Law360, New York (May 07, 2012, 3:19 PM ET) — Northrop Grumman Corp. on Friday sued the federal government for allegedly breaching an $874 million U.S. Postal Service contract by improperly delaying and disrupting the company’s work to install machines that help sort mail.

The company says that since the Postal Service awarded the fixed-price contract for the Flats Sequencing System, a huge system of machines that sort flat mail such as envelopes, it has hampered the project by continually altering and updating its requests for how the project should proceed.

More: Northrop Grumman Sues Over $874M Postal Service Contract – Law360.

In late April, the Senate approved an important bill to reform the U.S. Postal Service. Though the bill was not perfect, it makes important changes to help the Postal Service adapt and thrive in the 21st century. And it includes an amendment that I helped write that I believe will help protect postal facilities in Michigan and across the nation from unjustified closures.

There is little doubt that change is necessary; the Postal Service faces an extraordinary financial challenge, and it must make changes to take into account a new reality in which physical mail has in many cases been replaced by electronic communication.

But in making these necessary reforms, we must ensure that all the American people can continue to rely on the United States Postal Service to provide universal service, as it has since our nation’s founding. And we must ensure that in making changes, any reduction in facilities and personnel yields real cost savings to the Postal Service that outweigh the loss in service. Many communities in Michigan, large and small, urban and rural, are concerned that closures proposed by the Postal Service will degrade the service on which Michiganians depend. Read the rest of this entry »