Senate Zip code changes would cause “irreparable harm,” postal chief says
The U.S. Postal Service says congressional efforts to mandate dozens of zip code changes would hurt financially and cause delivery problems for residents. The post Senate Zip code changes would cause “irreparable harm,” postal chief says appeared first on FreightWaves.
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A Senate bill moving to a final vote that would require the U. S. Postal Service to designate a single, unique Zip code for 83 communities will be expensive to implement and undermine cost controls at an organization that has lost $14. 7 billion in the past 21 months, Postmaster General David Steiner said on Friday.
The Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee endorsed the bill by a 10-3 vote on Thursday, setting the stage for a vote by the full Senate. Companion legislation passed the House of Representatives last year.
The legislation aims to address situations where residents in a town have split Zip codes, with some of them sharing a Zip code with an adjacent town. The lack of a uniform Zip code leads to misdelivered or delayed mail and slowed emergency response because drivers are confused about where to go, advocates argue.
Steiner urged Congress to reject Senate bill S. 4505l, saying it would cause “irreparable harm” to the Postal Service and customers. Having Congress mandate Zip code changes costs money and causes delivery problems.
A better solution, he added, is separate legislation passed by the committee that would create a pilot program to reform the process for Zip code modifications. It would require more explicit criteria, such as feasibility and impact studies, of address changes and a written rationale to local officials for rejected change requests. window.
googletag = window. googletag || {cmd: []}; googletag. cmd. push(function() {googletag. defineSlot('/21776187881/FW-Responsive-Main_Content-Slot1', [[300, 100], [320, 50], [728, 90], [468, 60]], 'div-gpt-ad-1709668545404-0'). defineSizeMapping(gptSizeMaps. banner1). addService(googletag. pubads()); googletag. pubads(). enableSingleRequest(); googletag.
pubads(). collapseEmptyDivs(); googletag. enableServices(); }); googletag. cmd. push(function() {googletag.
display('div-gpt-ad-1709668545404-0'); }); “In a calendar quarter where our 630,000 hard working men and women struggled and strived to improve performance by $600 million, with a single action, with the stroke of a pen, Congress proposed to give it all away for no good reason.
[… The Zip codes bill] will not only eliminate the $600 million improvement, it will further erode our performance as we estimate costs from the bill to be well over $800 million. It will also affect service, not only for these ZIP codes, but for the areas around those ZIP codes,” Steiner told the Postal Service board of governors during a meeting on Friday.
The USPS posted a fiscal third-quarter loss of $2. 5 billion, slicing $584 million in losses from the same period in 2025. “Even as the Postal Service takes one step forward, Congress imposes yet another money losing mandate that pushes us two steps back. This process has to stop,” Steiner said.
In a July 31 letter to Homeland Security Committee leaders, obtained by Axios, Steiner claimed that communities seeking Zip code changes are doing so for unrelated reasons, such as how their insurance rates are determined. He also argued that many unique Zip codes are not feasible due to community circumstances.
“This proposal will result in worse service for these communities and the surrounding towns, the forced relocation of clerks and letter carriers, and the closure or consolidation of Post Offices,” he wrote. S. 4505 was sponsored by Sen.
Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, who has worked for years to resolve the city of Urbandale’s Zip code boundary dispute, which she said has created challenges for local businesses and services.
New Hampshire’s Senate delegation supported the bill because residents in the neighborhood of North Swanzy complained their mail often went by mistake to addresses in neighboring Keene even though they live in Swanzy. Click here for more FreightWaves/American Shipper stories by Eric Kulisch. window. googletag = window. googletag || {cmd: []}; googletag. cmd.
push(function() {googletag. defineSlot('/21776187881/fw-responsive-main_content-slot3', [[728, 90], [468, 60], [320, 50], [300, 100]], 'div-gpt-ad-1665767553440-0'). defineSizeMapping(gptSizeMaps. banner1). addService(googletag. pubads()); googletag. pubads(). enableSingleRequest(); googletag. pubads(). collapseEmptyDivs(); googletag.
enableServices(); }); googletag. cmd. push(function() {googletag. display('div-gpt-ad-1665767553440-0'); }); Write to Eric Kulisch at ekulisch@freightwaves. com.
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