ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Alaska’s U.S. senators are among the bipartisan sponsors of an act that would severely hinder plans by the cash-strapped U.S. Postal Service to close post offices in many of the nation’s rural areas. The Protecting Rural Post Offices Act was introduced in the Senate Thursday.
Under the act, the Postal Service could not close any location which would leave the next closest post office more than 10 miles away, as measured on roads with year-round access. Sens. Mark Begich and Lisa Murkowski both sponsored it, along with Sens. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), Jon Tester, (D-Mon.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore).
In July the USPS announced that some 36 Alaska post offices, many in rural areas of the state, were on a list of 3,700 locations nationwide being studied for closure. After stiff opposition from Begich and Murkowski, postal officials -- who faced an $8 billion loss last year despite cutting 110,000 employees -- announced in September that 31 of the Alaska locations had been removed from the closure study list.
Both Begich and Murkowski commented Thursday on the importance of Alaska’s rural post offices to their customers.
“There’s no replacement in rural Alaska for the post office which is really a community center where locals get their medicine, groceries and other vital equipment,” Begich said in a joint statement issued by the act's sponsors. “We’re introducing this legislation because the Postal Service needs to be clear about the standards used to evaluate post offices. In many rural Alaska communities, year-round road access is as foreign a thought as an Arizona glacier or a piece of Oklahoma beach-front property.”
Begich, Murkowski Sponsor Act to Protect Rural Post Offices
“Alaska is a state of extremes -- extreme beauty, yes, but also extremely limited surface transportation options and extreme winters,” Murkowski said. “What is ten miles in the Lower 48 seems much further in feet of snow and minimal visibility. That’s why I am proud to join my fellow Senators in sponsoring a bipartisan bill to keep Alaskans extremely connected -- not just to typical mail, but to groceries, medicine and other supplies.”
In other comments on the act, Merkley noted that more than 80 percent of the Oregon post offices on the closure study list are more than 10 miles away from other post offices, while Moran said the Postal Regulatory Commission had found that maintaining rural post offices accounted for only 0.7 percent of the Postal Service’s budget.
The five Alaska post offices remaining on the Postal Service’s closure study list are all within 10 miles of other post offices. They include base post offices at Anchorage’s Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson and Fairbanks’ Fort Wainwright and Eielson Air Force Base, a Postal Store in Anchorage’s Fifth Avenue Mall and a post office on Douglas Island, across Gastineau Channel from Juneau.
