“ Whether § 410 (a) exempts the Postal Service from APA review is in essence a question of whether Congress intended to allow a certain cause of action against the Postal Service. Whether a cause of action exists is not a question of jurisdiction, and may be assumed without being decided. ”

“ The monopoly was created by Congress as a revenue protection measure for the Postal Service vis-a-vis private competitors. Pursuant to a PES provision allowing it to suspend PES restrictions as to any mail route where the public interest so requires, the Postal Service issued a regulation authorizing a practice called "international remailing," which entails bypassing the Service and using private couriers to deposit with foreign postal services letters destined for foreign addresses. ”

“ The postal employees for whose benefit the Unions have brought suit here are not competitors of either the Postal Service or remailers. Employees have generally been denied standing to enforce competition laws because they lack competitive and direct injury. ”

“ Institute, supra, to allow the Unions in this case to leapfrog from their asserted protection under the labor-management provisions of the PRA to their claim on the merits under the PES. We decline to make that extension, and hold that the Unions do not have standing to challenge the Postal Service's suspension of the PES to permit private couriers to engage in international remailing. We therefore do not reach the merits of the Unions' claim that the suspension was not in the public interest. ”

“ When the first statutes limiting private carriage of letters on post roads were enacted in 1792, the Post Office offered no pickup or delivery services. See C. Scheele, A Short History of the Mail Service 66, 91 (1970) . Statutory authority to employ letter carriers was not enacted until two years later and was largely ignored until the late 1820's. ”

“ The PES enable the Service to fulfill its responsibilities to provide service to all communities at a uniform rate by preventing private couriers from competing selectively on the Service's most profitable routes. ”