Federal Independent Agencies
Here's a look at documents from federal independent agencies
Featured Stories
SBA Relief Still Available to Texas Small Businesses and Private Nonprofits Affected by December Storms
WASHINGTON, Sept. 16 -- The Small Business Administration's Office of Disaster Assistance issued the following news release:
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SBA Relief Still Available to Texas Small Businesses and Private Nonprofits Affected by December Storms
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WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) is reminding small businesses and private nonprofit (PNP) organizations in Texas of the Oct. 16, 2025 deadline to apply for low interest federal disaster loans to offset economic losses caused by the severe storm, tornadoes and straight-line winds occurring Dec. 28, 2024.
The disaster declaration covers
... Show Full Article
WASHINGTON, Sept. 16 -- The Small Business Administration's Office of Disaster Assistance issued the following news release:
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SBA Relief Still Available to Texas Small Businesses and Private Nonprofits Affected by December Storms
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WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) is reminding small businesses and private nonprofit (PNP) organizations in Texas of the Oct. 16, 2025 deadline to apply for low interest federal disaster loans to offset economic losses caused by the severe storm, tornadoes and straight-line winds occurring Dec. 28, 2024.
The disaster declaration coversthe Texas counties of Brazoria, Fort Bend, Galveston, Grimes, Harris, Liberty, Matagorda, Montgomery, San Jacinto, Walker, Waller and Wharton.
Under this declaration, SBA's Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) program is available to small businesses, small agricultural cooperatives, nurseries, and PNPs including faith-based organizations impacted by financial losses directly related to the disaster. The SBA is unable to provide disaster loans to agricultural producers, farmers, or ranchers, except for small aquaculture enterprises.
EIDLs are available for working capital needs caused by the disaster and are available even if the small business did not suffer any physical damage. The loans may be used to pay fixed debts, payroll, accounts payable, and other bills not paid due to the disaster.
"SBA loans help eligible small businesses and private nonprofits cover operating expenses after a disaster, which is crucial for their recovery," said Chris Stallings, associate administrator of the Office of Disaster Recovery and Resilience at the SBA. "These loans not only help business owners get back on their feet but also play a key role in sustaining local economies in the aftermath of a disaster."
The loan amount can be up to $2 million with interest rates as low as 4% for small businesses and 3.625% for PNPs with terms up to 30 years. Interest does not accrue, and payments are not due until 12 months from the date of the first loan disbursement. The SBA sets loan amounts and terms based on each applicant's financial condition.
To apply online, visit sba.gov/disaster. Applicants may also call SBA's Customer Service Center at (800) 659-2955 or email disastercustomerservice@sba.gov for more information on SBA disaster assistance. For people who are deaf, hard of hearing, or have a speech disability, please dial 7-1-1 to access telecommunications relay services.
Submit completed loan applications to the SBA no later than Oct. 16. However, after the deadline has passed, there is a 60-day grace period in which SBA will accept applications.
About the U.S. Small Business Administration
The U.S. Small Business Administration helps power the American dream of business ownership. As the only go-to resource and voice for small businesses backed by the strength of the federal government, the SBA empowers entrepreneurs and small business owners with the resources and support they need to start, grow, expand their businesses, or recover from a declared disaster. It delivers services through an extensive network of SBA field offices and partnerships with public and private organizations. To learn more, visit www.sba.gov.
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Original text here: https://www.sba.gov/article/2025/09/16/sba-relief-still-available-texas-small-businesses-private-nonprofits-affected-december-storms
Religious Freedom in Kazakhstan Remains Poor Despite Government Claims
WASHINGTON, Sept. 16 -- The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom issued the following news release:
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Religious Freedom in Kazakhstan Remains Poor Despite Government Claims
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Washington, DC - The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) released the following report on Kazakhstan:
Kazakhstan Country Update \- In June 2025, a USCIRF delegation traveled to Kazakhstan to meet with civil society and government officials to discuss religious freedom conditions. USCIRF found that religious freedom conditions in Kazakhstan remain poor. The government maintains
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WASHINGTON, Sept. 16 -- The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom issued the following news release:
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Religious Freedom in Kazakhstan Remains Poor Despite Government Claims
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Washington, DC - The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) released the following report on Kazakhstan:
Kazakhstan Country Update \- In June 2025, a USCIRF delegation traveled to Kazakhstan to meet with civil society and government officials to discuss religious freedom conditions. USCIRF found that religious freedom conditions in Kazakhstan remain poor. The government maintainsa series of laws that restrict religious freedom, including the religion and extremism laws. This legislative framework permits local authorities to arbitrarily target religious minority communities, particularly non-Islamic groups. To distract from such religious freedom violations, the Kazakh government heavily invests in interfaith cooperation efforts. This country update provides an overview of the legal framework regulating religion in Kazakhstan, an update on violations impacting independent Muslims and minority religious groups, and an analysis of the government's interreligious dialogue efforts.
In its 2025 Annual Report, USCIRF recommended Kazakhstan for inclusion on the U.S. Department of State's Special Watch List for engaging in systematic and ongoing violations of religious freedom. In September 2025, USCIRF held a hearing on laws impacting religious freedom conditions in Central Asia, including Kazakhstan.
The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) is an independent, bipartisan legislative branch agency established by the U.S. Congress to monitor, analyze, and report on religious freedom abroad. USCIRF makes foreign policy recommendations to the President, the Secretary of State, and Congress intended to deter religious persecution and promote freedom of religion and belief. To interview a Commissioner, please contact USCIRF at media@uscirf.gov.
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Original text here: https://www.uscirf.gov/release-statements/religious-freedom-kazakhstan-remains-poor-despite-government-claims
NASA Analysis Shows Sun's Activity Ramping Up
PASADENA, California, Sept. 16 (TNSres) -- NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory issued the following news:
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NASA Analysis Shows Sun's Activity Ramping Up
It looked like the Sun was heading toward a historic lull in activity. That trend flipped in 2008, according to new research.
The Sun has become increasingly active since 2008, a new NASA study shows. Solar activity is known to fluctuate in cycles of 11 years, but there are longer-term variations that can last decades. Case in point: Since the 1980s, the amount of solar activity had been steadily decreasing all the way up to 2008, when solar
... Show Full Article
PASADENA, California, Sept. 16 (TNSres) -- NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory issued the following news:
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NASA Analysis Shows Sun's Activity Ramping Up
It looked like the Sun was heading toward a historic lull in activity. That trend flipped in 2008, according to new research.
The Sun has become increasingly active since 2008, a new NASA study shows. Solar activity is known to fluctuate in cycles of 11 years, but there are longer-term variations that can last decades. Case in point: Since the 1980s, the amount of solar activity had been steadily decreasing all the way up to 2008, when solaractivity was the weakest on record. At that point, scientists expected the Sun to be entering a period of historically low activity.
But then the Sun reversed course and started to become increasingly active, as documented in the study (https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/adf3a6), which appears in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. It's a trend that researchers said could lead to an uptick in space weather events, such as solar storms, flares, and coronal mass ejections.
"All signs were pointing to the Sun going into a prolonged phase of low activity," said Jamie Jasinski of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, lead author of the new study. "So it was a surprise to see that trend reversed. The Sun is slowly waking up."
The earliest recorded tracking of solar activity began in the early 1600s, when astronomers, including Galileo, counted sunspots and documented their changes. Sunspots are cooler, darker regions on the Sun's surface that are produced by a concentration of magnetic field lines. Areas with sunspots are often associated with higher solar activity, such as solar flares, which are intense bursts of radiation, and coronal mass ejections, which are huge bubbles of plasma that erupt from the Sun's surface and streak across the solar system.
NASA scientists track these space weather events because they can affect spacecraft, astronauts' safety, radio communications, GPS, and even power grids on Earth. Space weather predictions are critical for supporting the spacecraft and astronauts of NASA's Artemis campaign, as understanding the space environment is a vital part of mitigating astronaut exposure to space radiation.
Launching no earlier than Sept. 23, NASA's IMAP (Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe) and Carruthers Geocorona Observatory missions, as well as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's SWFO-L1 (Space Weather Follow On-Lagrange 1) mission, will provide new space weather research and observations that will help to drive future efforts at the Moon, Mars, and beyond.
Solar activity affects the magnetic fields of planets throughout the solar system. As the solar wind -- a stream of charged particles flowing from the Sun -- and other solar activity increase, the Sun's influence expands and compresses magnetospheres, which serve as protective bubbles of planets with magnetic cores and magnetic fields, including Earth. These protective bubbles are important for shielding planets from the jets of plasma that stream out from the Sun in the solar wind.
Over the centuries that people have been studying solar activity, the quietest times were a three-decade stretch from 1645 to 1715 and a four-decade stretch from 1790 to 1830. "We don't really know why the Sun went through a 40-year minimum starting in 1790," Jasinski said. "The longer-term trends are a lot less predictable and are something we don't completely understand yet."
In the two-and-a-half decades leading up to 2008, sunspots and the solar wind decreased so much that researchers expected the "deep solar minimum" of 2008 to mark the start of a new historic low-activity time in the Sun's recent history.
"But then the trend of declining solar wind ended, and since then plasma and magnetic field parameters have steadily been increasing," said Jasinski, who led the analysis of heliospheric data publicly available in a platform called OMNIWeb Plus, run by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
The data Jasinski and colleagues mined for the study came from a broad collection of NASA missions. Two primary sources -- ACE (Advanced Composition Explorer) and the Wind mission -- launched in the 1990s and have been providing data on solar activity like plasma and energetic particles flowing from the Sun toward Earth. The spacecraft belong to a fleet of NASA Heliophysics Division missions designed to study the Sun's influence on space, Earth, and other planets.
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Original text here: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-analysis-shows-suns-activity-ramping-up/
Inter-American Development Bank: 'Social Pensions and Intimate Partner Violence Against Older Women'
WASHINGTON, Sept. 16 (TNSLrpt) -- The Inter-American Development Bank issued the following white paper in September 2025 by Cristina Belles-Obrero, Giulia La Mattina, and Han Ye entitled "Social Pensions and Intimate Partner Violence against Older Women."
Here are excerpts:
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Abstract
The prevalence and determinants of intimate partner violence (IPV) among older women are understudied. This paper documents that the incidence of IPV remains high at old ages and provides the first evidence of the impact of access to income on IPV for older women.
We leverage a Mexican reform that lowered
... Show Full Article
WASHINGTON, Sept. 16 (TNSLrpt) -- The Inter-American Development Bank issued the following white paper in September 2025 by Cristina Belles-Obrero, Giulia La Mattina, and Han Ye entitled "Social Pensions and Intimate Partner Violence against Older Women."
Here are excerpts:
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Abstract
The prevalence and determinants of intimate partner violence (IPV) among older women are understudied. This paper documents that the incidence of IPV remains high at old ages and provides the first evidence of the impact of access to income on IPV for older women.
We leverage a Mexican reform that loweredthe eligibility age for a non-contributory pension and a difference-in-differences approach. Women's eligibility for the pension increases their probability of being subjected to economic, psychological, and physical/sexual IPV. In contrast, we show that IPV does not increase when men become eligible. Looking at potential mechanisms, we find suggestive evidence that men use violence as a tool to control women's resources. Additionally, women reduce paid employment after becoming eligible for the pension, which may indicate that they spend more time at home, leading to greater exposure to potentially violent partners.
Introduction
Globally, one in six people aged 60 and above has experienced some form of abuse in the past year (Yon et al., 2017). The incidence, prevalence, and complexity of elder abuse are projected to increase as many countries are facing rapid population aging (Sethi et al., 2011). Nonetheless, violence against older people remains severely understudied, partly because of a lack of data. In particular, very little is known about the prevalence or determinants of intimate partner violence (IPV) for women of post-reproductive age. The implications of existing studies of IPV against prime-age women might not necessarily help combat violence against older women, who may face unique challenges and barriers to recognizing, reporting, and seeking help for abuse.
This paper addresses these gaps by documenting the prevalence of IPV beyond reproductive age and by providing the first evidence of the impact of women's access to income in old age on IPV.
We show that in 2016 in Mexico, the country studied in this paper, 7.06% of women aged 50-79 with a current partner have reported experiencing physical or sexual IPV within the past 12 months, which is comparable to the 8.35% of women aged 15-49 who reported similar experiences. The incidence of other forms of IPV is even higher: 22.55% of women aged 50-79 are subjected to psychological IPV, and 10.25% of them are victims of economic abuse inflicted by their partner.
To understand the effect of exogenous changes in women's income on IPV, we investigate whether social pensions that aim to improve the standards of living of the elderly may also inadvertently affect IPV against older women.
A growing number of Latin American countries have recently introduced or expanded noncontributory (social) pensions, which are an important social protection tool in settings with high labor informality. In particular, due to the large gender coverage gaps in old-age pensions, social pensions are an effective tool to reach women in old-age poverty (UN, 2015). While a growing body of literature studies the impact of social pensions on consumption, retirement, poverty, and health, the extant literature does not speak to the impact of social pensions on IPV. On the one hand, additional household income could reduce IPV by reducing stress and triggering events (Heath et al., 2020). On the other hand, social pensions could lead to an unintended increase in IPV, as additional income received by women may bolster their economic autonomy and strengthen their agency within households, prompting male partners to use IPV as an instrument to extract resources or reduce women's bargaining power (e.g. Angelucci, 2008; Bobonis et al., 2013; Erten and Keskin, 2018). Therefore, the effect of pensions on IPV predicted by theory is ambiguous, and an empirical investigation is needed to shed light on this issue.
To estimate the causal impact of women's eligibility for social pensions on IPV, we leverage the expansion of a non-contributory pension program in Mexico. Several features of this program make it an ideal natural experiment to study this question. First, the reform lowered the eligibility age for the non-contributory pension from 70 to 65 in 2013, which allows us to estimate the plausibly exogenous variation in pension eligibility across age groups and over time using a Difference-in-Differences (DID) approach. Second, the amount of transfer is non-trivial. Beneficiaries received a permanent, stable cash transfer of 1,160 Mexican pesos bimonthly (580 per month on average), approximately 50% of their monthly per capita income. This newly found and steady income stream could persistently shift women's economic status within the household.
Third, the research setting offers a rare opportunity to investigate IPV among older women, thanks to data availability. We take advantage of a large Mexican household survey that asks questions about the experiences of IPV to women aged 15 and older, unlike most reproductive health surveys that only include women up to 49 years old. Fourth, Mexico is a relevant country for studying IPV against older women because the incidence of IPV is high in Mexico. Based on 2011 Mexican data, which were collected before the reform, 21.57% of women over 60 had been victims of any form of IPV in the past year, including physical, psychological, economic, and sexual abuse.
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View full text here: https://publications.iadb.org/publications/english/document/Social-Pensions-and-Intimate-Partner-Violence-against-Older-Women.pdf
[Category: IADB]
Inter-American Development Bank: 'Arepas Are Not Tacos: On the Labor Markets of Latin America'
WASHINGTON, Sept. 16 (TNSLrpt) -- The Inter-American Development Bank issued the following white paper in August 2025 by Maria Aristizabal-Ramirez, Cezar Santos, and Alejandra Torres entitled "Arepas Are Not Tacos: On the Labor Markets of Latin America."
Here are excerpts:
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Abstract
This paper examines labor markets across Latin American countries and documents large differences in labor market outcomes across these countries. Using comparable data for eight countries, we show that unemployment and informality act as substitute states and cluster countries into high-unemployment or high-informality
... Show Full Article
WASHINGTON, Sept. 16 (TNSLrpt) -- The Inter-American Development Bank issued the following white paper in August 2025 by Maria Aristizabal-Ramirez, Cezar Santos, and Alejandra Torres entitled "Arepas Are Not Tacos: On the Labor Markets of Latin America."
Here are excerpts:
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Abstract
This paper examines labor markets across Latin American countries and documents large differences in labor market outcomes across these countries. Using comparable data for eight countries, we show that unemployment and informality act as substitute states and cluster countries into high-unemployment or high-informalitygroups.
Labor market transitions vary systematically across these groups and help explain differences in employment dynamics. Embedding country-specific transitions in a simple model, we show that these differences have meaningful macroeconomic implications: countries with more volatile labor markets exhibit higher asset accumulation and greater consumption inequality. Moreover, heterogeneity in labor market transitions produces different effects on how taxation influences savings and inequality.
Introduction
Developing economies tend to have larger informal sectors than developed ones (Ulyssea, 2020), exhibit higher labor market flows (Donovan et al., 2023), and experience greater unemployment in countries with stronger unemployment protection (Feng et al., 2024).
Given this, how similar are labor markets within emerging economies? This paper focuses on Latin America and shows that, despite broad similarities, there are striking differences in labor market stocks and transitions across countries in the region. We provide a set of comparable labor market statistics to illuminate the specific features of Latin American labor markets and demonstrate that these differences matter for macroeconomic outcomes.
We provide the first systematic evidence that labor markets in the region fall into two distinct types--high unemployment or high informality--a contrast that, while sometimes implied in prior discussions, has not been explicitly established in the literature. In other words, informality and unemployment appear to be substitute states, and differences in these stocks are not solely explained by GDP. The predominance of one over the other seems to be related to preferences for institutional compliance and to how binding the minimum wage is. Second, we document country-specific labor market transitions and show that this classification (high-unemployment versus high-informality) helps explain how workers move into and out of employment. Finally, we use a simple model calibrated to the observed transition rates to show that these labor market differences have important aggregate implications for asset accumulation and consumption inequality.
We begin by constructing a comprehensive dataset of labor market variables from 2012 to 2019 using household surveys from eight countries: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico, and Paraguay. We adopt a unified definition of informality, classifying workers as informal if they are employed but do not report their status to social security or tax authorities. Under this definition, informal workers can be either wage workers or self-employed. An examination of average unemployment and informality rates reveals striking cross-country differences: unemployment ranges from 3% in Mexico to 14% in Brazil, while informality ranges from 15% in Chile to 80% in Bolivia. To systematically analyze these differences, we place countries in a two-dimensional matrix of unemployment and informality rates. We document that countries cluster into two main groups: Group I includes those with high unemployment and relatively low informality (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica), while Group IV comprises countries with low unemployment and high informality (Bolivia, Ecuador, Mexico, Paraguay). Unemployment and informality are negatively correlated even after controlling for a broad set of institutional variables, suggesting that they are substitute states. Beyond differences in development, we find suggestive evidence that this substitutability is related to preferences for institutional compliance and to how binding the minimum wage is.
We also analyze labor market transitions across formal employment, informal employment, and unemployment. The patterns of these transitions differ across the highunemployment and high-informality country groups. First, formal employment is more persistent in high-unemployment countries. Second, after losing a formal job, workers in high-unemployment countries are more likely to transition into unemployment, whereas in high-informality countries they tend to move into informal employment. Third, informality tends to be short-lived in high-unemployment countries, while unemployment is short-lived in high-informality countries. Fourth, the formal and informal sectors appear more segmented in high-unemployment countries than in high-informality ones.
To assess the macroeconomic relevance of labor market transitions, we perform a series of counterfactual exercises using Brazil as a benchmark. By replacing Brazil's transition rates with those of Mexico and Paraguay--two countries with similar informality but lower unemployment--we show that even modest changes in transition rates can substantially alter steady-state informality and unemployment rates. We then embed these transition matrices into a simple model of precautionary savings and find that countryspecific transitions have important implications for asset accumulation and consumption inequality. While Brazil's volatile labor market induces high savings and high consumption dispersion, Mexico's shorter unemployment spells reduce both. Paraguay, despite sharing broad features with Mexico, exhibits greater segmentation between formal and informal sectors, leading to intermediate levels of savings and consumption inequality.
Finally, we use the model to implement a stylized tax experiment. We impose different levels of labor income taxation with revenues rebated as lump sum transfers. When Brazilian workers face Mexico's labor market transitions, asset accumulation becomes more sensitive to tax rates, and inequality responds less to redistribution. In contrast, Brazil's own transitions result in flatter asset responses and a larger decline in consumption inequality, with Paraguay's case lying between the two. These results show the importance of accounting for country-specific labor transitions when evaluating the macroeconomic effects of policy.
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View full text here: https://publications.iadb.org/publications/english/document/Arepas-Are-Not-Tacos-On-the-Labor-Markets-of-Latin-America.pdf
[Category: IADB]
EPA Proposes Renewable Fuel Standards Supplemental Rule, Addresses Small Refinery Exemptions
WASHINGTON, Sept. 16 -- The Environmental Protection Agency issued the following news release:
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EPA Proposes Renewable Fuel Standards Supplemental Rule, Addresses Small Refinery Exemptions
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WASHINGTON - Today, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is issuing a supplemental notice of proposed rulemaking (SNPRM) that revises the proposed Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) "Set 2" renewable volume requirements (RVOs) for 2026 and 2027 to account for the small refinery exemption (SRE) decisions issued on August 22, 2025. This proposal is an important step in the EPA's tireless work to repair
... Show Full Article
WASHINGTON, Sept. 16 -- The Environmental Protection Agency issued the following news release:
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EPA Proposes Renewable Fuel Standards Supplemental Rule, Addresses Small Refinery Exemptions
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WASHINGTON - Today, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is issuing a supplemental notice of proposed rulemaking (SNPRM) that revises the proposed Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) "Set 2" renewable volume requirements (RVOs) for 2026 and 2027 to account for the small refinery exemption (SRE) decisions issued on August 22, 2025. This proposal is an important step in the EPA's tireless work to repairthe damage done after four years of the Biden-Harris Administration neglecting key components of the RFS program, including threats to transform the RFS program into a subsidy for electric vehicle charging stations as part of a larger strategy to electrify the transportation sector. The Trump Administration reaffirms its renewed commitment to honor the program's purpose to support biofuels as an essential part of a thriving liquid fuels market.
The SNPRM seeks to balance the goals of the RFS program in supporting the production and use of renewable fuels while taking into account economic impacts, following the law, and ensuring opportunity for public comment. Under President Trump, EPA continues to restore the RFS program to align with Congressional directives and give American businesses and rural economies the certainty they need to thrive, all while using homegrown American biofuels.
Specifically, the SNPRM considers how SREs for compliance years 2023 - 2025 will be accounted for when establishing the RVOs in the "Set 2" final rule. EPA is co-proposing two approaches:
1\. Additional volumes accounting for 100 percent of the 2023 - 2025 exempted RVOs.
2\. Additional volumes accounting for 50 percent of the 2023 - 2025 exempted RVOs.
EPA is also taking comments on SRE reallocation volumes equal to other amounts.
The SRE decisions issued on August 22, 2025, exempted significant volumes of gasoline and diesel for the 2023 and 2024 compliance years, resulting in an increased number of RINs available for obligated parties to use for compliance. EPA also expects additional exemptions to be granted for the 2025 compliance year. The ability for obligated parties to use these RINs to comply with the 2026 and 2027 RVOs is expected to impact demand for renewable fuel if not carefully considered.
Upon publication in the Federal Register, EPA will hold a public hearing followed by a 30-day public comment period. More information about the comment period and public hearing can be found at the Proposed Renewable Fuel Standards for 2026 and 2027: Supplemental Notice webpage Exit EPA's website. EPA recognizes the importance of issuing one final Set 2 rule that establishes the RVOs for 2026 and 2027 and addresses the reallocation of SREs from 2023 - 2025 in these years.
Background
In June, EPA announced a major step forward to strengthen American energy security and support American farmers by proposing RFS volume requirements for 2026 and 2027. The comment period for the proposed rule closed on August 8, 2025. EPA is currently reviewing the comments submitted on the "Set 2" proposed rule and working on a final regulation.
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Original text here: https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-proposes-renewable-fuel-standards-supplemental-rule-addresses-small-refinery
250 years of mail delivery, no matter the distance
WASHINGTON, Sept. 16 -- The U.S. Postal Service issued the following news release:
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250 years of mail delivery, no matter the distance
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WASHINGTON -- From the busiest cities to the most remote locations, the U.S. Postal Service has been delivering mail and connecting the nation for 250 years.
Throughout its history, the Postal Service has used various forms of transportation to ensure customers receive their mail and packages. Some delivery routes are served by more traditional means -- vehicles and walking -- while others are served by less conventional methods such as dog sleds, boats,
... Show Full Article
WASHINGTON, Sept. 16 -- The U.S. Postal Service issued the following news release:
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250 years of mail delivery, no matter the distance
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WASHINGTON -- From the busiest cities to the most remote locations, the U.S. Postal Service has been delivering mail and connecting the nation for 250 years.
Throughout its history, the Postal Service has used various forms of transportation to ensure customers receive their mail and packages. Some delivery routes are served by more traditional means -- vehicles and walking -- while others are served by less conventional methods such as dog sleds, boats,donkeys, and bicycles. No matter the transportation choice, the delivery routes all have one thing in common: dedicated mail carriers.
Postal Geography
What began as a handful of routes crisscrossing the United States has grown into a network of more than 234,000 delivery routes encompassing all 50 states, the District of Columbia and the five major U.S. territories -- Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands and American Samoa.
To operate more efficiently, the Postal Service organized the nation into four geographic regions -- Atlantic, Central, Southern (including Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands), and WestPac (Western and Pacific states as well as Guam, Northern Mariana Islands and American Samoa). The states and territories within the four regions are divided into 50 districts. Some states are combined to form one district (for example, Kentucky-West Virginia) while other states are divided into multiple districts (such as California, which has six districts).
Longest Route in the Nation
The longest round trip route in the nation is in Idaho-Montana-Oregon District, in the town of Sidney, MT. This town of more than 6,000 residents is less than 10 miles from the North Dakota border. The letter carrier drives 195 miles every day, delivering mail to 305 mailboxes.
Notable Long Routes
Other long routes delivered include:
* Atlantic Area :
* Maryland District : The small town of Accident in western Maryland is home to the state's longest route. Rural Carrier Paula Artice travels 95 miles and serves 416 mailboxes on her route.
* New York 3 District : The route served by the Addison Post Office encompasses 120 miles serving 404 mailboxes.
* North Carolina District : The longest route checks in at 119 miles in Lansing.
* Central Area :
* Illinois 2 District (western Illinois, near the Missouri border): Pleasant Hill, IL, Rural Carrier John Springer drives 146 miles to deliver to 385 mailboxes, serving 985 residents.
* Kentucky-West Virginia District: The longest route is in Grayson, KY. Rural Carrier Jolene Kees travels 135 miles and serves 479 mailboxes a day.
* Ohio 1 District : This route starts and ends in Cadiz. Rural Carrier Nicole Cox drives 111 miles to deliver to 356 mailboxes. The route includes two ZIP Codes in two counties, and Cox switches between ZIP Codes 11 times during delivery.
* Southern Area :
* Arkansas-Oklahoma District : The Mangum, OK, route is 183 miles long, delivering to 277 mailboxes.
* Louisiana District: The longest route can be found in Arcadia. It spans 164 miles and serves 279 mailboxes.
* Texas 3 District (includes San Antonio, Austin, El Paso): The longest route can be found in Abernathy. The carrier delivers to 219 mailboxes and drives 123 miles each day.
* WestPac Area :
* Arizona-New Mexico District : The Grady, NM, route is 149 miles.
* California 5 District (includes Los Angeles and Orange County): The route serving Los Angeles is not long in terms of distance but because of density, the route for ZIP Code 90046 delivers to 34,434 addresses.
* Hawaii District : The route served by the Barrigada Post Office in Guam is 68 miles, delivering to more than 1,000 mailboxes.The Barrigada Post Office is the westernmost Post Office in the USPS network.
There are dozens more lengthy routes served by the Postal Service to be found in each state or U.S. territory. For information or interviews about the locations listed above, or to inquire about the routes in other locations, contact your local Corporate Communications representative. All local/state media contact information is available in our online newsroom.
The United States Postal Service is an independent federal establishment, mandated to be self-financing and to serve every American community through the affordable, reliable and secure delivery of mail and packages to nearly 169 million addresses six and often seven days a week. Overseen by a bipartisan Board of Governors, the Postal Service is implementing a 10-year transformation plan, Delivering for America, to modernize the postal network, restore long-term financial sustainability, dramatically improve service across all mail and shipping categories, and maintain the organization as one of America's most valued and trusted brands.
The Postal Service generally receives no tax dollars for operating expenses and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to fund its operations.
For USPS media resources, including broadcast-quality video and audio and photo stills, visit the USPS Newsroom. Follow us on X, formerly known as Twitter; Facebook ; Instagram ; Pinterest ; Threads and LinkedIn. Subscribe to the USPS YouTube Channel. For more information about the Postal Service, visit usps.com and facts.usps.com.
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Original text here: https://about.usps.com/newsroom/national-releases/2025/0916-delivering-the-long-and-winding-roads.htm
