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Boozman And Pryor Approve Of Decision To Keep Saturday Mail Delivery

U.S. Postal Service

The U.S. Postal Service has dropped plans to end Saturday mail delivery this summer, due to a measure passed by Congress last month that barred U.S.P.S. officials from making such a move.

U.S. Senator Mark Pryor of Arkansas says efforts to curb mail delivery from six days a week to five would have hurt rural communities in the state.

“As a member of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, I’ve been battling with the Postal Service on this issue for some time,” Pryor said. “In a Senate bill, we had a provision that would have allowed [five-day delivery] to happen only under certain conditions in the out years. I thought that would be a much better way to handle change rather than just an abrupt end to Saturday service.”  

Senator John Boozman says it’s time for Congress to help the Postal Service reinvent itself.

“My state director always reminds me, when we talk about the post office, to remind people that everybody that is contacting us is either emailing us, or calling us on a cell phone, nobody is writing us a letter anymore,” said Boozman. “We’ve got to help [the Postal Service] get into this century, because the post office is something that many businesses and people still depend on.”    

The proposal to end Saturday service was supposed to take effect August 5 and would have saved the agency $2 billion. A government funding bill passed by the House in March required six-day Postal Service delivery for the rest of the fiscal year. Saturday service is expected to continue through at least September 30.

Malcolm Glover was a news anchor/ reporter for KUAR News from 2007- 2014.