U.S Sen. Ted Stevens has convinced the U.S. Postal Service to ease up on cost increases that would have made living in rural Alaska far more expensive. There will still be increases. They will just be smaller.
The president of Alaska Commercial Co., which ships more food to the Bush than anyone, said the postal rates for bulk shipment of 1,000 pounds or more will rise about 12.5 percent. Stevens saved the Bush from rate increases of about 40 percent, company president Rex Wilhelm said.
"It's fantastic," he said.
Higher postal rates, including an increase for stamps from 39 to 41 cents, go into effect across the country Monday.
The Bush relies on a special postal program called bypass mail that allows some air package shipments a discounted rate. Under that program, someone sending multiple packages that add up to a pallet of at least 1,000 pounds can put postage on the packages and haul them straight to the airport, bypassing the post office. The packages must go to the same place, and each package can weigh no more than 70 pounds, said Wilhelm.
The system has kept grocery costs down in off-road villages in Interior, northern and western Alaska.
All well and good, but in 2001, the Postal Service instituted a new charge for what it called "nonmachinable" packages, or packages that don't fit the required size or shape to be handled by machines, said Wilhelm.
The surcharge applied to bypass mail, he said.
Until now.
Stevens announced Thursday that the U.S. Postmaster General has agreed to quit applying the extra charge to Alaska's bypass mail.
The decision came after weeks of meetings between Stevens and postal officials, Stevens' office said in a news release.
Stevens argued that the "nonmachinable" charge was inappropriate for bypass mail because the Post Office doesn't handle that mail. The U.S. Postmaster has now agreed.
Without the surcharge, the price for a 50-pound package will increase Monday from $10.95 to $12.39, said Stevens' office. If the surcharge were still in place, the rate would have risen to $15.26.
"I've had sleepless nights about this, it was such a huge increase," Wilhelm said.
