WASHINGTON, DC — A four-year extension of the Breast Cancer Research (BCRS) semipostal stamp has been approved beyond Dec. 31, 2007.

Legislation passed recently by Congress and signed by President George W. Bush granted the extension.

Since the stamp first went on sale in 1998, the Postal Service has sold more than 802 million stamps, raising $59.5 million for breast cancer research.

Semipostal stamps are First-Class Mail postage stamps that are issued and sold by the Postal Service at a price above the First-Class Mail single-piece first-ounce rate to raise funds for designated causes.

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A self-supporting government enterprise, the U.S. Postal Service is the only delivery service that reaches every address in the nation, 151 million residences, businesses and Post Office Boxes. The Postal Service receives no tax dollars for operating expenses, and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to fund its operations. With 32,000 retail locations and the most frequently visited website in the federal government, usps.com, the Postal Service has annual revenue of more than $65 billion and delivers nearly 40 percent of the world’s mail. If it were a private sector company, the U.S. Postal Service would rank 35th in the 2011 Fortune 500. Black Enterprise and Hispanic Business magazines ranked the Postal Service as a leader in workforce diversity. The Postal Service has been named the Most Trusted Government Agency for six years and the sixth Most Trusted Business in the nation by the Ponemon Institute.

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