Tom Carper

So the next 2 or 3 years you will continue that reduction.

Until very recently, I think the UAW employees of the domestic Big Three enjoy, I think, first dollar coverage, just really Cadillac coverage.

You say it pays on average 13 percent more than the Federal Government pays, provides for most of its employees?

The area that we identified in the statement is looking at the employer share of the employee--what the employer pays, the Postal Service, on behalf of its employees for their health care premiums, for current employees.

It has not gained traction.

In Delaware, we have a big incorporation business.

I will be anxious to see their new price filings when they come forward with the rate adjustments for May.

The Postal Service wants that as well. We will continue to talk in those areas.

I just want to say if you look in the auto industry, domestic auto industry, I think they actually have now more retirees than active employees.

What I really would like to hear from you on this question is what are some economic opportunities that the Commission has recognized, identified, that maybe should be pursued, or should be pursued somehow differently.

The 400 processing facilities we have, I understand that the nature of the work that goes on in those facilities has changed a good deal.

It is interesting. You closed 58 out of 59 air mail facilities and one out of, what, 400 processing facilities?

I want to ask you to come back to this a little bit more.

I think it could be useful, yes.

It is a little hard to understand at the end of the day how you got to a number like that.

You squeeze--let's say $6 billion out of what?

That was over, what, a couple of years?

I would just ask that the people you have work on this stuff, put that in their calculations.

I have heard from the car companies who have said we have the technology literally to put vehicles that use hydrogen out on the road--cars, trucks, vans--but we do not have the infrastructure in order to make it successful.

Let me just throw out an idea here. I am trying to be entrepreneurial and trying to think of ways that you could be more entrepreneurial.

One of the things that we are trying to do is to push money toward putting people to work.

I think Mr. Potter would--and he has argued here before--to point out, I think with some pride, the amount of costs that they have taken out of the system in this decade alone.

The 78 or 80 percent of costs that are represented by personnel, I am not going to ask how that compares with other service industries, but let me just ask: Is that a stable number?

How widely known are those options, Mr. Potter? Have you done any surveying on that to find out just how many people actually realize what their options are?

There are about half a million retirees right now?