39 U.S.C. § 416 — Authority to issue semipostals

(a) Definitions A "semipostal" is a postage stamp the Postal Service issues and sells at a premium, to help fund a cause described in subsection (b). An "agency" means an Executive agency, as defined in 5 U.S.C. § 105. (b) Discretionary Authority The Postal Service can issue and sell semipostals to support causes it decides are in the national public interest and appropriate. (c) Rate of Postage The Governors (the Postal Service's governing board) set the semipostal's postage rate under their own regulations, instead of following the usual rate-setting procedures in chapter 36. The rate must equal the regular postage rate that would otherwise apply, plus a markup of at least 15 percent. Creating semipostals cannot change what regular postage rates or fees would otherwise have been. Using a semipostal is voluntary — no postal customer has to buy or use one. The special rate for one semipostal stamp must be an amount evenly divisible by 5. (d) Amounts Becoming Available (1) Money raised from selling a semipostal goes to the appropriate agency or agencies, under an arrangement the Postal Service works out by mutual agreement with each agency. (2) Deciding which causes and agencies qualify follows the regulations required under subsection (e). (3) The amount that becomes available is calculated the same way as under the older section 414(c)(2), as that section read on July 1, 2000. The regulations under (e) must specifically address how the Postal Service's own costs of running the program are calculated, recovered, and kept to a minimum. (4) Money from semipostal sales cannot be counted when deciding how much regular federal funding or appropriations an agency should get in any year. (5) Before sending any semipostal money to an agency, the Postal Service must first make sure it has recovered its own full costs of running that semipostal, through the end of the period covered. (e) Regulations (1) Except for the rate-setting rule in subsection (c), the Postal Service must write regulations to carry out this section, covering: which office or authority inside the Postal Service decides on causes and agencies; what criteria and process apply to those decisions; and any limits on issuing semipostals, such as whether more than one can be sold at the same time. (2) Before issuing a regulation, the Postal Service must publish the proposed rule in the Federal Register and give interested parties a chance to comment in writing, and orally where practical. All needed regulations must be finished at least 30 days before the first semipostal is made available to the public. (f) Annual Reports (1) The Postmaster General must include information about how the semipostal program is working in each report made under 39 U.S.C. § 2402, covering any period this section is in effect. (2) If a semipostal stops being offered during a report's period, that report must also state the dates its sales started and stopped, the total amount raised from it, and how much of that total went to administrative costs. For each earlier year, up until a semipostal stops being offered, the report must include those same amount and cost figures for that year. (g) Termination This entire section stops being effective 10 years after the date the first semipostal is made available to the public under it.