[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 91 (Wednesday, June 27, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Page S6996]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. ENZI:
  S. 1110. A bill to require that the area of a zip code number shall 
be located entirely within a State, and for other purposes; to the 
Committee on Governmental Affairs.
  Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I rise to announce the introduction of a 
bill that would help preserve the identity of American communities that 
have struggled with the United States Postal Service to acquire their 
own, individual zip codes. The bill would do this by prohibiting the 
Postal Service from extending zip codes across State boundaries.
  This bill was introduced in response to concerns raised by the 
community of Alta, WY. Alta is a small, rural town situated next to the 
Wyoming-Idaho border at the western base of the Grand Teton Mountains. 
Because of treacherous travel conditions to the east of Alta, the 
Postal Service made the decision to serve Alta residents out of the 
post office in neighboring Driggs, ID. Alta is isolated from other 
parts of Wyoming and it simply would be too dangerous to require the 
Postal Service to cross the Teton mountain range in the winter to 
deliver mail to Alta. In providing this service, however, the post 
office has not provided Alta residents their own zip code at the Driggs 
post office, but has required them to use the Driggs zip code even 
though Alta residents live in an entirely different State.
  While this may not seem like a big deal on its face, there are a 
number of technical complications that arise in the lives of Alta 
residents because the Postal Service has not been willing to extend the 
courtesy of an Alta zip code.
  By requiring Alta residents to use the Driggs zip code, the Postal 
Service has created a lot of confusion for Alta residents who attempt 
to conduct business with mail order companies. What sales tax do they 
pay? Idaho or Wyoming? Although the Postal Service maintains that zip 
codes are not used to identify specific locations, other companies use 
zip codes as an important location code that is necessary to adequately 
conduct their business. Sales tax is often programmed by zip code, so 
are car insurance rates, life insurance, homeowner's insurance, even 
our Federal and State income taxes use zip codes as an indicator of 
when and where to pay taxes.
  The requirements of this bill will not be onerous for the Postal 
Service to implement. It will not require the service to build new 
facilities or even to change its method of operations. All it will do 
is require the Postal Service to identify those communities whose mail 
service crosses State boundaries and to assign them the necessary 
identification number that they need to provide the rest of the world a 
clear and concise description of where they live and who they are.
  I urge my colleagues to support this most important legislation.
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