Service resulted in costly inefficiencies, according to the plan.

“Our processing network was originally designed to meet the demands of a robust, and ever-growing mail market,” the plan stated. “Similarly, our facilities were located geographically and set up operationally to facilitate the timely and efficient processing of mail. As mail volume has decreased, our machines and facilities have been left under-utilized, leaving us with a physical network infrastructure that does not correspond to the current and projected needs of our customers.”

In addition to the senators from Nevada, senators from Arizona, Colorado, Maine, Michigan, Montana, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Oregon, Tennessee, Texas, West Virginia and Wyoming also signed the letter. It highlighted problems associated with moving mail processing away from local communities and reductions in transporting mail, leaving mail sitting overnight in local offices.

“We are concerned about the impacts these changes have had so far, and the potential impacts that further changes could have,” the senators wrote. “In regions where USPS has implemented significant changes, on-time mail delivery has declined. In addition, it is not clear these changes will improve efficiency or costs. Despite these concerns, USPS has moved forward with announcing and approving additional facility changes across the country.”

(The Center Square) – West Virginia and Indiana are leading a group of 25 states asking for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to declare the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's new rule on coal, natural gas and oil power plants to be declared unlawful.

The new EPA rule will require coal and natural gas power plants to capture smokestack emissions or shutter.

“The EPA continues to not fully understand the direction from the Supreme Court—unelected bureaucrats continue their pursuit to legislate rather than rely on elected members of Congress for guidance,” West Virginia Attorney General Morrisey said. “This green new deal agenda the Biden administration continues to force onto the people is setting up the plants to fail and therefore shutter, altering the nation's already stretched grid.”

Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia and Wyoming are part of the lawsuit.

Morrisey and the attorneys general argue Congress did not give EPA the authority to create rules to remake the electricity grid and the rules are taking to make broad regulatory authority away from Congress.

West Virginia successfully fought EPA rules in front of the U.S. Supreme Court in 2022 as the court said the EPA should not use its regulatory authority to create broad new regulations with the Clean Air Act.

West Virginia, Indiana and others have continued to fight several other EPA proposals including the “Good Neighbor Plan” and the EPA's new rule on electric vehicles.

(The Center Square) – Republican U.S. senators introduced a bill that would ban student loan forgiveness for protestors convicted of a crime while protesting on U.S. college campuses.

The No Bailouts for Campus Criminals Act was filed by U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., with multiple cosponsors. The bill would prevent any college or university student who is convicted of any offense under federal or state law while protesting at a higher education institution from having their federal student loans forgiven, cancelled, waived or modified.

Despite the U.S. Supreme Court striking down President Joe Biden's student loan forgiveness program last June, his administration has proposed new student debt cancellation plans that could cost taxpayers up to $1.4 trillion, The Center Square reported.

The senators, who oppose Biden's plans, proposed the bill after widespread, anti-Semitic protests continue to occur on campuses nationwide resulting in violence against Jewish students and in-person instruction and graduations being canceled. In the past few weeks alone, hundreds of students nationwide have been arrested on charges ranging from disrupting the peace, criminal trespass, alleged hate crimes, and acts of violence.

“Americans who never went to college or responsibly paid off their debts shouldn't have to pay off other people's student loans. They especially shouldn't have to pay off the loans of Hamas sympathizers shutting down and defacing campuses,” Cotton said.

U.S. Rep. Brandon Williams, R-NY, who is sponsoring companion legislation in the House, said, “Violent campus protestors laughably demand respect, amnesty, and even takeout food. Our bicameral bill ensures that not one student protestor convicted of criminal offenses is bailed out by student loan forgiveness. Not one dime of taxpayer money will fund these criminals.”

No Democrats signed onto Cotton's bill. Republican cosponsors include Sens. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, Katie Britt of Alabama, Mike Crapo of Idaho, Ted Cruz of Texas, Steve Daines of Montana, Deb Fischer of Nebraska, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Josh Hawley of Missouri, Cindy Hyde-Smith and Roger Wicker of Mississippi, Roger Marshall of Kansas, James Risch of Idaho, Mitt Romney of Utah, Marco Rubio of Florida, Tim Scott of South Carolina, Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, and J.D. Vance of Ohio.

Cotton also led another delegation of 27 U.S. senators last month calling on the Departments of Justice and Education to immediately respond to the “outbreak of anti-Semitic, pro-terrorist mobs on college campuses.”

They called on the Department of Education and federal law enforcement “to restore order, prosecute the mobs who have perpetuated violence and threats against Jewish students, revoke the visas of all foreign nationals (such as exchange students) who have taken part in promoting terrorism, and hold accountable school administrators who have stood by instead of protecting their students,” The Center Square reported. At the time, the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights was currently investigating roughly 100 incidents at colleges and universities for alleged “discrimination involving shared ancestry” in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, The Center Square reported.

After the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attacks against Israel, antisemitism and violence escalated against Jews in America by nearly 400%, The Center Square reported. Since then, violence has increased on college campuses with leaders failing to stop it, another report found.

Hamas, the acronym for Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiya (Islamic Resistance Movement), was designated by the U.S. State Department as a foreign terrorist organization in 1997. “It is the largest and most capable militant group in the Palestinian territories and one of the territories' two major political parties,” according to the National Counterterrorism Center.

More than a dozen federal judges have pledged not to hire students from Columbia University after its leaders allowed pro-Hamas encampments on its property and chose to shut down in-person instruction and cancelled graduation. The judges said Columbia had become an “incubator of bigotry” against Jewish people, The Center Square reported.

Several Jewish groups have also sued Palestinian groups they argue are “collaborators and propagandists for Hamas.” Advocating for the death of Jews and committing violence against Jews is not protected speech under the First Amendment, they argue.

Cotton's bill was also filed after nearly all Ivy League universities received failing grades for antisemitism, The Center Square reported. They include Harvard, whose student group hosted a pro-Palestinian activist with ties to Hamas; Brown, which is considering divesting from Israel; and Yale, who's student paper's editor was stabbed in the eye by a pro-Hamas rioter.

According to The Center Square Voters' Voice Poll, only 2% of Americans surveyed said public universities should encourage students to oppose Israel; 32% said students advocating for the genocide of Jews at schools receiving taxpayer funding should be held accountable for their words and actions.