# Plain Language Summary: Protect Postal Performance Act

This bill puts new restrictions on the U.S. Postal Service's ability to close post offices, consolidate mail processing facilities, and change mail pickup and delivery schedules. Essentially, it's designed to slow down or prevent the Postal Service from making operational changes that could affect mail delivery speed and local access to postal services.

The bill protects certain post offices from being closed or consolidated. Specifically, a post office cannot be shut down if it's the only one within 15 miles or if it's the closest post office serving 15,000 or more people. Before any post office closure, the Postal Service must hold a public hearing (which people can attend in person or online), publish a summary of what people said about it, and then wait 180 days before actually closing it. This gives communities time to voice concerns and potentially fight closures.

For mail processing facilities—the larger sorting and distribution centers that handle mail for entire regions—the bill requires the Postal Regulatory Commission (an independent agency that oversees the Postal Service) to review any proposed changes before they happen. If the commission determines that a change would slow down mail delivery, the Postal Service must publish a plan explaining how it will keep mail on time, and then wait another 180 days before implementing the change. The bill also prevents the Postal Service from closing processing facilities in regions that are already struggling to meet delivery deadlines, and it blocks the Postal Service from reducing how often mail is picked up or dropped off at post offices without getting approval from the regulatory commission first.