Private Express Statutes
Open-knowledge reference entry
The Private Express Statutes (PES) are a group of United States federal civil and criminal laws placing various restrictions on the carriage and delivery of letters by all organizations other than the United States Postal Service.
History
The United States Congress originally passed the PES in 1792, under powers granted it in the United States Constitution to "establish Post Offices and Post Roads." The PES granted the government the power for the carriage and delivery of letter mail. Today the USPS is empowered to suspend the PES, if it believes such a private postal service would be in the interests of the general public.
The PES consists of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1693–1696 and 39 U.S.C. §§ 601–606, implemented under 39 Code of Federal Regulations Parts 310 and 320. These restrict the carriage and delivery of letter mail by private organizations, except as described in the next section. The PES only cover "letters" and not other mailable items such as parcels or periodicals.
Exceptions
"Extremely urgent" letters
In 1979 the Postal Service authorized the delivery of extremely urgent letters outside the USPS; this has given rise to delivery services such as FedEx and UPS's express mail services. Records of pick up and delivery must be maintained for Postal Service inspection if the time sensitive exception is being used.
Lawful private carriage
It is possible to set up a private mail delivery service known as "lawful private carriage" if the USPS postage is paid in addition to any private postage fee that is collected. Records must be maintained that such postage has been paid, and it must be affixed to the letter cover by U.S. stamps, meter imprints or through another method approved by the USPS; the postage must be canceled by the sender in ink; the date of mailing must be affixed in ink to the cover (either by sender or carrier); and the letter cannot be removed without defacing the cover from the envelope or other container in which the letter is sent.
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This entry incorporates text from “Private Express Statutes” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.