Official Mail (Penalty) — official mail sent by U.S. government agencies relating solely to the business of the U.S. government that is authorized by law to be carried in the mail without prepayment of postage. For this standard, agencies are departments, agencies, corporations, establishments, commissions, committees, and all officers and authorities of the U.S. government authorized to use penalty mail.
Simplified Address — mailpieces without individual names and addresses, using a simplified address of “Postal Customer,” for complete distribution to all postal customers within a Member’s congressional district. An alternative term for this is Every Door Direct Mail® (at Business Mail Entry Units).
Distribution of simplified address congressional mailings may be refined as follows:
- Complete distribution to each customer on a city route, rural route, highway contract route, or Post Office boxholder.
- Partial distribution to a delivery route when that route is split between congressional districts.
Saturation Price — price applied to saturation carrier route presorted mailings. Discounted “House Mailings” using the simplified address “Postal Customer” are eligible for the saturation price.
Priority Mail Open and Distribute® — a service that, for an additional charge, expedites the delivery of presorted Standard Mail items by providing Priority Mail® service to the Postal Service’s local sectional center facility (SCF) or the local Post Office of delivery, also known as the destination delivery unit (DDU).
Sectional Center Facility (SCF) — a Postal Service facility that serves as the processing and distribution center (PDC) for Post Offices in a designated geographic area as defined by the first three digits of the ZIP™ Codes of those offices. Some SCFs serve more than one 3–digit ZIP Code range. For example, SCF Northern Virginia is a facility serving the 3–digit ZIP Code prefixes 220—223.
