    [House Hearing, 109 Congress]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

       ACCESSIBILITY OF THE HOUSE COMPLEX FOR PERSONS WITH SPECIAL NEEDS

    =======================================================================

                                    HEARING

                                   before the

                       COMMITTEE ON HOUSE ADMINISTRATION
                            HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                           ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS

                                 FIRST SESSION

                                   __________

                 HEARING HELD IN WASHINGTON, DC, JULY 28, 2005

                                   __________

          Printed for the use of the Committee on House Administration

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                       COMMITTEE ON HOUSE ADMINISTRATION

                               BOB NEY, Chairman
    VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan           JUANITA MILLENDER-McDONALD,
    JOHN L. MICA, Florida                    California
    CANDICE MILLER, Michigan               Ranking Minority Member
    JOHN T. DOOLITTLE, California        ROBERT A. BRADY, Pennsylvania
    THOMAS M. REYNOLDS, New York         ZOE LOFGREN, California

                               Professional Staff

                         Paul Vinovich, Staff Director
                    George Shevlin, Minority Staff Director

       ACCESSIBILITY OF THE HOUSE COMPLEX FOR PERSONS WITH SPECIAL NEEDS

                                  ----------

                            Thursday, July 28, 2005

                              House of Representatives,
                             Committee on House Administration,
                                                       Washington, D.C.
        The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:05 a.m., in Room
    1310, Longworth, Hon. Robert W. Ney [chairman of the committee]
    presiding.
        Present: Representatives Ney, Ehlers, Millender-McDonald
    and Lofgren.
        Staff Present: David Duncan, Deputy Staff Director;
    Jennifer Mohtarez, Professional Staff Member; Michael Harrison,
    Minority Professional Staff Member; George F. Shevlin, Minority
    Staff Director; and Sterling Spriggs, Minority Tech Director.
        The Chairman. I want to welcome everyone today to the
    Committee on House Administration. We are holding an oversight
    hearing on the efforts to improve accessibility to the House
    complex. I want to thank our Ranking Member, Juanita Millender-
    McDonald, from California, for her interest, and also the staff
    on both sides of the aisle for the work, preparation, and
    interest they have on this issue. I would also like to thank
    our House officers who are here today, as well as our Chief of
    Police. And I appreciate their work, not just today, but over
    the years, to work with the issues.
        And again, this oversight hearing is on efforts to improve
    accessibility to the House complex for persons who have special
    needs.
        First we will hear from our good friend, Congressman
    Langevin. And our next panel will then include people
    responsible for accessibility here on the House side of the
    Capitol. We have Chief Gainer, Terrance Gainer, Chief of the
    Capitol Police; Alan Hantman, our Architect of the Capitol; and
    House Chief Administrative Officer, Jay Eagen.
        Our third and final panel consists of professionals from
    the private sector. They have experience in deploying common
    sense, rational solutions to improve accessibility.
        Before we get started with this hearing, I just want to
    make a few comments. After our recent evacuations, several
    folks came to us--Members, staff and persons that had a form of
    disability--and said that they had problems getting out of the
    buildings. I recognize the unique challenges we face while
    trying to evacuate over 40,000 people in the entire complex of
    Congress--House, Senate, and the Capitol proper--within a
    matter of minutes; this is a problem that we can't allow to
    continue. In the other hearing we had on the evacuation, some
    of these issues were raised. And this hearing is going to look
    at how we can go about solving the problems related to
    emergency evacuations. But the scope is a lot broader than
    that. We are also looking into the issue of getting into the
    buildings, getting around buildings, working here, visiting
    here, and communicating here.
        When we talk about accessibility, my perspective is that a
    facility isn't truly accessible unless it is accessible to
    everyone, especially an important institution like ours, where
    all people must be able to access their elected Representative
    on issues affecting the citizenry of the United States and,
    frankly, issues affecting people around the world. When
    constituents visit their Members, they should have an easy time
    in doing so, regardless of their relative abilities. That must
    be the manner in which the people's House operates.
        While our institution is unique in the functions and
    structures that house it, it is also full of rich architectural
    history. If we tore them down and started over, we obviously
    could make them more accessible and easier to use, but that is
    not a realistic approach to the problem. So we need to improve
    accessibility as much as possible, while trying to maintain the
    historical significant aspects of the building.
        The hearing today will provide an opportunity for the
    Committee to examine past and current efforts to improve the
    House's accessibility, but it will also provide an opportunity
    to identify creative solutions.
        Our final panel will provide insight into techniques and
    systems used elsewhere to address the continuing need for
    improvement and accessibility, and to give suggestions on how
    to apply these technologies and best practices to help us
    achieve our collective responsibility for safety and easy
    access for all visitors, Members and staff.
        And again, I want to thank our Ranking Member and members
    of the Committee that are here. We have two members that have
    joined us. And again, this is an important issue; it is an
    issue that Members want to deal with and have wanted to address
    over the years. And in some cases new Members' offices are just
    designed for years past, when unfortunately in our society this
    wasn't thought about; or frankly, if it was thought about,
    nobody really cared to do anything about it. Times have
    changed, thank goodness, in the United States: that is the
    purpose of our hearing.
        And with that, I will yield to our Ranking Member. Thank
    you.
        Ms. Millender-McDonald. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and good
    morning to all of you.
        First of all, I would like to thank you, Mr. Chairman, on
    the last evacuation, because I was right under your wings and
    you were able to provide me with information as to what was
    going on in terms of our having to evacuate. And so we thank
    you very much for that.
        Also, I would like to thank the Chief and the Capitol
    Police. I might add that though there are improvements to be
    made, there was a very smooth transition, especially as far as
    I am concerned, as we left the floor to leave the building. And
    so I thank all of those Capitol Police who were there and thank
    you for the improvements that have been made to date.
        Mr. Chairman, this is a very important hearing on the
    accessibility of the House complex for persons with special
    needs.
        This is a very timely hearing because this week marks the
    15th anniversary of passage of the Americans with Disabilities
    Act of 1990. Like several other laws, the ADA did not initially
    apply to the Congress. Only after the passage of the
    Congressional Accountability Act did Congressformally decide to
    comply with the ADA and make itself as accessible as possible for all
    members of our society. In retrospect, it seems incredible that
    Congress did not cover itself from the start, but it did not. This
    hearing will review the progress made toward that goal in the last
    decade.
        As we begin, perhaps we should take a moment and consider
    the term ``accessibility'' in the broadest context. In my view,
    accessibility means ensuring that everyone can enter the House
    facilities readily, conduct his or her business while there,
    whether it be for work or pleasure, and then leave the facility
    safely, especially in the event of a dire emergency or
    necessity. Clearly, the House has made progress. It is more
    accessible now than it was a decade ago.
        Members of our second panel today, the Architect of the
    Capitol, the House Chief Administrative Officer, and the Chief
    of the Capitol Police have contributed greatly to that
    progress, and I thank them for that. More work lies ahead, and
    we look forward to their plans and recommendations.
        We should also look forward to hearing from our third panel
    of distinguished onsite experts who can offer common sense
    solutions to the significant difficulties that remain. In
    addition to those two panels, I certainly look forward to
    hearing from our distinguished colleague from Rhode Island,
    Representative James Langevin. Mr. Langevin can provide the
    perspective of a Member who must confront the full range of
    accessibility issues in the course of his work in the House
    every day.
        Mr. Chairman, this is an especially good follow-up to our
    June hearing that examined the May 11th emergency evacuation of
    the Capitol complex. We heard then about the need to redouble
    our focus on emergency planning. I certainly look forward to
    hearing the views of today's witnesses on this aspect of
    accessibility.
        There is much to explore here today. Again, I appreciate
    your holding the hearing, Mr. Chairman, and I look forward to
    the testimony.
        The Chairman. I thank the Ranking Member, the gentlelady
    from California, for her comments.
        Mr. Ehlers.
        Mr. Ehlers. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I want to thank
    you for holding this hearing. I think it is one of the more
    important pieces of legislation passed in the past couple
    decades. I appreciate the first President Bush for initiating
    this and pushing it hard and getting it done. I only regret
    that Congress did not immediately put it in effect in our
    buildings here. I wish they had; it would have given us a head
    start. But I am pleased that when Newt Gingrich became Speaker,
    that was a very high priority for him. So we put ourselves into
    that law very quickly.
        I think the progress is very good. It is very difficult to
    do many of these things in these old buildings, especially with
    the large amounts of stone and concrete in the buildings. We
    have made progress; we have more to do. And I think it is very
    important that we have this hearing so that we can highlight
    what remains to be done. But I am pleased not only for the
    reasons of staff members being able to get around the buildings
    easily, but especially the many tourists that we have. And I
    know that many of those who come from my district are elderly,
    they charter buses to come, and they would not have been able
    to see the Capitol very well at all in the past. Now they can
    come and thoroughly enjoy it, and they do enjoy seeing where
    the founders of this Nation worked. And so it is not just a
    matter of accommodating employees, but accommodating millions
    of visitors.
        I yield back.
        The Chairman. Thank you. The gentlelady from California,
    Ms. Lofgren.
        Ms. Lofgren. Mr. Chairman, I do have a statement, but I
    know Mr. Langevin has a conflict with another committee
    assignment, so I am wondering if I can defer until after his
    testimony.
        The Chairman. You may defer until afterwards.
        [The statement of Ms. Lofgren follows:]

        [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3251.001

        [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3251.002

        [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3251.003

        The Chairman. And with that, we want to welcome our
    colleague, Congressman Langevin. Welcome.

     STATEMENT OF THE HON. JAMES R. LANGEVIN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
                CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF RHODE ISLAND

        Mr. Langevin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Good morning. I want to begin by thanking you, Chairman Ney
    and Ranking Member Millender-McDonald, and the entire committee
    for convening today's hearing, ``Accessibility of the House
    Complex For Persons With Special Needs.'' I commend you for
    your dedication to improving our service to Americans with
    disabilities, and I am grateful for the opportunity to testify.
        In particular, Mr. Chairman, I just want to mention how
    much I appreciate how personally you have been involved in
    accessibility issues. And people with disabilities certainly
    have a friend in Bob Ney--and I appreciate that--as well as Ms.
    Millender-McDonald and the other members of this committee.
        This week marked the 15th anniversary of the Americans with
    Disabilities Act, and I have encouraged Americans to
    acknowledge the anniversary by reflecting on the act's
    successes and discussing the work that is still left to bedone.
    It is fitting that we also examine our own workplace and the ways that
    we can make it better.
        Now, when I entered Congress in 2000 as the first
    quadriplegic ever to serve in the House, some changes had to be
    made to accommodate my service. I would like to start by
    acknowledging the efforts of the House leadership, the CAO,
    this committee and many others to ensure that I can work in
    Congress just as effectively as any Member. And I was, and
    continue to be, overwhelmed by how helpful my colleagues have
    been.
        I was provided accessible office space on the first floor
    of the Cannon Building; additional space on the House floor was
    provided through removal of a chair; and an adjustable podium
    in the well of the Chamber also, that allows me to address my
    colleagues on the floor. And like many reasonable
    accommodations, this podium, which moves easily up and down to
    various heights, has proven useful to Members both with and
    without disabilities.
        Now, while these changes have made it possible for me to do
    my job, there are certainly areas where the House can improve
    at accessibility, both for me and for our many disabled staff
    members, interns, and especially visitors.
        I believe the most pressing issue facing persons with
    special needs in the House of Representatives is in the area of
    emergency preparedness. Now, because of the limited number of
    accessible entrances in and out of the Capitol, it is critical
    that these accessible routes are clear, marked, staffed and
    unobstructed. Capitol Police and other staff members must be
    knowledgeable about where to direct visitors in the case of an
    emergency or evacuation. And again, recent years have seen many
    significant improvements in this area, but we still need to
    remain ever mindful of the needs of those with disabilities as
    we implement an emergency response and evacuation plan.
        Now, for example, I understand that the House will soon
    implement new guidelines designating Capitol Police-staffed
    elevators in each House office building to be used by
    individuals with disabilities during evacuation. And I applaud
    this initiative, and I hope that all officers will receive
    training about how to communicate this information to their
    disabled staff, their interns and guests. And I would also
    advocate that each building entrance have the right evacuation
    information available to share with visitors with obvious
    disabilities.
        I know that also one elevator in the Capitol Building uses
    a separate power supply and will remain operational in a
    blackout. However, I am concerned that visitors and most staff
    are not aware of this elevator and could not take advantage of
    it in a power loss situation. I would suggest that signs be
    placed in the Capitol so that all individuals with disabilities
    are aware of the location of this elevator.
        Now, furthermore, it would be wise to consider ensuring
    that at least one elevator in each House office building is
    similarly set up to be unaffected by power loss.
        One other thing that comes to mind as well: When there is a
    vote in progress, for example, we know that the bottom elevator
    buttons no longer are functional for the Member elevators, and
    the elevator buttons above those that are normally used are the
    ones that are in operation; and obviously those are far out of
    reach for someone who is in a wheelchair, not able to reach to
    that height. So I think it would be important to reconsider the
    placement of those buttons, or making them operational in the
    event of--the bottom buttons operational in the event of an
    emergency.
        Now, I also serve on two committees, Armed Services and
    Homeland Security. The Armed Services Committee hearing room
    was made accessible for me during my first term. However, the
    Homeland Security Committee does not have a permanent committee
    room, and we have met in several locations over the last few
    years. And when the committee utilizes a room, a temporary
    portable ramp is often brought in so that I can access the
    dais. And while this works on a day-to-day basis, in the case
    of an emergency, having to properly position the ramp and clear
    obstacles could shave valuable minutes off my exit time. Now, I
    hope in the near future the plans will be made to make all
    hearing rooms accessible.
        Finally, I believe our most critical shortcoming is the
    access to the House Chamber itself. In order to exit or enter
    the Chamber, I and other wheelchair or scooter users must use a
    doorway off the Speaker's lobby, far to one side of the floor.
    Now, under normal circumstances, this route is adequate;
    however, in a panic-filled emergency situation, I am not
    confident that I could make it through the crowd and out of the
    Chamber quickly or safely if I were on the opposite side.
        Now, my staff has attended emergency drills on the House
    floor on my behalf, and they have expressed the same fears to
    me based on what they witnessed during the exercises.
        Now, I understand that options and work is under
    consideration for emergencies, to include the use of a pull-out
    ramp that could be extended over the stairs when needed. Under
    this scenario, a designated employee would have the
    responsibility for placing the ramp over the stairs at the main
    entrance in order to provide handicapped Members or staff an
    additional exit from the Chamber. And while these solutions
    sound viable in theory, I certainly have doubts about their
    execution in a chaotic and panicked evacuation where everyone's
    primary concern will be getting themselves to safety as quickly
    as possible.
        If you can think of how it would play out, I understand
    that this ramp would be over the stairs opposite the Speaker's
    rostrum, and someone would have to pull the ramp out over the
    stairs. Again, in theory it works, but if the alarm goes off
    and people are quickly exiting the Chamber, that means they
    would have to stop people from exiting, pull out the ramp, get
    it into position, and then allow people to go out. I just find
    it unlikely that that is going to play out as intended.
        Now, as you address accessibility issues facing our
    workplace, I hope that you will bear these comments in mind.
    Again, I want to thank the committee for your interest in these
    issues.
        My treatment as a Member of Congress illustrates the
    tremendous advances America has made in terms of accommodating
    employees with disabilities. It shows how institutions, even
    very old ones, can adapt to accommodate people in special
    circumstances.
        I have often said that I may be the first quadriplegic ever
    to serve in the United States House of Representatives, but I
    most certainly will not be the last. We owe it to our
    colleagues, our visitors, and to the future leaders of our
    Nation to do all that we can to see that the Capitol complex
    meets their accessibility needs.
        And with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back and I thank you
    for the opportunity to testify.
        [The statement of Mr. Langevin follows:]

        [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3251.004

        [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3251.005

        The Chairman. Well, I want to thank the gentleman, and I
    think your testimony is important. Also, I would like to state
    that you contribute a lot to Congress, and add valuable
    insights to the issues we deal with. I know when I was in the
    state senate one time, I had fractured my leg, and it was
    temporary, 6, 7 weeks--and this was years ago, 14, 15 years
    ago--trying to get around was a nightmare. And it sure woke me
    up. And I don't think a lot of people think about the issue.
    You being here and the insight you provide is extremely
    valuable for the House future. It extends not just to Members
    but also to visitors and staff.
        Here in our Committee, when I first became Chairman, we
    hired a gentleman who did our policy, who is blind; he has now
    moved over to the Department of Commerce. But it gave us a lot
    of reflection and insight here about ways that we could change
    things. And the way we did it was to sit down with Pat and find
    out ways that worked. And some of those things have become
    permanent ideas that we can use in other places in the House.
    So I appreciate your testimony.
        I have one question to ask. I guess I didn't follow it; the
    issue of the ramp that pulls out by the Speaker's rostrum, it
    goes over which step?
        Mr. Langevin. Directly opposite the Speaker's rostrum. The
    door, for example, that the President enters and exits during
    the State of the Union, that main entrance, just opposite his
    rostrum at the other end of the Chamber.There will be--I guess
    they are working on installing a ramp that will pull out from
    under the stairs and go over the stairs. I have advocated that
    there should be a permanent ramp that is placed there. It is
    only a matter of a few stairs, and it doesn't seem that it
    would protrude out too far into the hallway. In fact, the
    stairs are actually recessed in before you actually get to the
    end of the doorway, so it really wouldn't extend far out to the
    hall. I have advocated that that be a permanent ramp so you
    don't have to have someone pull it out and put it back every
    time you want to use it.
        The Chairman. It would probably help in that case, too.
    Some of the stairs have narrowed over the course since 1859,
    going up into there. Now I know where you are talking about.
        I think you are talking about room 311, with Cannon for
    Homeland Security, Room 311.
        Mr. Langevin. There are a few different committee rooms
    that they use.
        The Chairman. I know that the Architect is equipping Room
    311 with some changes. There is still an issue where Homeland
    Security is looking for some office space in another building,
    I don't know which one. But I think 311 has an August plan by
    the Architect, which is some good news on that.
        I don't have any questions, I just appreciate the insight
    that you have given us in working with us on this issue.
        The gentlelady.
        Ms. Millender-McDonald. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I too
    appreciate you coming this morning. You have set the precedent
    for us to really look at this critically for Members, as well
    as for those who come to visit in the House.
        When you spoke of signs in the corridor, throughout the
    corridor, that they should be clear, marked, and I think
    lighted, and also I think they should be audible for those
    special needs folks who need to have that type of sound as
    well, as we evacuate or have to evacuate.
        You mentioned elevators. They are slow with us anyway. I
    think these elevators need to be checked and double-checked.
    But to even think of the fact that the button needs to be in a
    place where it is accessible is another very sensitive thing
    that perhaps a lot of us don't think about, and I think it is
    so important that that is done.
        Are there any other things, any other organizations and
    departments here in the House that you have tried to have
    accommodations and they have not been readily accessible to
    you? Or are people very accommodating to you?
        Mr. Langevin. No. I found in most all situations, those
    that have responsibility for trying to make the changes have
    worked diligently to make it happen. With the exception of
    adding a permanent ramp through one of the other doors of the
    House Chamber, of the House floor, everything else has happened
    pretty quickly.
        The only other thing that comes to mind is the issue of
    automatic door openers for people with disabilities. You know,
    I suppose if you have a staff member or visitors who come to
    visit, they can't exit or enter the room without the assistance
    of someone opening or closing the door. Obviously--I know I
    have automatic door openers right outside my office. I know Ms.
    Lofgren has a member on her staff with a disability and has
    automatic door openers outside of her office. And some Members
    do. I notice maybe a couple of other Members have them. But
    that should, if possible, become standard.
        And the other only thing that comes to mind is--and I don't
    necessarily have any answers as to how you remedy this, but for
    someone with a disability there are only two ways to--oh, I am
    sorry; there are two or three ways to exit the building: the
    Capitol, and that is merely all on the first floor. But if you
    are coming right off the House Chamber, for example, if I am
    coming out of the House Chamber I have to exit the Chamber, get
    into the elevator, go down one floor, and then down a corridor
    and out the first floor entrance, or go down to the sub-
    basement and exit through the tunnel.
        And I know that there are options that are being considered
    or reviewed as to how someone could exit the building from the
    second floor, as most Members would do if they were leaving the
    Chamber in an emergency situation; even routine. But other than
    that, and adding a probably very long ramp off those very high
    stairs, there aren't many good options. But I know that there
    are also situations where they have special chairs that people
    would be transferred into and could help the individual to go
    down the stairs. But those are just the things that come to
    mind.
        Ms. Millender-McDonald. That is great information, and
    information that we should, indeed, take under advisement in
    ensuring that we continue to provide accessibility for more
    Members who are coming in and more visitors, who are sure to
    increase. Given the expansion in the new Visitors Center, we
    will have more folks coming in.
        You spoke about the one elevator that remains operable in
    light of a blackout, and a lot of folks don't know about this
    elevator. I suppose I don't know either. Where is this elevator
    again?
        Mr. Langevin. If you are looking at the House Chamber,and
    you are looking right at the Speaker's rostrum, it would be the
    elevator to the left of the--so you would exit the Speaker's lobby
    left, and it is--Wendy, the elevator operator, it is usually----
        The Chairman. Is that the elevator that Wendy operates?
        Mr. Langevin. That is right.
        The Chairman. Okay. Everybody knows Wendy.
        Mr. Langevin. And I have been informed, unless I am
    mistaken, that all elevators work even if the fire alarms are
    going off, the emergency alarm is going off. I believe that is
    correct.
        Mr. Hantman. We have emergency power on two elevators in
    the Capitol.
        Ms. Millender-McDonald. And where is the other one, Mr.
    Architect?
        Mr. Hantman. On the Senate side.
        Ms. Millender-McDonald. I was going to ask, what is the
    comparable nature of the House and the Senate in terms of
    accessibility? And I suppose you will get to that when you come
    to that.
        So during the last evacuation, I was concerned about other
    Members as well as yourself in getting out. I wonder if--and
    typically they tell you if emergencies come, do not use
    elevators; but that one, of course, will have to be used by
    those who are with special needs. Is that the elevator that you
    went down on to get out?
        Mr. Langevin. That's right. And I knew about it, so I
    automatically just went to the elevator and down to the first
    floor and out. They said the other option is to go down to the
    sub-basement and out through the tunnel.
        Ms. Millender-McDonald. Mr. Chairman, I was asking staff if
    all hearing rooms have the accessibility of Members to come up
    to the dais. And they think perhaps all of them were
    accessible, with the exception of the one that the Congressman
    speaks of in the area, I suppose, that he has been using in
    terms of Homeland Security. So that is something that we need
    to check. And I had a briefing the other day in 311, so there
    needs to be more further work on that as well.
        We thank you very much for being here this morning, sharing
    your thoughts with us. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        The Chairman. Thank you.
        Gentlelady from California.
        Ms. Lofgren. Well, I thank Congressman Langevin. As a
    Member of Congress, he has the ability to be heard in a way
    that members of the staff and public don't, and so I think it
    is very important that he is here, not only identifying issues
    that he has faced, but also speaking for hundreds of people who
    couldn't be a witness, who are in wheelchairs or who need
    accommodations for access in emergency. I think it is very
    important both for the public and for staff, and I thank you
    for taking the time to do it.
        One question I had--we are on the same floor, and there is
    a button access into the Cannon Building--but your office is
    down the hall, so even in an evacuation--obviously you are not
    always in your office, but in an evacuation you actually have
    to backtrack, I assume, in order to get out.
        Mr. Langevin. If I were going to go out to the street
    entrance, I would just go down that hall. I am hoping that
    eventually--and I believe plans may be underway--to make the
    elevator nearest my office operational and have a separate
    power supply.
        Ms. Lofgren. So that would be one solution.
        Mr. Langevin. The one thing that also concerns me, and I
    think it needs to be thought through a little bit more, I
    understand that elevators would be designated, and people with
    disabilities, I am told--and this is just from information I
    received from a disabled staffer--said that they are instructed
    to go to one particular place and there will be people there to
    assist them out. And this individual pointed out to me, he went
    to this location and waited, you know, for a while for someone
    to arrive--which someone ultimately did arrive to assist him--
    but he said he could have been out of the building long before
    if he had just gone to the nearest entrance or exit. And I
    think that is something to be considered.
        I think people with disabilities, if there is an emergency
    situation, if they know of an exit out of the building, should
    just immediately try to get out the quickest way possible. And
    if they are going to need assistance, then there is no
    particular place----
        Ms. Lofgren. I think that is an excellent point, because
    when there is an evacuation it is a little intense, and the
    less plans that need to be implemented, the better off we are
    going to be. If we could just allow people to exit on their
    own, that is much to be preferred, it seems to me.
        I have a statement which I will make a part of the official
    record. I would like to note that I do have a member of my
    staff who uses a wheelchair who is here today, Vance Taylor,
    and he has been a help to me in understanding these issues.
        And just as Congressman Langevin has for all of us in the
    Congress, one of the issues that Vance has run into--and I am
    wondering if you have, Congressman--is when there is an
    evacuation and you are on the street, the Jersey barriers are
    very close together; and in an evacuation, at one point Vance's
    chair was actually stuck between two Jersey barriers. And I am
    wondering if that is an issue that you have run into--I think
    you might have been in your van, I don't know if you were on
    the street or not--but in your moving around, whether that has
    posed a challenge.
        Mr. Langevin. I haven't run into that problem, but I think
    I know what you are talking about in terms of further out
    towards the street, a little bit away from the complex where
    Jersey barriers still exist. I have seen many of the Jersey
    barriers have been replaced by the steel poles that are
    permanently mounted in the ground that surround the Capitol
    complex. To my knowledge, those are spread spaces wide enough
    so that there is not a problem going through them. But the
    Jersey barriers, I can't speak to that, but I can see where
    that may be a problem.
        Ms. Lofgren. Maybe I can ask the Architect on that?
        I know you have to get to another committee, so I won't ask
    any further questions at this point, other than just to say
    thanks.
        Mr. Langevin. Thank you.
        The Chairman. I want to thank the gentleman again for your
    testimony and your insight. I also want to thank you for your
    assistance with the Help America Vote Act a couple years ago.
    Your insight on that was critical to us being able to get a
    bill to consideration with a lot of special needs issues.
        Mr. Langevin. Your leadership was very helpful on that
    issue as well, Mr. Chairman. Again, on this and many others, I
    thank you for your sensitivity.
        The Chairman. Thank you. Have a good day.
        Mr. Langevin. Thank you.
        The Chairman. We are on to panel two.
        I want to thank our second panel for being here today. We
    are fortunate to have with us Jay Eagen, our House Chief
    Administrative Officer; Alan Hantman, our Architect over the
    U.S. Capitol; and Chief Gainer, Chief of Police of the Capitol
    Police.
        And with that, which order do you want to begin with?
        Chief Gainer. I defer to my superiors.
        The Chairman. We will begin with the Architect of the
    Capitol. Thank you.

          STATEMENT OF ALAN HANTMAN, ARCHITECT OF THE CAPITOL

        Mr. Hantman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and good morning. And
    good morning, Ranking Member Millender-McDonald, and other
    members of the committee.
        I appreciate the opportunity to discuss our efforts to
    improve safety and accessibility across the Capitol complex.
        Safety is a top priority for the AOC. Over the past several
    years, the level of safety throughout the Capitol complex has
    been continuously improving in an effort to bring our
    facilities up to date with modern codes. Included in that
    commitment are efforts to make the U.S. Capitol and other
    buildings accessible to all.
        Because the buildings under our care are historic landmark
    structures, applying modern-day fire and safety codes and ADA
    requirements are not easy tasks, since solutions are not always
    straightforward. This sometimes involves developing alternative
    performance criteria rather than applying strictly proscriptive
    criteria in the code.
        Thorough studies are completed to assure that appropriate
    fire protections and solutions are developed, that
    accessibility and safe ways to egress are provided, while
    ensuring that unique architectural features in this building
    are not compromised or destroyed.
        Following passage of the ADA, the AOC established an ADA
    accessibility program to eliminate physical barriers and
    improve all means of access on Capitol Hill. Today, ADA issues
    are typically handled as routine components of larger projects.
    With new facilities such as the CVC, they are designed in full
    compliance with ADA from ground zero. That means adequate
    elevators, escalators, ramps, strobes, text screening and
    orientation theaters. All of these issues are much more simple
    to accommodate in new structures, as the Chairman pointed out
    in his opening statements.
        The AOC also places the highest priority on providing
    immediate attention to relieve specific accessibility problems
    that are identified.
        Mr. Chairman, over the years, Congress has been very
    supportive in providing the necessary funds to assure the
    accessibility, safety, and well-being of everyone who works in
    and visits the Capitol complex.
        The joint commitment of the AOC and Congress has resulted
    in a number of vital projects, including the modernization of
    public restrooms in the Capitol and House office buildings; the
    installation of way-finding and ADA signage that features exit
    signage in Braille and raised characters; the removal of
    revolving doors and replacing them with swing doors which are
    more accessible to people in wheelchairs; the installation of
    ramps and automatic door openers, as well as the modification
    of curbs and sidewalks; the installation of strobe alarms and
    sprinklers throughout our buildings; and the establishment of
    emergency staging areas that was discussed before; the removal
    of flagpoles and other objects in hallways that are tripping
    hazards during an emergency evacuation.
        In addition, we have been working closely with the other
    legislative branch agencies to find better, more efficient ways
    to evacuate the buildings during emergencies and to educate
    people on the safest way to exit. This includes identifying
    certain elevators to be used to evacuate mobility-impaired
    individuals in an emergency. Mr. Chairman, this is a short list
    of the many projects we have been working on over the past
    several years.
        Since September 11th, we have taken a closer look at a
    number of issues beyond security; among them, accessibility and
    the ability to evacuate all people safely and quickly from our
    buildings. The AOC is dedicated to providing a safe and secure
    environment throughout the Capitol complex, while at the same
    time preserving the historic value and beauty of these national
    landmarks.
        I look forward to our continued work together on this
    important issue, and I am happy to answer any questions you may
    have.
        The Chairman. Thank you.
        [The statement of Mr. Hantman follows:]

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        The Chairman. And the CAO, Mr. Eagen.

      STATEMENT OF HON. JAMES M. EAGEN III, CHIEF ADMINISTRATIVE
                                OFFICER

        Mr. Eagen. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member
    Millender-McDonald, members of the committee. I am pleased to
    be before you to talk about the CAO's responsibilities in
    assisting persons with disabilities to have assess to the House
    campus. In stating that, I would like to be clear that I would
    also like to speak to other functions that are performed by
    other House entities, including the House leadership, Member
    and committee offices, the Architect of the Capitol, the
    Clerk's Office, the Congressional Special Services Office--and
    I brought brochures from that particular operation, which is a
    bicameral service across the House and Senate boundaries--and
    the Office of the Sergeant at Arms.
        With a mandate of accessibiity as cornerstone, the CAO has
    worked over the last 10 years to assist House offices with
    making their workplaces more accessible to employees and
    visitors. In the area of computer accessibility, section 508 of
    the Rehabilitation Act provides that individuals with
    disabilities are to have access to Federal Government
    electronic information comparable to the access available
    toindividuals without disabilities.
        The Web Services Branch of House Information Resources,
    part of the CAO, assists Member and committee offices that use
    its services to create and maintain accessible Web sites. The
    CAO also publishes materials that are used as an educational
    tool about the disability services that are provided throughout
    the House.
        In January of this year, the latest version of HouseSmart
    was distributed to all House offices. Organized by topic,
    HouseSmart contains a section on available disability services
    such as audio, Braille and large-print publication services,
    and information on how to obtain specially formatted maps and
    brochures from the Congressional Special Services Office.
        HouseSmart also contains information on telecommunications
    devices, TTYs, available for hearing impaired individuals, and
    contact information for the Congressional Special Services
    Office to obtain training on how to use the TTY machines. A TTY
    is a special device that lets people who are hearing impaired
    or speech impaired use the telephone to communicate by allowing
    them to type messages back and forth to one another. Public TTY
    machines are located in the Rayburn, Longworth, and Ford House
    office buildings, and in the Capitol.
        CAO also publishes the biweekly House Services Bulletin
    that contains information about House services, including
    disability services such as the availability of TTY machines
    and a Federal relay service. The Federal relay service provides
    for communication assistance to act as intermediaries for
    telecommunications between hearing individuals and individuals
    who are hearing impaired or have speech disabilities. It also
    allows House employees, who have the same disabilities, equal
    communication access.
        As part of the renovation of House committee hearing rooms,
    CAO is installing state-of-the-art infrared assistive listening
    devices. These systems employ infrared light that carries the
    desired sound from the source--a person speaking, or music--via
    a transmitter to hearing impaired listeners wearing receivers.
    Sixteen committee hearing rooms and three subcommittee hearing
    rooms presently have the systems installed. For those hearing
    rooms that do not contain the infrared assistive listening
    devices, the Congressional Special Services Office has portable
    assistive listening devices that may be loaned for short-term
    use.
        Ten House committee witness tables have been modified to
    accommodate witnesses that use wheelchairs. CAO has two
    additional tables that comply with height requirements of the
    Americans with Disabilities Act that may be used by committees,
    or we can temporarily modify witness tables so that tables are
    compliant. In fact, the table we are using today is one of
    those loaner tables.
        During the 108th Congress, the Committee on House
    Administration approved a program to replace existing Member
    office furniture with modular furniture. Modular furniture has
    numerous features that can assist those employees with a
    disability, including data and electrical outlets at desk
    height, door pulls that are ADA-compliant, and adjustable-
    height keyboards. In addition, during the office design phase,
    inquiries were made to determine what accommodations need to be
    made, and the plans were reviewed to ensure accessibility
    standards.
        ADA Services, which is under the CAO, was created to
    enhance the awareness of ADA public access issues within House
    organizations. In furtherance of this, ADA Services provides
    one-stop service to assist House staff in making their programs
    accessible to persons with disabilities. ADA Services works
    with the Congressional Special Services Office to help provide
    sign language interpreters, brochures, and maps that allow for
    blind or visually impaired visitors to tour the Capitol.
        The CAO also works in conjunction with the Architect of the
    Capitol to provide inspections to Member and committee offices
    that center on OSHA safety and ADA compliance. During these
    inspections, wheelchair accessibility of an office is assessed
    and suggestions are made to staff on office configurations to
    provide greater accessibility.
        With regard to employment barriers, the CAO administers a
    contract to provide temporary employment opportunities with the
    House officers--the CAO, the Clerk of the House and the
    Sergeant at Arms--for individuals with disabilities. The
    program is designed to provide these individuals with the
    necessary job skills that potentially lead to employment with
    the House. To date, 24 people with disabilities have been
    placed in the CAO and Sergeant at Arms offices.
        To fully realize the goal that Congress mandated when the
    Congressional Accountability Act was adopted, we see at least
    three key areas that still have more work to be done. First,
    while we have made progress, the challenge of the high volume
    of staff turnover requires a continuous education concerning
    ADA services by all entities, including the CAO.
        Second, we must keep looking for new assistive technologies
    to further break down the barriers to access. This includes not
    only physical access but also employment access.
        And finally, we need to look for creative partnerships with
    the Office of Compliance and other similar entities to provide
    a robust training program for all House staff so they can
    assist in providing access to all who work or visit the House.
        Thank you for the opportunity to testify, Mr. Chairman, I
    am happy to answer any questions.
        The Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Eagen.
        [The statement of Mr. Eagen follows:]

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        The Chairman. Chief Gainer.

    STATEMENT OF TERRANCE W. GAINER, CHIEF OF POLICE, UNITED STATES
                             CAPITOL POLICE

        Chief Gainer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Ranking Member,
    and members of the committee, I appreciate the opportunity to
    appear before the committee. I would ask leave to file my
    complete remarks, and I have some abbreviated comments.
        The recent attacks on London's mass transportation system
    provides us with a vivid warning to maintain our vigilance and
    continue to build an emergency preparedness program that will
    ensure safe access and egress for each of the tens of thousands
    of employees and visitors who populate this complex every day.
        Although we can never be complacent and will always strive
    to improve, we have made great strides in the almost 4 years
    since the terrorist attacks of 9/11 in advancing our readiness
    to respond to emergencies and our ability to protect the
    occupants of the Congressional complex.
        Just in the last year, with the approval and support of
    this committee, the Capitol Police have created a 10-person
    Emergency Management Division to address the way in which we
    prepare for and respond to emergencies. This group consists of
    planning and training specialists who bring us many years of
    experience in incident command, hazardous material response,
    firefighting, public health and disaster assistance, that can
    be translated into improved contingency plans, better training
    and exercises that improve the proficiency of our officers in
    emergency response procedures.
        We work closely here with our partners from the House
    Sergeant at Arms Office and the House Office of Emergency
    Planning, Preparedness and Operations, as well as the Architect
    of the Capitol and the Senate Sergeant at Arms Office of
    Security and Emergency Preparedness.
        As an example, we worked closely with the Police Board, the
    House Sergeant at Arms and his staff on a computerized
    evacuation model of the Capitol Building that should verify the
    best evacuation routes and help us move more people safely out
    of the building in the least amount of time. If this effort is
    successful, we hope to perform the same type of modeling in
    other buildings within the Capitol complex.
        The partnership amongst the legislative Emergency
    Preparedness Organization is formalized in the Capitol Hill
    Emergency Measures Task Force. This group is made up of
    representatives of the Capitol Police, House, Senate, Architect
    of the Capitol, D.C. Fire, and other legislative branch
    entities, such as the GAO, the GPO and the Library of Congress.
    They meet every 2 weeks to facilitate improvements in our
    emergency preparedness and life safety programs.
        We do take very seriously our responsibilities to assist
    with the safe evacuation of the building. We treat every
    building evacuation, whether a drill, unintentional alarm
    activation, or the actual emergency, as a learning experience
    and a chance to improve our methods and skills. Observations
    from many sources are recorded, incorporated into our plans and
    procedures, and shared with all our divisions and shifts.
        It is unfortunate that we live in a world where such
    scenarios may need to be considered, but even the recent air
    threat evacuations provided lessons and inspired new
    procedures. Based on these events, we have implemented rally
    points for evacuees to gather on each side of the complex that
    are far enough away from the building for safety but close
    enough for the Capitol Police to provide a measure of security
    and up-to-date information on the resolution of the incident.
        The design and construction of these buildings present
    difficult challenges that have no easy financial or
    architectural solutions, but we are committed to providing
    people with physical disabilities the best possible chance to
    safely exit these buildings in the event of an emergency. This
    issue is a priority of the Emergency Measures Task Force, and
    they have worked closely with advocacy groups for the disabled
    to help formulate a practical and effective solution.
        For the last 18 months, we have been building and testing a
    prototype emergency elevator evacuation program for the
    mobility-
    impaired. If an emergency building evacuation is required, a
    Capitol Police officer takes control of the designated elevator
    in each building and visits each floor evacuating people
    needing assistance. Our officers will continue to perform this
    function as long as it is reasonably safe to do so, and then in
    that event, turn this over to the fire department, who are
    better equipped and armed to do this. In cooperation with the
    Senate Sergeant at Arms, we have successfully tested this
    procedure in the Senate office buildings through several rounds
    of evacuation drills, often using mobility-impaired volunteers
    from Members' offices and committees and staffs to ensure that
    the process meets their needs.
        The Architect of the Capitol has provided excellent
    technical support in resolving a number of mechanical issues in
    the Capitol and the House office buildings. In the next few
    weeks, in coordination with the emergency planners and the
    House Sergeant at Arms, we will continue the training of both
    officers and staff on the procedures, and expect to implement
    the complete program campus-wide very shortly.
        Mr. Chairman, although we still have much to accomplish
    with our partners from the House, the Senate, the Architect of
    the Capitol, the Office of Compliance, and most importantly, I
    think, the advocacy groups, I am proud of what the Capitol
    Police have accomplished to make this complex safe for
    everyone.
        I again would like to thank you for the opportunity to
    appear before this committee, and I would be happy to answer
    any questions that you may have.
        [The statement of Chief Gainer follows:]

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        The Chairman. I want to thank all members of the panel. I
    have a few questions I just wanted to go through; I will start
    with the Capitol Hill Police Chief.
        How are offices notified of locations of the mustering
    stations for persons on the floors? By mustering, I mean the
    gathering areas where people would go to that need assistance.
        Chief Gainer. That would be part of the training program
    conducted by both the Capitol Police and the Office of
    Emergency Preparedness of the House Sergeant at Arms Office. We
    know we have a lot more work to do there. For assistance, I
    have a brochure that was designed and we developed for the
    Senate side, and it would be our intention to have this for the
    House side also. It does require further training.
        The Chairman. What can we do about emergency warnings for
    people who are deaf? We struggled here with the audio signals,
    and of course, we couldn't get it all wired, so I think you
    made a good choice in the temporary, with the plug-in signals--
    I forget what you call them.
        Mr. Hantman. I think, Mr. Chairman, you are talking about
    strobes?
        Mr. Chairman. Yes, for the signal you can hear. We couldn't
    wire the whole building, so we went to the plug-ins that would
    give the emergency signal audibly--annunciators. Thank you.
    What about visuals?
        Chief Gainer. The strobe lights is what would be used.
        And if I can, Mr. Chairman, an important part of any of
    these emergency procedures is that the plan in the individual
    office and the office's responsibility in buddies, especially
    when it comes to people with disabilities, is to make sure that
    they have a buddy system and work together with that buddy.
        The Chairman. Who is responsible, in a fire emergency, for
    evacuating persons who have special needs, United States
    Capitol Police or the Metro D.C. Fire?
        Chief Gainer. The first responders, we presume, are going
    to be the United States Capitol Police. And again, based on
    the--just recently completed on the House side--the designation
    of the emergency elevators, and then the training that will be
    done over the next 30 to 60 days, the individual offices and
    the evacuees would go to the designated spots. And we are
    training our officers, who will take responsibility for the
    operation of the elevators at those rallying points. They will
    stay and do that until everybody is evacuated, unless the
    situation in the building, whether it is fire or smoke,
    precludes them from taking further action; then we will turn
    that over to D.C. Fire.
        As soon as D.C. Fire comes, working with the fire marshal
    of the Capitol complex, we set up a joint command post, and we
    would turn that evacuation procedure over to the fire
    department.
        The Chairman. If D.C. Fire cannot get here for some reason,
    what do we do? I know that the United States Capitol Police
    respond, but what do we do fire-wise to begin? We don't have
    anything that would----
        Chief Gainer. We do not have fire trucks or firefighting
    equipment. So in the event of a fire, we would sound the alarm,
    begin the evacuation, and we would continue to evacuate until
    it is no longer physically possible for us to do that.
        The Chairman. I just wanted to note one thing about the
    morning--I had arrived here very early in the morning to go
    through e-mails, 4 o'clock or something. And then around 4:10
    the alarm went off; they caught something on fire on the
    balcony. I am assuming that as D.C. came up the barrier was
    dropped and they came in. I was just wondering if there was
    some kind of problem--not that you can solve every problem--but
    what would happen to us fire-wise? We don't even have one
    vehicle on hand for the fire side.
        I think as far as still evacuating, we would still be able
    to perform that. United States Capitol Police would go look for
    all persons and also persons that have some special needs, but
    fire-wise, we are kind of on our own until D.C. Metro gets
    here.
        Chief Gainer. In many respects, except we are in the midst
    of certifying and training our officers in the use of the fire
    extinguishers, but that is not the primary response. But there
    is a process that we need to--and I think we have been working
    with the Office of Compliance to make sure that we use those
    minimum capabilities. But we think the relationship and the
    communication we have with D.C. Fire is that they are here as
    quickly as possible.
        We have our own procedures for removing the barriers to get
    them in. We work and we drill that.
        The Chairman. Thank you. And for the Architect, do you have
    any ``most difficult'' stories that are the most difficult
    things to do, or one building is more difficult than another;
    or does it tend to be difficult all over the place?
        Mr. Hantman. Well, the issue of historic preservation that
    you prefaced your remarks with earlier on, is really a
    tremendous challenge. As you know, there are ramps all over the
    Capitol, there are changes of elevation. Congressman Langevin
    was talking about differences in elevation and access to the
    House Chamber. The specific door he was talking about, for
    instance, was the main door leading right into the House
    Chamber, and there is a 20-inch differential in height over
    there with those three steps. According to ADA, we should have
    a 20-foot-long ramp accessing that if we were to meet the ADA
    criteria.
        What the Congressman was talking about was basically we are
    looking at doing a 7-foot ramp that can pull out, doesn't meet
    ADA, but it does, in fact, give you the ability to move
    somebody quickly through there and down and out of the Chamber.
        So it is really the elevational changes that become so
    difficult all around the building, whether it is the Cannon
    Building, which is specifically fairly difficult because of the
    changes in grade around the outside of the building. The West
    Front of the Capitol, for instance, with the amazing number of
    steps that we have over there; it is not very practical, in
    fact, to have ramps.
        One of the things we looked at, in fact, for the last
    Presidential Inaugural is that we redesigned the stands for the
    inauguration ceremonies to put lifts and ramps in so that
    people could get down to the Presidential platform, and to the
    congressional platforms, to give it as much accessibility as we
    could. And we try to do that on a case-by-case basis.
        Chief Gainer. Mr. Chairman, forgive me, would you mind--
    lest I leave the impression that we are powerless until the
    fire department comes--there has been, under the Architect's
    direction, the installation of the sprinklersystem throughout
    the campus, which I think is very important in mitigating fire damage
    or smoke damage. So it is an important part of the process that is
    ongoing.
        The Chairman. Someone said we ought to have a fire
    department, and I believe that. We have to use the availability
    of the Metro D.C., but having a fire department is a great
    point when trying to think about every contingency. I know all
    three of you gentlemen, and we have worked for years to try to
    think of every single thing you can think of, and then think of
    something more. And I understand that nothing is perfect. But
    that day I was just thinking if there was some scenario or some
    type of bombs on different sides of the streets, where it would
    be good to have one piece of equipment on hand. But in terms of
    the evacuation, we would be intact and able to continue to do
    what we do, with or without the arrival of the fire department.
        The other question I had was to the architect. Does it make
    more sense to pursue some of these issues, hearing rooms, et
    cetera, one at a time as they come, several improvements at
    once, or in groups? Is there any strategy to that.
        Mr. Hantman. Not only in hearing rooms, Mr. Chairman, but
    in Members' offices. We have been dealing with them on a one-
    at-a-time basis. It is very expensive, very difficult with the
    tight quarters and the number of people who sit at a dais, for
    instance. The new hearing room that will be used for Homeland
    Security, which you talked about earlier, used to be the Small
    Business room in Cannon 311. There will be a new lower dais
    that will be installed inside this kind of a horseshoe, and
    that will be fully accessible to any Members who would sit over
    there. And again, Veterans Affairs has been tailored
    specifically to the needs of Representative Langevin, his
    getting in there, and we have done that for his office, for
    other offices as individuals come in. We certainly have
    specific door openers, easy accessibility for that and make
    sure that we address their specific needs. The cost of doing it
    across the campus would be simply astronomical.
        The Chairman. The last question I have of the architect is,
    do we have any time frame for the completion date for hearing
    rooms?
        Mr. Hantman. In terms of ADA criteria? We, again, Mr.
    Chairman, are dealing with them on a one-by-one basis as
    needed, as members have that accessibility, as members of the
    staff serving that committee have those needs. So we are doing
    surveys of each of the individual rooms in determining what
    would have to be done.
        The Chairman. So we will have a guesstimate idea at some
    point in time. It will take 3 years at this amount of money or
    4 years at that amount of money.
        Mr. Hantman. That certainly could be developed.
        The Chairman. If we could develop guesstimate, I think that
    would be a good idea.
        Thank you.
        Mr. Eagen, do you have sufficient funding for the
    accessibility services to be carried out? This is a softball
    that is a very important softball.
        Mr. Eagen. Mr. Chairman, the one key program----
        The Chairman. Thank you for your no, Mr. Eagen. Go ahead.
        Mr. Eagen. Never is there enough funding. One key program
    that I mentioned earlier in my testimony that does have a
    direct link to ADA accessible improvements is the modular
    furniture program for Members' offices. And we began a program
    last year, and it is going to take us some amount of time to
    accomplish it. We are literally trying to cover 10,000
    desktops. The schedule is directly correlated to the amount of
    funding that is available, because the funding drives how much
    we can do on a yearly basis. So I would answer that somewhat
    politely to say, we can do it more quickly if there is more
    funding available. How quickly we do it is dictated by the
    funding to a large point.
        The Chairman. I had another question about modular
    furniture. I think modular furniture has to help in these
    terrible, terrible tight spaces in the personal offices. At
    least modular furniture gives a little bit more room. And you
    know how the offices are. If you have another foot of space, it
    is a good thing. I would assume that you have been really good
    about doing that project.
        In all seriousness, I threw that money question out there
    because you get people, Members, staff, and the public that
    want certain things done. And they are right in wanting those
    things done. But in order to get those certain things done, it
    takes a certain amount of money to do it. So I just think,
    somewhere along the line, if we look at, what we want to do and
    the space requirements, how we want to change things in
    personal offices, these committee rooms, if we get some
    guesstimates, at least we know, here it is, and then we as
    authorizers can work with the appropriators. And the
    appropriators have done a good job in talking to Mr. Lewis and
    people on the staff, and we try to take it in increments.
        I think the money question is a big one. I think we do have
    to say there are certain things we will not be able to continue
    to do unless we have a certain amount of money. We still have
    to put the effort through, whether it is ADA or other issues.
    And with that, I have one final question, and I will yield to
    my colleagues who have been so patient. If anybody will answer.
    I want to go back to a point that was brought up in previous
    hearings. There are so many things in the hallways of these
    buildings, and I know one group said, ``Well, you know, those
    are our signs on the deficit''. I am not saying I disagree with
    them for putting that sign up there, by the way. And then there
    are other people that have things in the hallways that are
    actually desks, and they haven't even marked them, ``Take it
    away'' or ``Just leave it here''. In an emergency we have to
    somehow come to terms with these. Perhaps Members could place
    them on the wall. But I still think, in an emergency, all these
    things in the hallways, especially the racks, could be tripped
    over.
        Any comments on it? Let me take it away from an emergency
    for a second.With situations of having citizens or staff or
    Members in the building that have special needs, we have devices that
    have to drive through the hallways. If there is an emergency of an
    actual plane headed here, what happens on that basis with people with
    special needs? Would anybody like to comment?
        Mr. Hantman. In line with the issues that are really
    clearly obstructions in the corridor, Mr. Chairman, one of the
    things we would like to do is outside of many Members' offices,
    there are state flags. We even have a program to take those
    flags off the floors and have wall mounted elements on them so
    that nobody would trip if they were sight impaired coming down
    the corridor. So anything that really obstructs activity going
    down the corridor is something that really needs to be taken
    care of and looked at.
        Mr. Eagen. With regard to the hallway policies, Mr.
    Chairman, you asked a similar question at the first hearing on
    this subject. The Architect and the Chief Administrative
    Officer have proposed a comprehensive set of hallway policies.
    They are intended to not only address the appearance issues
    that we talked about at the last hearing, but also the safety
    issues of egress and to make the hallways compliant with the
    Americans with Disabilities Act. I think the sensitivity that
    is confronting them is exactly what you referenced in that a
    few members have some artifacts that have been placed, and it
    has been a challenge to find a way to address those.
        The Chairman. The appearance is one thing that we could
    debate. I mean, a lot of people do care about the appearance.
    But to me, the appearance is secondary. If you have people
    going down hallways, and there are desks and furniture in those
    hallways, and you are trying to take a motorized device down
    there, that's a problem. If you are a blind person, walking on
    the right side of the hallways as you exit, and there are all
    these things ahead of you, that's a problem too. With thousands
    of people coming down hallways, I think that has to be the
    number one thought in our mind.
        Anyone else?
        With that, I want to thank you for your patience, both
    members.
        Yield to the gentlelady.
        Ms. Millender-McDonald. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Thank you all for being here, all three of you, and we
    commend you for the work that you have done. You have done just
    exceptional work in trying to meet the requirements and the
    provisions of the ADA. And it is not an easy task, I know, but
    all the--but it is an important task none the least. I will
    start with our Capitol Police Chief.
        And Mr. Chief, you spoke about the rallying points,
    especially given the aftermath of May 11th evacuations. Have
    the existence of those rallying points been communicated to the
    Members and staff? How have you done that communication?
    Because still, at the last one, there were folks who were
    uncertain. I was in the Capitol. I was concerned about my staff
    in the House. How do those House Members, have they been
    communicated enough, those rallying points?
        Chief Gainer. Probably not, ma'am. We have just completed a
    revised air evacuation plan. It was given to the--it was shared
    with the House officers as recently as this week, and we are
    working with planning office, office of planning to complete
    that training during this August recess so that we hope, when
    everybody returns after the August recess, the training
    hopefully will be complete with all the offices and everybody
    will be aware of rally points.
        Ms. Millender-McDonald. So during our being away from the
    place, you will be training the staff.
        Chief Gainer. Yes, ma'am.
        Ms. Millender-McDonald. That would be good. However, I
    would like to think--would that 1 month be sufficient or should
    that be an ongoing type of thing?
        Chief Gainer. Clearly, as Mr. Eagen said, it really needs
    to be an ongoing event given the turnover and the fact just
    that practice does make perfect, and we need to keep re-
    emphasizing that.
        Ms. Millender-McDonald. And that is true. And as you
    mention, new staff, hopefully you are cognizant of new staff
    coming on, all three of you. So whatever you are training this
    present staff, when new staff comes on, I hope you have
    something in place so that new staff then can come up to date
    with the communications of the evacuation plans and programs.
        Chief Gainer. Yes, ma'am.
        Ms. Millender-McDonald. And I hope that is in place. How do
    you--persons who are visually and hearing disabled, how do you
    warn them, staff and visitors? How do you warn them? I think
    the architect spoke about the strobe light, and it lights up at
    the time of an emergency. My question will be to you, but is
    there any place or any plan that tells them where to go? It is
    one thing for a light to light up, and things are sparkling.
    But it is another thing for people to know which direction to
    go at the time of that emergency.
        So, Mr. Hantman?
        Mr. Hantman. Thank you for that question. The issue of the
    type of emergency also becomes important. If you are talking
    about something that is an evacuation because it is a fire in
    the building, people need to come out of the building. If we
    are talking about a shelter-in-place type of situation because
    there is some other type of issue out there, you really need to
    have a sound system that talks, annunciator system that gives
    people specific directions: Go to the exit; go immediately out
    of the building; go to your rallying point; or get as far away
    from the building as you can; or whatever the nature of it is.
        Ms. Millender-McDonald. Yes, audible. We have to have
    something that is audible as well as direction pointing. I mean
    this is an education for Members of Congress as well as the
    public as well. We are learning as you are learning, and so it
    is important for me to know those--how, in fact, the Chief of
    Police, how do we warn visually and hearing disabled staff and
    visitors during the time of an evacuation?
        Chief Gainer. Well, it really is a combination of things.
    And it is probably easier for staff because you can have pre-
    planning and work with each office to set that up and establish
    a buddy system so you would do it through a combination of the
    audible, which would either be the annunciator or the--as we
    just complete the PA system around the campus and the other
    means with which we send the messaging out. So for the visually
    impaired, we would be using the strobe light.
        Now, I think the challenge to us is how we identify those
    visitors to the building who haven't had the benefit of our
    planning. So we have discussed and are working on the notion
    that, where possible--and again, we are still working through
    the ying and yang of this--where possible, we would have a 1-
    page laminated sheet or something that we give tothose people
    who we could identify, people with disabilities, to give them some
    further guidance.
        But, frankly, I think that is what we need to work with the
    community on so that we who aren't, don't have the insight--we
    like to believe we do--but we need to work with people who
    understand the problem to see how we best communicate with the
    individuals as they enter our building.
        In addition, then, we have to make, as the Architect and
    others are doing, is put the signage up. And you will see both
    visiting the Senate side, and we are completing the House side,
    the signage to those who can see the signage and the blue and
    white signs as to which way to go and what way not--or excuse
    me, which way to go, positive signs, as well as the marking of
    exits and other areas.
        Now there are discussions in these working groups whether
    there ought to be, you know, markings on the floor or the wall.
    And I think we are debating all those things in light of the
    architectural impact of those issues. So it is a work in
    progress.
        Ms. Millender-McDonald. You know, Mr. Chairman, as I listen
    to them, and they are holding up their various pamphlets and
    things that they are doing, because you will have to do this
    and you will have to do it where it is a person who needs
    Braille, you have to accommodate them. There is a need to re-
    look at some budgetary issues here because you are having to do
    and go beyond what you normally do in terms of your budget to
    do things that are just, that must be done for those who have
    special needs.
        And as I hear you, certainly the Chairman kind of said it
    in jest, but I think it is important that there is a reviewing
    of budget in terms of what they are having to do.
        Mr. Chief, you spoke of the elevator that the Congressman
    spoke about and that you have officers directing people to that
    elevator with special needs. Did I hear that clearly? And
    officers are there to direct them into this elevator? Will the
    present operator be operating that elevator at the time of the
    evacuation, or will we have those officers doing that? How is
    that done during the evacuation period?
        Chief Gainer. Yes, ma'am. The plan is to mirror what we
    have now in practice on the Senate side, and that is that,
    ideally, we would like to have all the House officers, for
    instance, trained to operate the designated emergency
    elevators. But that takes some time. So what we are doing is
    identifying officers who normally work, as a rule, near those
    emergency designated elevators. And they will be trained by our
    own personnel as well as the House Office of Emergency
    Planning, Preparedness and Operations. They will have the keys
    to operate those, and they have a temporary breathing apparatus
    to assist them to try to stop at each floor, step off the
    elevator, look up and down the hallway to see who is coming,
    get the people on the elevator and get them out. But they will
    do that for as long as it is physically safe for them and then,
    eventually, turn it over to the Fire Department.
        Ms. Millender-McDonald. Mr. Architect, I think you spoke to
    it. Sometimes we are speaking to staff as you are speaking, so
    it is not to be rude; it is just to kind of clarify what I am
    hearing you said the last time to get to them. The Congressman
    expressed concerns about the lack of accessible ramps from the
    House Chamber, and I think you were speaking somewhat on that.
    How do you address those concerns and address the deficiencies
    in the House Office Buildings as well with respect to the
    specific emergency evacuation requirements for all employees,
    visitors with limited mobility?
        Mr. Hantman. We have identified, Congresswoman, two exits
    from every building. In fact what we could do is show you some
    boards right now.
        Ms. Millender-McDonald. And you know what, at some point
    when I get back, I want to physically walk with you guys, and
    you show me what you are talking about so that I can kind of
    internalize it as well.
        Mr. Hantman. Each of the House Office Buildings, with the
    exception of the Cannon Building, right now has two means of
    exiting safely out of the building. Here we see the Cannon
    building. And the main means of access and egress is really
    along New Jersey Avenue over here, so there is a ramp coming in
    over here. We have a fundamental problem again with elevation
    dropping off very strongly on First Street and down New Jersey
    Avenue. And we had been discussing at one time the possibility
    of having a second means of egress out through the truck dock
    area over here. That is really not an ideal situation because,
    again, you are having people come out kind of in the middle of
    the block, and it really doesn't--they are next to the truck
    dock. They have got to cross the street in the middle over
    there, so it is not good. But in terms of air con and
    evacuation, maybe it is time that we looked at that again and
    had some mitigating circumstances so that we can have a second
    means out of the Cannon Building itself. And if we could see
    another--and again, you will see here two elevators that are on
    basically emergency power. And the administrative solutions
    that the chief has will work with one of those elevators as a
    primary and another as a secondary.
        Ms. Millender-McDonald. Each one of the buildings?
        Mr. Hantman. Each one of the buildings will have two
    elevators on the emergency power. So if main power goes off, we
    have emergency generators that those elevators are hooked up to
    so that we can bring people out. Here we see the Rayburn
    Building, and there is an exit in the courtyard over here. You
    can see that there is the exit symbol for the handicapped in
    both areas. And you will see that it also occurs on South
    Capitol Street. You have a way to get out from this direction
    as well. So we really have two means of getting out of the
    building: over here on the courtyard and then over here on C
    Street. So that is the Rayburn Building. And by the way, one of
    the things that the Chief said before relative to our
    philosophy in terms of life safety, the Rayburn Building is 99
    percent sprinklered at this point in time. It will be fully
    sprinklered by the end of this year. And that really gives us
    the ability not necessarily to have the areas of refuge,
    because the code doesn't call for that if you have a fully
    sprinklered building. So that is our philosophy, to make sure
    we go in, and we do the high-end security solution for all of
    our buildings.
        Here we see the Ford House Office Building, two exits on
    Third Street. And on Second Street, we have installed ramps
    over there so people can get in from both of those sides as
    well. And here, you will see two other elevators again
    identified on the emergency power system so that they can be
    used in an emergency situation.
        On the next board over here, we see for the Longworth
    Building, we have an exit out at the front and another exit on
    the side over here on South Capitol Street. Again, twoTo
    elevator locations that would serve that function.
        And on the last board, here we see the Capitol Building
    itself which we had referred to earlier on. And this shows of
    course the ramp way at the south. There is also a means of
    egress by way of a ramp by the Memorial door over here out to
    the plaza, with an elevator over here on the east side which
    would lead right from the floor level down to this level to
    come on out. And there is another on the Senate side as well.
        Ms. Millender-McDonald.  You know, and thank you so much
    for that. It has certainly shown, to some extent, just what the
    accommodations are. In listening to the Congressman, and I was
    asking staff, how does he get into the Capitol to vote? Of
    course, he has to go through the document door or another door
    they were telling me to come in. But it takes time. A lot of us
    are running in 5 minutes to get to an elevator to get down to
    vote. But they almost have to leave before the vote starts in
    order to get to all of this and do all of that and do all of
    this to get to the floor. Is there any way we can accommodate
    them where it is, the time element is, has lessened to what it
    seems to me it would take 15 minutes for them to do all of
    this?
        Mr. Hantman. Congresswoman, we have physical issues of
    distance. Clearly, as Congressman Langevin indicated, he has a
    first floor office to enable him to shorten any trip. He is not
    on the sixth floor of a building, so he doesn't have to take an
    elevator necessarily in that building to come out. He can exit
    the building directly, which I think was a wonderful
    accommodation by the House itself. But distance is distance.
    And if you are using a wheelchair and you are coming up on a
    ramp on the south entrance, that will lead you directly to the
    elevators that will take you up to the House floor. And it
    takes a certain amount of time to traverse that area.
        Ms. Millender-McDonald. Is there any way you see that, in
    the future, near future, that that might be shortened some, or
    will there never be because of just the way this place is--
        Mr. Hantman. Well, one of the things we have done, we have
    expanded something to the amount of $20 million on elevator
    renovations to increase the speed of elevators and the----
        Ms. Millender-McDonald.  Thank you. Speed.
        Mr. Hantman. In fact, we have some 66 elevators through the
    House Office Buildings and the Capitol as well; 40 of the 62
    elevators in the House Office Buildings have been updated so
    far, and 26 of the 27 in the Capitol have been updated so far.
    So, again, the speed on that has been improved, and the
    accessibility and the compliance with ADA has also been
    improved on all of those elevators.
        Ms. Millender-McDonald. Are we mandated to meet the
    requirements that are outlined in the ADA by a date specific,
    Mr. Hantman?
        Mr. Hantman. I am not aware of any date specific. What we
    do is we have an annual plan, and we look out a number of
    years, and we try to--as indicated before, budget is always an
    issue. And what we are trying to do is ask for reasonable
    amounts of money in increments so that we can do two things,
    again, not bust the budget and, number two, also not
    inconvenience the Members. One of the challenges that we have,
    for instance, even in putting in sprinkler systems in the
    Rayburn Building is, because Members are there, every space is
    really taken. We go in at night when the office is empty. We do
    our work. We come back. We clean the office so people can be in
    it the next day. We do the same thing the following night. So
    space, as you know, Congresswoman, is at a tremendous premium
    over here. The level of inconvenience that the Members have
    really is negative from the perspective of what jobs they can
    do. So working around those schedules and doing things on
    premium time is something that we find that we must do many,
    many times.
        Ms. Millender-McDonald.  Well, let me thank those who, the
    workers, because of the times we are in our offices until
    midnight or early mornings, frankly. I try to get out no later
    than midnight, after the floor has closed and we can go back
    and finally get to some of the paper work. And they are just so
    accommodating. They won't come in and disturb us. And
    sometimes, I say come on in and get what you need. Do whatever,
    work around me. So they are trained very well to try not to
    hinder us or come in while we are there. So we thank you for
    that.
        Mr. Eagen thank you so much for this. This is very nice.
        And the Chief held up one of his, and I suppose I will get
    one of yours as well.
        But this is very nice.
        You mentioned the availability of the TTY system. And I
    read some of the information here about that. What about the
    TTY system? Do we have that for visitors who want to go to the
    hearing rooms and hear the various hearings that we have? Are
    those accommodated for them?
        Mr. Eagen. The TTY is more usable in an office environment.
    It wouldn't, I don't believe, be an effective tool in a case
    like this. Alternatively, there is a system called CART that a
    committee can have brought in at its expense for a hearing that
    would basically create a text rendition of the discussion that
    is going on in the hearing. Those are available. We have made
    arrangements for that service on occasion for committees, and
    it is the committees' discretion if they determine that they
    have a need for the particular hearing that they are holding.
        Ms. Millender-McDonald.  I know when I was the vice mayor
    of a city, and we had--we asked for those who were coming in to
    make sure that we had accommodations for those with special
    needs. And I was just wondering if we have accommodations for
    those coming in to hear, all be it the floor or the hearing
    rooms, if we had accommodations for them.
        Mr. Eagen. Well, in my testimony, I made reference to the
    assistive listening devices that are being installed in the
    committee rooms. It is an infrared system. We have done 16 full
    committee rooms and three subcommittee rooms, and as we
    continue to upgrade the audio and visual capabilities in the
    rest of the committee rooms, those kind of devices will be
    installed.
        Ms. Millender-McDonald.  Okay.
        The training programs, are the training programs and
    software adjusted for staff with functional impairment?
        Mr. Eagen. You are referring to the learning center in the
    Longworth Building I assume by that question.
        Ms. Millender-McDonald.  Yes.
        Mr. Eagen. Primarily, this is where we do most of our
    training. The facility is relatively new, and it was
    constructed in terms of the furniture to make it accessible for
    mobility issues. There are special desktops thataccommodate
    wheelchairs and so forth. In the cases where we do have a hearing-
    impaired individual, we will bring in an interpreter that will be able
    to assist the trainer to be able to share the information in that
    manner. I think that the intention of creating those learning center
    capabilities was to train all staff, whether they have a disability or
    not. And I think that we need to take another look at it, quite
    candidly, and make sure that we are meeting that standard.
        I talked to the director of the program last night in fact,
    and I said, I think it is time for us to take a better look at
    the facility and see if there are some enhancements we need to
    do. So I will commit to you that we are going to take a look at
    that, and we will do it promptly.
        Ms. Millender-McDonald.  Good. I would like to hear back
    from you as to what your findings are once you have done that.
        Mr. Eagen. I will be happy to do that.
        Ms. Millender-McDonald.  And do you have special equipment
    or other provisions for seeing-eye dogs?
        Mr. Eagen. That is something I will have to research for
    you. I cannot answer that question off the top of my head.
        Ms. Millender-McDonald.  Okay. Well, you know, like I say,
    we are all getting into this and experiencing things that are
    needed. But as we look at those special needs for special
    people, certainly get back with me on that and let us know what
    we can do to help in accommodating those who also will have
    seeing-eye dogs here.
        Mr. Eagen. Congresswoman, if I could make one point
    relative to the Americans with Disabilities Act and the House
    situation that I think might be informing as you consider these
    issues: The House is a bit of a unique entity in comparison to
    many organizations where there is a single employing authority.
    In the House of Representatives, instead, we have about 600
    employing authorities. In fact, you are one of them. Mr. Ney is
    another, so forth and so on. I am one of them. And in that
    regard, it is a bit of a challenge to create that partnership,
    if you will.
        Under the law, the employing authority is responsible for
    the accommodations within their office space. And at the same
    time, we also have institutional services that are provided by
    organizations like mine or the Architect and so forth and so
    on. And sometimes, I perceive some gray areas where that bridge
    needs to be more clearly built to understand where the
    responsibility is.
        To give you an example of this, we, the Chief
    Administrative Officer is responsible for providing carpet to
    Members' offices. Members' offices don't have to pay for that
    carpet. Well, under the Americans with Disabilities Act, the
    carpet pile has to be a certain density to be wheelchair
    acceptable. So it is my responsibility to make sure that, when
    we install carpet, it is ADA compliant.
        Conversely, the responsibility, the authority for equipment
    within a Members' office, the computers and other kinds of
    devices, are actually the responsibility of the Member. It
    requires a Member's signature to buy something. We may go buy
    it for you and purchase the good for you, but in reality, the
    authority to buy that particular piece of equipment is the
    Member's responsibility. And if an accommodation were required
    for a particular employee, the responsibility lies with the
    Member to make the call that I need that piece of equipment. I
    think our role and our challenge is to try to provide the
    advice, the access to merchants and commercial entities to come
    up with those kinds of equipment.
        And an example of that was a few years ago, for the
    minority staff on the Committee on House Administration, the
    Democratic staff, they brought in an intern who was visually
    impaired. They came to us and identified a special need for a
    telephone device. We were able to work with Avaya, one of the
    providers, and they came up with a unique piece of equipment
    that worked for that particular individual. So that is an
    example of the partnership that I think we need to try to
    undertake working with 600 employing entities in the House.
        Ms. Millender-McDonald.  You are absolutely right. And how
    you have laid that out is indeed correct. But when I made
    reference to the seeing-eye dogs I am talking about visitors,
    not necessarily the Members themselves; because certainly the
    Members are, I would think, have an obligation to some of this.
    And all of us are grappling with how we better meet the needs
    and accommodations for those with special needs.
        And so, certainly, none of us are perfect in trying to do
    that. But it does take a partnership. And I grant you that I am
    here to work with all of you on how we can help to accommodate
    those needs.
        The last one I have, Mr. Chairman is one that a California
    colleague of mine, Congressman Sam Farr last year asked, he had
    an intern who happens to have used a wheelchair--and this is
    more or less for the architect. And he requested two automatic
    door openers for his office to accommodate this intern, but
    cancelled the request more than 7 weeks later when the
    internship was about to end, and the door openers still had not
    been installed. And I guess the question is, how long do
    projects usually take compared to other high-priority projects?
        Mr. Hantman. I think each individual project is fairly
    unique. I can certainly check with the Superintendent of the
    House and find out the history. In terms of automatic door
    openers, we have installed them to several buildings as well as
    to individual suites when they are called for. We installed
    them at the New Jersey Avenue entrance to the Cannon Building
    and the South Capitol Street entrance of the center court of
    the Rayburn Building, at the Ford Office building on the Third
    Street entrance and in individual offices as requested as the
    need occurs. We don't stockpile the equipment. We have to order
    it. Depending on the long lead and nascent nature of it from
    the individual vendor, we try to get to that as quickly as we
    can.
        Ms. Millender-McDonald.  And I certainly do understand
    that.
        Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        The Chairman. Thank you.
        Gentlelady from California Ms. Lofgren.
        Ms. Lofgren. Just a few simple questions since I think we
    have covered a lot of ground this morning. Do you do--after an
    evacuation, do we do surveys of staff who are either in a
    wheelchair or visually impaired--we have, you know, a very
    diverse staff--to find out what they have actually run into?
    Because one of the things that I really believe is that you
    don't really understand the barriers until you live them. And I
    have certainly found that, with my own staff, things that I
    just never would have thought of.Have we done that?
        Chief Gainer. We conduct after-action reports but I can't
    say that we have talked to individuals.
        Ms. Lofgren. Can I suggest that we do that?
        Chief Gainer. I think it is a very good idea ma'am, yes.
        Ms. Lofgren. Thank you very much.
        The other question I wanted to mention, I already mentioned
    the jersey barriers, and I hope that that is easy to do. Today,
    we can go out and measure them and make sure that they actually
    work for people in a wheelchair. On the issue, this is not an
    evacuation issue, but I am on the Homeland Security Committee
    as well, and we don't have a hearing room. And it seems to me
    that it would help, I mean, the issue that Congressman Langevin
    faces is different than the public and staff because he has to
    get up to the dais, and other people generally don't. So I
    think that if we could arrive at a room and make it accessible,
    it would be a huge help rather than to have--I mean,
    ultimately, all the rooms should be made accessible, but if we
    could prioritize, if we could just get a hearing room for that
    committee, because Mr. Langevin serves on that committee, that
    would be very useful. I don't know. Maybe Mr.--I guess the
    committee, this committee helps with those assignments. Maybe I
    should direct this suggestion to the chairman. But I think it
    would save us money.
        The Chairman. If the gentlelady would yield. Just for
    clarification for you, now 311 would be transferred from Small
    Business to Homeland Security September 11, right?
        Mr. Hantman. Yes.
        Ms. Lofgren. Okay.
        The Chairman. There are still going to be some issues; the
    Subcommittee and some other staff on both sides of the aisle
    still need to determine where they are going to be. But I think
    the renovation of room 311 will be up to speed this August and
    then September 1 is the actual transfer and Small Business
    transfers it.
        Mr. Hantman. Right. And as I indicated earlier, there will
    be more dais seats on a lower level directly accessible for
    wheelchairs.
        Ms. Lofgren. I would suggest that, perhaps, I mean, we will
    have in the future other Members of Congress who are in
    wheelchairs, but right now, we just have one. And so we should
    ask Jim, you know, he is Ranking Member of one of the
    subcommittees. If we could just hone in on, prioritize that, I
    think it would help focus our finances as we move forward. And
    we have got to start someplace and then ultimately the whole
    Congress. But that is just a suggestion.
        The other thing I wanted to mention has to do with people
    who are not disabled but who are frail. And one of the things I
    noticed at the last evacuation, there were some staffers in the
    Capitol who are very elderly and who have been there a very
    long time. And I saw them, I mean, they were really in terrible
    shape. And I think, I mean, how some of those elderly people
    actually ran is beyond me. And that, in addition to what we are
    doing in terms of evacuation plans for people in wheelchairs or
    sight impaired or whatever, we ought to give some thought to
    some of the people who we know are really quite elderly and
    frail and how--I don't want to mention anybody's name--but we
    need to have a plan so that they don't drop dead running down
    the street. If I can suggest that.
        Chief Gainer. Yes, ma'am.
        Ms. Lofgren. And finally, on the issue of hallways, I will
    just make a prediction. We are going to have a huge fight if we
    try to take our American flags away. I don't think that is
    going to happen. And----
        The Chairman. Will the gentlelady yield? They will still be
    there. I had the same question. Could you explain that for the
    gentlelady? I am sorry to interrupt.
        Mr. Hantman. Congresswoman, the concept was not to
    eliminate the flags. But right now, they are sitting in bases
    on the floor which would be tripping hazards in an evacuation
    type of situation, especially for the sight impaired. So the
    design now will be that we will have wall-mounted brackets so
    the flags can be outside the office, but they will eliminate
    tripping hazards on the floor.
        Ms. Lofgren. So they would basically be out, but just not
    on the floor. Okay. I understand that better. And not just one.
    I have many flags. I have a county flag, a city flag, a State
    flag.
        The Chairman. We talked about that.
        Ms. Lofgren. Missing in Action flag. And I--just a point of
    view, Members, I don't, but Members on both sides of the aisle
    on a variety of issues have displays expressing their
    viewpoint, and I think that we are going to have a huge issue
    there. I think we ought to postpone that fight until all the
    desks and chairs are removed, and that could be quite some
    time.
        But I yield back and thank the gentleman for recognizing
    me.
        The Chairman. The question you asked was the first thing I
    asked on the flags. I also couldn't envision how those flags
    fit that way in the hallway. But I saw a model, and they
    actually, stand just as our current flags do. You just don't
    have the base. I know some Members have eight, nine flags. We
    can work with that to accommodate them. But I just wanted to
    make it clear that they would still be there. You just don't
    have the bottom wooden part with the base.
        Ms. Lofgren. That would work.
        The Chairman. I have no further questions. I just wanted to
    show for an example the infrared devices up there that Mr.
    Eagen was talking about. And these are the devices that we
    referred to in the Dear Colleague that Congresswoman Millender-
    McDonald and I distributed. We say on there: If you have any
    special requests, call us and this would be the device which we
    have here. And if you have a hearing impairment problem,
    infrared may help to increase it.
        With that, I want to thank all three of you for being here.
    Our Sergeant of Arms, Mr. Livinggood, is here. We thank him for
    all his due diligence over the years working with the issues.

      STATEMENTS OF HILARY C. STYRON, ACTING DIRECTOR, EMERGENCY
     PREPAREDNESS INITIATIVE, NATIONAL ORGANIZATION ON DISABILITY;
       ELIZABETH A. DAVIS, J.D., Ed.M., EAD & ASSOCIATES, LLC.,
     EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT & SPECIAL NEEDS CONSULTANTS; AND JACK J.
           MURPHY, MANAGING DIRECTOR, JJM & ASSOCIATES, LLC.

        The Chairman. And we will go on to the next panel. Thank
    you very much. I want to welcome the third and last panel for
    today.
        First, we have Hilary Styron, an EPI acting director. She
    currently serves as acting director for the National
    Organization on Disability's Emergency Preparedness Initiative.
    She has extensive experience in all hazards emergency
    management, emergency medical services, and implementation of
    long-range strategic planning. She participates in preparedness
    and planning efforts undertaken across the country. In 1991,
    she began developing disaster-related plans for training
    exercises and operational procedures, and conducted studies
    related to emergency preparedness. After September 11, she
    relocated to Washington, D.C., where she has been actively
    engaged in preparedness planning for the National Capitol
    Region as well as a wide variety of places, including the U.S.
    Senate Office of Security. So we want to welcome you here.
        And the next witness is Elizabeth Davis. Elizabeth Davis is
    an emergency management consultant specializing in special
    needs planning. She received her J.D. from Boston University
    School of Law and her Educational Master's from Boston
    University School of Education with a degree in the socio-
    bicultural study of deafness and American Sign Language. She
    holds an undergraduate degree with a major in sociology and a
    minor in political science from Columbia University. After many
    years as an advocate in the disability area, she began public
    service after law school with the New York City Mayor's Office
    for People With Disabilities as an assistant to the council and
    senior policy advisor. She is also an accomplished public
    speaker and has a reputation for creating solutions. She is
    considered one of the Nation's go-to sources for emergency
    management and special needs.
        And our last witness is Mr. Jack Murphy. He established a
    business enterprise for consulting in the field of fire and
    life safety emergency action plans and preparedness, incident
    management systems, fire litigation disaster code analysis,
    building cost surveys and various fire-service-related training
    programs. As a retired fire marshall, former deputy chief, he
    is responsible for the operational budget code enforcement and
    inspection procedures, pre-incident planning, and has
    organized, coordinated and promoted community fire-safety
    awareness campaigns. And he is also corporate vice president of
    a Fortune 50 company for the global fire emergency preparedness
    department that provides technical expertise and fire
    protection and crisis management for domestic and international
    facilities.
        I want to welcome all three witnesses, and we will begin
    with Ms. Styron.

                     STATEMENT OF HILARY C. STYRON

        Ms. Styron. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, and members of the
    committee.
        I am Hilary Styron, acting director of the National
    Organization on Disability's Emergency Preparedness Initiative.
    Prior to joining NOD, as you have just stated, I had the honor
    and privilege to work on Capitol Hill as an emergency
    management practitioner with the Library of Congress and the
    Senate Sergeant at Arms Office of Security and Emergency
    Preparedness. On behalf of the NOD, founder Alan Reich and
    President and Chairman Michael Deland, thank you for the
    opportunity to appear before you today to discuss these very
    important issues.
        I would also like to thank Congressman Langevin for his
    remarks here today and for continuing to be a NOD congressional
    sponsor. The National Organization on Disability launched its
    Emergency Preparedness Initiative in the wake of the September
    11, 2001, terrorist attacks. NOD recognized that people with
    disabilities have a great stake in the effectiveness of public
    programs aimed at preparing for and responding to all types of
    disasters.
        Now in its fourth year, EPI continues its national
    education outreach and awareness programs with three primary
    goals in mind: The first is to make sure that the special needs
    of people with disabilities are adequately addressed prior to
    an emergency in order to minimize the adverse impact on people
    with disabilities in their communities. Second is to ensure
    that people with disabilities are included in the emergency
    planning process at all levels of government and the private
    sector so they can offer their insights, knowledge and
    resourcefulness. Third, is to ensure that people with
    disabilities take an active role in their personal preparedness
    at home and in the workplace. People with disabilities can
    contribute greatly to the effectiveness of local emergency
    management planning. Continued education and outreach for both
    first responders and people with disabilities will help
    increase the level of their preparedness for all people across
    the country.
        As you know, on Tuesday of this week, many of us here today
    celebrated the 15th anniversary of the passing of the Americans
    with Disabilities Act. Even with 15 years of progress, the
    results show from a 2004 NOD Harris Poll Survey of Americans
    with Disabilities that there are wide gaps in major life areas
    of people with disabilities as compared to their peers without
    disabilities, and we remain pervasively disadvantaged in 10 key
    indicator areas. An area or gap that has not been discussed in
    that particular survey is the sometimes inconsistent,
    inadequate or ineffective emergency preparedness planning for
    people with disabilities. In 2001 and in 2003, NOD surveyed
    emergency preparedness in people with disabilities, and the
    results show that 58 percent of people with disabilities did
    not know whom to contact about emergency plans in their
    community; 61 percent have not made home preparedness plans or
    plans to quickly and safely evacuate their home.
        The Chairman. I am sorry. Was this a nationwide survey, you
    say?
        Ms. Styron. This was a national survey, yes. The 2003
    survey did find a noteworthy improvement however in workplace
    preparedness. With people with disabilities that are employed,
    68 percent of those people indicate that they have made plans
    to quickly and safely evacuate from their jobs. It is a
    dramatic increase from the 45 percent in 2001. This suggests
    that efforts to design and implement disabilities-specific
    disaster planning are making an impact where people work. It is
    also an indicator that when appropriate, effective plans are
    made, all people can be prepared.
        A 2004 survey by NOD funded by the U.S. Department of
    Homeland Security polled emergency managers in States, large,
    mid-sized and small cities across the country and withregards
    to preparedness for people with disabilities. The results showed that
    22 percent of emergency managers have a plan under development that
    will incorporate special needs into emergency plans; 76 percent did not
    have a paid expert to address the issues of emergency preparedness and
    disabilities; 73 percent said no funding had been received to address
    emergency planning for people with disabilities or special needs; 42
    percent of emergency managers self-affirmed in this survey that they
    had a public awareness campaign directed as providing emergency
    information to people with disabilities with only 16 percent of those
    42 percent making that campaign available in an accessible format,
    which would be Braille, large print or cassette.
        I know that the House has worked diligently to improve
    accessibility for Members, staff and visitors due in large part
    to the hard work and guidance of this Committee. There have
    been improvements in communications equipment, building
    modifications and review of occupant emergency plans. However,
    even with these improvements, there is still much work to be
    done. It is also important to acknowledge the work of the
    Office of Emergency Planning and Preparedness, the AOC, the
    Chief Administrative Office, and the Capitol Police and what
    they have accomplished thus far. I appreciate their willingness
    to further address critical issues by being here today.
    Recognition of these issues by House planners and Capitol
    Police is a positive first step towards developing an effective
    strategy that both maximizes resources and creates emergency
    preparedness plans that are operationally sound during real-
    time implementation.
        OEPPO and the Capitol Police recognize special needs issues
    by including a reference to, quote, be prepared to assist
    persons with disabilities, in the publication, Responding to
    Special Emergencies Guide for the United States Capitol
    Complex, released April 3, 2003. However, within that document,
    there was no further instruction on how to deliver the
    assistance or what that assistance might entail. In exercise
    drills, some scenarios written for the chamber did specify
    inclusion of, quote, at least one person in a wheelchair.
    However, evaluation forms only requested feedback on
    handicapped persons' transportation issues. Incidentally, the
    term ``handicapped person'' is outdated and has been replaced
    with people with disabilities. At that time, exercises were not
    evaluated for the accessibility of alerts and notifications,
    for communications equipment, facility infrastructure or
    situation briefings for staffers with disabilities. The after-
    action report on one of these exercises indicated multiple
    problems, such as: The wheelchair escort got lost on the tunnel
    route; an emergency wheelchair was used incorrectly; too few
    storage areas for evacuation chairs near the chamber; and the
    wheelchair aid designated to an individual to relocate left
    that individual after he moved him to another location.
        The continuing challenge will be to prioritize life-safety
    issues over physical security perimeter measures. While a
    strategic security goal may be to keep the wrong people from
    entering the building, these same goals may keep all people
    from leaving the building in an emergency. The Strategic Plan
    of the Capitol Police to augment the prevention, response and
    support capabilities of the department does acknowledge and
    does include that staff and the public have a heightened
    awareness of their personal security and safety and would
    enhance the department's ability to educate staff, gain
    cooperation and allow for the building of partnerships amongst
    the congressional community.
        This concept can and should reach beyond physical security
    in the traditional sense and be utilized across all life-safety
    issues, including emergency preparedness for people with
    disabilities.
        Inconsistent planning for people with disabilities does not
    solely rest in the hands of OEPPO or the Capitol Police. In the
    December 2003 ``Bulletin'' published by the Office of
    Compliance, there was no mention of people with disabilities.
        The Chairman. I am sorry. Could you repeat that again?
        Ms. Styron. Sure, in the December 2003 ``Bulletin''
    published by the Office of Compliance, there is no mention of
    people with disabilities. The current Web-based template that
    the House offices are encouraged to use to complete emergency
    action plans is dated from 1997, and that does not include
    considerations for staffers or visitors with disabilities. It
    also focuses on fire as the cause of evacuation and does not
    reference the all-hazards planning approach to develop
    emergency plans.
        While the instructions on the Web do indicate that the
    template is a guide, template-based planning obviously omits
    very critical information and ignores the special needs of
    people with disabilities in emergencies. For instance, if there
    is no staffer in the office with a known or visible disability,
    it seems likely that the office emergency coordinator writing
    their plan as a collateral duty may not know how to or if they
    should plan for people with disabilities thereby being
    unprepared for a staffer or visitor and their needs during an
    emergency. Out of sight, out of mind.
        Not having a qualified expert or guidance on how to plan
    for disabilities during emergencies that is readily available
    to the office emergency coordinators, the Capitol Police,
    OEPPO, Architect of the Capitol, the CAO and the Sergeant at
    Arms has had a negative impact on the ultimate level of
    preparedness and safety for the House complex. To further
    illustrate the need, the Capitol Buildings Occupant Emergency
    Plan published in 2000 indicated that persons needing
    assistance even if only due to a temporary condition or who
    cannot otherwise use the stairs or steps to evacuate a building
    should follow the specific instructions indicated in each
    Capitol Building Occupant Emergency Plan, the published
    emergency evacuation procedures brochures or the posted
    instructions within the building. I have already indicated that
    the templates for these plans did not account for disability
    needs, and yet part of the larger complex plan refers the
    person back to the incomplete occupant evacuation plans. It is
    like a vicious circle.
        Just imagine people with disabilities in the chaotic
    environments of an emergency thumbing frantically through
    paperwork for instructions rather than proceeding to an
    evacuation area or reaching a designated area of safe haven. A
    person with a disability would be far better served by live
    communication and real-time instructions combined with
    comprehensive training and education.
        While working on Capitol Hill, much of my time was spent
    increasing the efforts to address emergency preparedness and
    evacuation planning for people with disabilities. Even though
    some of my efforts were met with hesitation and resistance,
    positive results were achieved that included establishing a
    Capitol Hill Emergency Management Working Group that was a
    Hill-wide emergency management group;distribution of a National
    Organization on Disability's Emergency Preparedness Initiative Guide on
    the Special Needs of People with Disabilities in the fall of 2002 to
    emergency managers and police officials across the Hill complex,
    including the House. A training seminar was hosted by the Senate
    Sergeant at Arms on April 16, 2003 on emergency preparedness for people
    with disabilities. It should be noted that the seminar was open and
    invited parties were encouraged to attend. My records do not indicate
    however that emergency managers or disability specialists from the
    House were able to attend. However, House personnel with disabilities
    did attend that seminar.
        Ms. Styron. And finally, we were able to establish an
    internal working group of emergency managers, disability
    leadership and Senate staff with disabilities interested in
    developing a plan to address their needs and the needs of
    thousands of visitors with disabilities. And as you have heard
    today from previous testimony, the Senate has done some things
    with their elevators and different training protocols with the
    House and the Architect of the Capitol and the Capitol Police.
    So they are certainly moving forward, and that might be a good
    reference point for the committee to consider as far as an
    internal working group is concerned.
        In a recent discussion of the Emergency Measures Task Force
    members from across the Hill complex, concerns were raised over
    the issue of evacuations and the use of elevators. This was
    also mentioned at today's hearing and the hearing on June 9th
    of this Committee. It is clear that even if every single
    elevator functioned the same way and were ready tomorrow, there
    would still be an inconsistent approach to how and when to use
    them and who would have priority use of elevators.
        During this discussion, it was not apparent that any House
    personnel specifically representing disability issues were
    participating on this Emergency Measures Task Force.
        Recently, I spoke with several House offices that might be
    responsible for emergency preparedness planning for the special
    needs population but was unable to confirm what office has the
    ultimate authority.
        I cannot confirm if the instructions given in 2003 have
    been revised or clarified. I cannot tell you if current
    emergency action plans or occupant evacuation plans include
    disability considerations or if the staff have been
    appropriately and effectively educated and trained on these
    considerations.
        Recent events, press statements and prior hearing
    testimony, and testimony given today to this Committee suggest,
    at best, a very disjointed, confusing and inconsistent approach
    to emergency planning for people with disabilities for the
    House complex. Because of these issues being so critical to
    protecting and saving lives, the officials here today and the
    Committee, I encourage you to change the emergency management
    system and your planning priorities.
        We have just heard testimony today about what new plans are
    being developed, and in addition to those plans, there are some
    following recommendations for this committee to consider: The
    House should establish an internal disability preparedness
    working group that consists of emergency management officials,
    disability leadership and House staffers with disabilities.
    They should try to identify what House personnel have
    disabilities that are known and unknown. They should develop a
    comprehensive training and education program and exercise these
    plans on a regular basis.
        An internal working group such as this, as I have already
    said, has been reasonably successful on the Senate side as well
    as several Federal agencies here in Washington, including the
    Department of Labor, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and
    FEMA.
        The House should retain a qualified recognized expert to
    address disability-related issues for all House buildings,
    plans and procedures as well as help the House facilitate the
    aforementioned working group. This expert should be qualified
    to address disability-related issues, as well as have emergency
    management experience that includes response-and-recovery
    operations involving the special needs of people with
    disabilities.
        Continuing to review plans from a one-sided perspective of
    either the emergency manager or the disability coordinator,
    respectfully, will further perpetuate the inconsistent planning
    efforts taking place throughout the House complex. The expert
    should assist this Committee, the working group, the Capitol
    Police and the Architect of the Capitol in conducting a very
    detailed review of all House emergency action plans and
    occupant evacuation planning materials for the appropriate and
    effective inclusion of disability-related issues. This person
    should help the Committee and the Capitol Police develop the
    education curriculum and the training materials, as well as
    police protocols for response and recovery.
        Successful response-and-recovery plans that have this
    dynamic part included are available in New York, New Jersey,
    Illinois, Florida and several other agencies here within the
    Washington Federal sector.
        The House should implement a comprehensive training
    education program. Awareness and education are the keys to be
    prepared. EPI is currently providing outreach and awareness
    across the country on this very issue. We have partnered with
    several organizations, including the International Association
    of Emergency Managers (IAEM), to develop a special needs
    committee for emergency managers who are members of this
    organization. EPI's national awareness campaign, ``Partners in
    Preparedness'', will be launched for the National Preparedness
    Month in September and includes IAEM, the International
    Association of Fire Chiefs and the National Center on
    Independent Living. EPI continues to expand its role in Federal
    partnerships with DHS, FEMA, the National Capitol Region, Red
    Cross and National Citizen Corps. Education and outreach was a
    huge success at the National Capitol Region sponsored
    conference last fall, and many of the over 400 attendees
    continue to expand disability preparedness within their
    organization. I can tell youaffirmatively that the Capitol
    Police and the Architect of the Capitol did have representatives at
    that conference last fall.
        Partnerships for Education to both first responders and the
    disability community will help turn the tide for emergency
    preparedness for people with disabilities. It will help the
    House as well. And this Committee can provide the much-needed
    leadership and support to this very important accessibility
    issue for the House complex.
        The House should seek to have representation of disability-
    related issues on the Emergency Measures Task Force meetings as
    a regular member of that group.
        Disability emergency preparedness issues are dynamic, with
    very specific nuances. Not having representation at the table
    with emergency management leaders from across the Hill sets the
    tone for continued exclusion rather than inclusion.
        In closing, I would like to recognize the Capitol Police
    and House Emergency Management officials for the very hard work
    that they have done to make the complex safer and more secure.
    The police have a tremendous responsibility and are to be
    commended for staying on the front lines, even when someone
    like myself comes along to say, ``the plans need some work''.
        I thank the committee for their time today and for
    recognizing the importance of planning for the needs of people
    with disabilities. And I am pleased to answer any questions the
    committee may have.
        [The statement of Ms. Styron follows:]

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        The Chairman. Mr. Murphy.

                      STATEMENT OF JACK J. MURPHY

        Mr. Murphy. I am Jack Murphy. I appreciate the opportunity
    to speak to you today about emergency action plans and
    accessibility.
        In the early winter of 2001, the fire and safety directors
    of greater New York appointed a task force to address the issue
    with a view to outlining a number of suggestions that would
    reflect the insight of our collective experience. Many of these
    findings have been incorporated into an emergency action plan
    that was adopted by the City of New York. One emergency action
    plan feature addresses how to best enhance a full high-rise
    building evacuation for all occupants, inclusive of people with
    disabilities.
        There are two main accessibility objectives for emergency
    preparedness. The first is to make sure that special needs of
    people with disabilities are sufficiently addressed prior to an
    emergency incident. And second is to ensure that a person with
    a disability is included in the emergency planning process by
    simply asking: What can we do to assist with your evacuation?
        The accessibility elements that are incorporated into an
    all hazard emergency evacuation must not only be with a plan of
    action but must be put into practice so as to reduce the level
    of probability.
        To further understand the impact of accessibility, an
    emergency action plan needs to address but not limit its scope.
    A solid foundation for an all-hazard emergency response begins
    with a dedicated evacuation director whose sole purpose is to
    direct an evacuation, provide the best practices of life safety
    and emergency management. To further assist the evacuation
    director, some internal and/or external threats may require a
    team approach to perform an effective evacuation or shelter-in-
    place mode. A building incident command team comprised of the
    Capitol Police supervisor and a building HVAC supervisor, which
    is a heat and vent air conditioning person, would further
    enhance an all-hazard evacuation for a chemical or a bomb
    threat.
        Floor emergency evacuation teams, such as the Capitol
    staff, must have knowledge and have been drilled on their
    respective floors as to where each staircase is located, where
    all street-level exits discharge onto, horizontal transfer
    corridors, elevators designated for all-hazard evacuation and
    accountability relocations so that, on specific directions,
    they know straight forward what to do and where to go.
        Trained community emergency response teams, such as CERT,
    can be adapted by the building management staff that make up
    the mechanical section of the building. A CERT team who has
    been selected, organized and trained in emergency preparedness
    may be a valuable asset, particularly in a city-wide multiple
    incident emergency.
        All-hazard evacuation voice announcements need to be
    communicated to the occupants for particular types of
    evacuation so as to meet the needs of a potential threat at
    hand. For example, a Code Black announcement will direct
    occupants to use all elevators and all stairs, stairs only,
    stairs that lead directly to the exterior, internal relocation
    within the Capitol space, and shelter-in-place.
        The accommodations of people with disabilities and special
    needs, when asked to assist with their evacuation, a support
    network team may be added to the floor evacuation team. There
    also may be a need to install a portable Evac on floors
    identified as one that needs such a chair. The designated
    primary and secondary areas of assistance must be coordinated
    with the District of Columbia Fire Department.
        The use of elevators--and I emphasize this--for emergencies
    other than fire can enhance a rapid departure for people with
    disabilities and expedite a mass evacuation. In many large
    buildings, the existing 44-inch stair width was not designed to
    handle a full building evacuation. Elevators, however, can
    remove 12 percent of the people inthese buildings within 5
    minutes.
        When using an elevator as part of the emergency action plan
    provision, the following conditions need to be met. All
    elevator cars must be recalled to the fire department entry
    floor and be held in place. The elevator is to be manned by a
    trained Capitol staff person. A two-way voice communication
    between the evacuation director and each elevator car must be
    established. And when a person with a disability needs an
    alternative evacuation, the floor should be recognized and
    posted at the fire command station.
        To assist first responders, a comprehensive building
    information card must be available at the fire command station.
    This card will give a description of the building, its support
    systems and contain a schematic of floor plans. This will also
    greatly enhance the fire department commanders with the areas
    of refuge assistance.
        Under a unified command structure, all first responders
    need to cooperate and coordinate the endeavors with EMS, fire,
    police, the D.C. Office of Emergency Management and, when
    necessary, the military, to rapidly reduce an incident.
        A quick and easy procedure for first responders when
    assisting people with disabilities is to ask that person how
    you can best help them before any assistance is given, if they
    have any limitations or problems that may affect their safety,
    and when carrying the person, avoid putting pressure on their
    arms, legs and chest.
        The new all-hazard emergency evacuation modes need to be in
    place so as to assess the various threat levels for an
    effective evacuation. The recognized strategy will utilize the
    tactical considerations for a full and/or partial evacuation,
    internal relocation and/or shelter-in-place with specific
    directions for the use of elevators and stairs.
        An annual evacuation drill will help identify critical
    coordination activities, the potential behavior of occupants,
    and communication links for both fire and all-hazard
    emergencies. Immediately after an exercise, a participant hot
    wash should be conducted by gathering people together in
    different functional groups. This information can provide
    insight into what events happened the way they did or why
    expected actions did not take place.
        In closing, the emergency action plan for accessibility
    must be a commonsense approach, so as to reassure that life
    safety is the welfare of all occupants. There are other
    emergency features that need to be implemented, such as a
    public accountability knowledge system to assist the incident
    commander with real-time information on people who have
    evacuated and assist with critical medical information and mass
    casualty incidents. The installation of photo-luminous markings
    within all stair towers will greatly enhance an evacuation in
    total darkness that must follow a proscribed standard, and
    elevators which are currently being evaluated by the National
    Institute of Standards and Technology need to operate in all
    emergencies, including fire, so as to enhance life safety.
        These series of suggestions will give flexibility and more
    effective applications to a growing need that has, with such
    menacing suddenness, alerted us to respond to it with a
    determined purpose.
        I would like to thank you today for the opportunity to
    share these experiences with you.
        [The statement of Mr. Murphy follows:]

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        The Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Murphy.
        Ms. Davis.

              STATEMENT OF ELIZABETH A. DAVIS, J.D., Ed.M.

        Ms. Davis. Mr. Chairman, and members of the committee, let
    me be the first one today to say good afternoon instead of good
    morning, and that I thank you very much for the opportunity to
    appear before you to continue our conversation.
        Since my practice is based in New York City, I wish to
    actually look there for an example, but I want to go back some
    time in history to the afternoon of March 25, 1911, as a fire
    broke out on the top floors of the building that housed the
    Triangle Shirtwaist Company, one of the most tragic fires in
    American history. And by the time the fire was extinguished,
    nearly 20 minutes after it had begun, 146 were dead. These were
    working immigrant women, some as young as 15 years old.
        What the fire did was to draw attention to a horrific
    tragedy that was just waiting to happen; it spotlighted the
    following fact: The building itself faired well. The terra
    cotta encased support beams actually held under the fire's
    intense heat. The human condition, however, was devastating.
    The fire inspections and precautions were woefully inadequate.
    This was one of the first times in our history when the
    resulting outcry was heard: People in buildings must be more
    valued than the buildings themselves. What followed, therefore,
    was a State Review Commission, legislated fireproofing,
    mainstreamed use of sprinkler systems and new safety standards.
        Here, now, no matter what the event that churns our review
    process, we have an opportunity to learn from our past. Allow
    me to state the obvious: The disability community is not a
    homogeneous group, and as such, one-size-fits-all safety
    solutions will not work. Incidentally, this is also why a
    template solution without adaptation fails at that point as
    well.
        We must account for those persons with disabilities known
    to us as planners, those whom we can reasonably assume exist,
    as well as those unknown to us at the onset of planning. In
    total, this includes visible and invisible disabilities,
    episodic and chronic, motor, sensory, cognitive--in fact, the
    entire spectrum of difference. And our focus today, while it
    seems to be on getting out of a structure, in fact will have an
    application to the general population at large as it must be
    acknowledged that disability is in some ways an equalized
    factor: At any time, anyone can find themselves newly entering
    this group.
        Examine a few general examples, if you would, of both low-
    and high-tech solutions established initially for the benefit
    of just persons with disabilities but which in fact have had a
    significant safety impact on all persons. Audible way findings
    signage, perhaps installed for those with low or no vision, in
    heavy smoke conditions, this tool can assist anyone to locate
    an exit or an escape route.
        Exit door highly-visible color designation, perhaps painted
    for a person with cognitive disabilities, in a time of high
    anxiety or confusion, this immediately recognizable distinction
    assists anyone in locating the correct exit door.
        Stairlanding intercoms, perhaps installed for persons with
    mobility disabilities but usable by anyone unable to negotiate
    stairs due perhaps to a heart or respiratory condition or even
    pregnancy.
        The placement of an interactive communication system
    connects directly from that enclosed Area of Rescue Assistance
    to the building command post meaning immediate notification of
    needs to rescue personnel.
        Stair evacuation devices and equipment, perhaps purchased
    with a specific employee in mind, strategic placement of
    several of these devices can be used to remove anyone from a
    dangerous area, including those, perhaps, impacted by the
    initial triggering event.
        But no matter the event or the equipment available, the
    single most important emergency planning factor in survival
    remains practice. Two examples: A local service provider with
    offices just blocks from the World Trade Center in Manhattan,
    after the first World Trade Center bombings in 1993 worked with
    the Office of Emergency Management and with the Fire Department
    of New York City to develop a building evacuation plan
    specifically for its staff, most of whom had limited or no
    vision themselves. Their proactive approach and practice, in
    fact, paid off during the events of 9/11 when the entire staff
    was able to calmly and safely self-evacuate from the 9th floor
    of their office building. They recount hearing other
    underprepared building occupants yell, ``Follow the blind
    people, they seem to be know where they are going!''
        A second example: A manager who uses a wheelchair was
    physically carried down 65-plus flights of stairs in 1993, but
    after that event, the agency purchased an evacuation chair for
    that manager and trained an entire team of co-workers in its
    use. While they certainly had to transverse several staircases
    to exit the building, the group of nine persons made it out in
    just under one hour, as compared to the 5-plus hours it had
    taken them in 1993. This time lapse quite literally was the
    difference between life and death.
        Prior to the events of September 11th, many members of the
    disability community, when asked to honestly articulate their
    own emergency plans, would state in very clear and certain
    terms, they would likely be left to last and only hope that
    help would reach them. The answer then moved from this to the
    realm of acknowledging a co-worker, a neighbor or perhaps a
    stranger who could take on the role of ``buddy.'' Incidentally,
    the buddy concept has evolved into a concept of ``network of
    assistance.'' But now the disability community, as just
    illustrated, is saying more loudly that we have an active role
    to play in our own survival, and that none of these past
    solutions alone appear to be acceptable.
        For now these tools should include not only actual devices
    and rehearsed drills, but also egress modelling, taking people
    with disabilities into account as well as a review of some of
    those entrenched standard protocols. The most apparent gaps
    existing today are in the following categories: 1. Notification
    and warning. No consistent use of technology and multiple
    mediums in the built environment to provide immediate,
    consistent and critical emergency information to all persons
    effectively. 2. Evacuation----
        The Chairman. Could you say that one more time?
        Ms. Davis. Certainly. My point with regard to notification
    and warning is that the gap appears to be that we have not
    agreed upon a consistent use of technology. We have not
    recognized the use of multiple mediums within a built
    environment. And this, therefore, I would suggest, means that
    we have eliminated consistent critical information from
    reaching all persons.
        If I might add, by example, multiple medium use--we talked
    about some of the higher-tech technologies, some of the
    infrared systems, perhaps some of the dual-communications
    systems in certain areas. I would be happy to provide, after
    this hearing, to all Members a communication picture board, a
    pictorial opportunity to convey emergency or evacuation
    information with persons, including those who are non-English
    speaking. This was provided to the Sergeant at Arms two years
    ago, and it might, in fact, offer some answers or certainly
    spur some thought, and I will get that copy to you.
        Other areas include two evacuation devices. Here, again,
    are gap areas where no usability standards, no review standards
    and no comparison standards currently exist. The sad reality
    remains--and I have said this many times--is that I can find
    out more on the internet today about a TV or a VCR before I buy
    one than I can about life safety equipment purposely designed
    to assist persons with disabilities.
        Until we do a better job at pointing out that many
    solutions already exist, those with specific purposes as well
    as new applications, we lose out on the ability right now to
    put things in place that can make a difference. I would suggest
    that this is not dissimilar from the new sprinkler regulations
    post-1911, even though that tool existed since the late 1870s.
        Today's hearing adds to the discourse now underway within
    the emergency professional community, the academic community,
    the regulatory community and the disability community itself.
    Attitudes that emergency needs of people with disabilities are
    somehow less important a priority as they impact only a few
    certainly must be dispelled. Attitudes that solutions cannot be
    realized must be dispelled. And attitudes that what is
    developed or changed for a person with a disability in this
    area does not have broader application must also be dispelled.
    And this committee hearing I believe is helping in this
    process.
        The Capitol Police, the House Emergency Management
    officials and other planners have an incredible responsibility
    and have done certainly a Herculean job at balancing many
    competing interests. I submit that the legacy of this Committee
    and the tangible outcomes of this hearing could be the
    establishment of a Special Needs Emergency Working Group, not
    dissimilar from many now created by State and local governments
    and many private businesses. This group would be a cross-
    disciplinary membership of multiple stakeholders working with,
    not for, people with disabilities and acting in support and in
    an advisory role tothe members who are actually tasked with the
    responsibility of planning. This group would be in the position to look
    to our colleagues here at the USDA, U.S. DOT, DOL and U.S. Access
    Board, to name a few. We can look to them for recommendations based on
    their internal efforts and planning for these same issues.
        And with such an effort, this committee moves the process
    along in a meaningful way. The planners find new and innovative
    support and subject knowledge, and the country sees the House
    leading by example, a wonderful message to coincide this week
    with the 15th anniversary of the signing of the ADA and all of
    the efforts over the past year since the signing of Executive
    Order 13347.
        And in closing, I offer a call to action. If people with
    disabilities are not taken into account before an event, the
    issues will not be addressed properly during a disaster, and
    this will certainly have a huge impact not just on that
    individual, but on the entire community after the emergency.
        I thank you very much for permitting me to summarize what
    is certainly a broader and more complex topic. In the interest
    of time, I have submitted an abbreviated resource listing, this
    I should point out, with many empirical studies currently
    funded with Federal dollars. Several actually use studies of
    full movement models and include the component of
    ``capability'' or ``special need'' to evaluate evacuation
    procedure and protocol.
        I want to thank you and persons in attendance for your
    sincere interest in and your hard work on this very important
    issue.
        [The statement of Ms. Davis follows:]

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        The Chairman. A vote is coming up, but I do have a
    question. I have a little more work to do based on the
    testimony involved in all three, the wonderful testimony of all
    three of you.
        Is there anything in your mind that stands out, public or
    private sector, in terms of a building that has been updated
    and equipped for a person that has a disability? And in
    conjunction with that, have you seen any particularly
    innovative planning processes?
        Mr. Murphy. There are some buildings that have been
    retrofitted to a degree, taking a look at, for example, a
    building that has stairwells, open stairwells. While you may
    enclose the corridor, put up fire doors, that will close
    automatically. If that can't be done, take a look at a room
    near the staircase that can be designated as a disabled place,
    for assistance, that has an exit to the street side. We at
    least can get the individual out. That would be equipped with a
    voice box that you push the button that would go down to the
    fire command and tell the person where they are in that
    particular building. And to do that in a stack effect, if you
    do it on the floors, as long it is in reach of a ladder, you
    might be able to use that as a long alternative to get out. So
    there are buildings out there that are looking at that.
        Ms. Davis. I think I would add that we can consider not
    just the actual hardening of physical structural, (or not just
    the equipment, but also the practiced protocol for the change
    in our standard of emergency planning). All three of those
    areas creates an opportunity for us to look readily for
    creative solutions, even if they don't appear to be readily
    available to us in a building environment.
        The Chairman. Let me ask one other question, if I could,
    and that is, do you have any comments on anything in these
    buildings?
        Mr. Murphy. Any obstruction in the hallway from the fire
    service is an impediment, no matter if it is temporary or
    permanent. The hallways are designed for a reason. This is a
    very large building. The width of the hallways are 8 to 10
    feet. You see them in schools. If you have narrow ones, it gets
    even worse.
        The aspect here that we talk about buildings being fully
    strengthened, but what it needs is a balanced approach.
    Buildings full of sprinklers, will it put the whole fire out?
    Once that sprinkler goes off, that hot smoke and gas banks down
    to the floor real quick. If it gets out into the hallways, it
    might not be hot smoke or heat, but you still have a blindness
    of finding where the stairs are. Any buildings that have open
    stairwells or flues, chimney flues, if you have a fire in the
    basement, this will override a building and make it a hazard to
    get out within several minutes.
        When the sprinkler does go off, how is the smoke being
    contained? If that smoke is traversing down from the heat and
    everything at a thousand degrees, and maybe you can move
    through, you might get disorientation, where are the
    stairwells? If I compartmentalize that, it gets out into the
    hallway. That smoke, which is now banked down to the floor, you
    might not be able to see those staircases. As a fire fighter in
    a sprinkler building, I listen to the sound of the water
    flowing to get me to the scene of the fire.
        The Chairman. So to summarize that, if you have to get down
    and you can't see, you are going to be knocking these down, and
    they are going to go across each other, and now you have a real
    hazard, of all these things that are on these tripods crossed
    with each other. Now you not only have potential hitting them,
    they are filling the hallways, both sides, and you couldn't
    possibly get out if you had to, is that correct?
        Mr. Murphy. Yes. A lot of things that we did, Mr. Chairman,
    in schools, we have taken out stands and everything else. We
    let them put display boards on the wall. While it isn't
    friendly, it at least cuts down on the obstructions.
        Ms. Styron. I only suggest that as the committee moves
    forward to egress routes, to be clear of all obstacles;
    thatwill certainly increase the chances of survival of all other people
    in these buildings as well.
        Ms. Davis. I would just add, when we talk about individual
    preparedness and planning--whether we do this through
    reminders, fliers, announcements--attention must be brought
    back to those points every so often. We look to ourselves and
    also take into account our own environment; have things
    changed? Is there an office that is moving? Is there a
    temporary blockage? Things that will impact us today if we need
    to traverse the same hallway. So I think we need to raise the
    level of personal preparedness to the point, with or without
    disability, that we have done our own checklist on a daily
    basis of the environment we encounter for work, or as you
    suggested, as a guest member here as well.
        Mrs. Miller of Michigan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Regarding some of the things you expressed--we would be
    able to ask our experts questions, but two of them have left
    already.
        But have any of you reviewed some of the areas that we have
    improved upon due to ADA? Have any of you gone through and
    reviewed any of this?
        Ms. Styron. We have not been given an opportunity to review
    buildings or the ADA reports that are being released prior to
    this testimony. Other than my previous experience having worked
    on the Hill, we haven't been able to physically see the
    upgrades other than that what we hear in the testimony or that
    we might be aware of otherwise. We have not been able to do
    that prior to today.
        Mrs. Miller of Michigan. And it seems, as I said to the
    second panel, who are the officials of this place overseeing
    different offices and organizations, that I need to physically
    go through and see, too; because people can say one thing, but
    until you have seen what they have done is another thing, and
    to see whether or not that is adequate for what we are trying
    to get and to put in place.
        It seems to me, Mr. Chairman, that we need to convene a
    meeting just with the experts and our head persons, who were on
    the second panel, to have an informal discussion--it doesn't
    have to be a hearing--so that we can exchange these, and then
    we will be able to walk and physically see this. That is the
    only way we are going to get down to the crux of what we are
    really trying to convey and trying to put in place for our
    folks who have special needs.
        And so, it is not enough to just talk back and forth here.
    I think it is time for three experts--or whoever the designee
    experts are--to get with the members who preceded you to talk
    about that.
        Mr. Murphy talked about--sometimes when you see me speaking
    to the staff, I want to know, do we have such things in place,
    so I am trying to see who is communicating what. And it seems
    that there is not communication flowing enough, because if you
    have a fire drill, that should be a different drill than an
    evacuation drill, because it seems to me they are not
    congruent, in my opinion. An evacuation drill should then tell
    folks where to go. And then there should be groups of folks
    there to say, are all persons in my group here, and if they are
    not here, who do I need to tell that they are not
    here?Communication has to flow.
        So, Mr. Murphy, you said that all elevators should be
    operating in an emergency. And that is what I am saying--if I
    was trapped on the fourth floor, I would just wait for an
    elevator. I am going to take the elevator and get out of this
    building. And so that is what I have heard you say, and expand
    on that, if you would.
        Mr. Murphy. What we are working on, and we are trying to do
    it through several groups, I am a member of the National Fire
    Protection Association High-Rise Task Force, we met recent with
    NIST on elevators and how to work them into the overall fold of
    not only all-hazards, but for fires. We are looking at
    compartmentalizing elevators, separating them from the building
    itself--enclosing it.
        What we did in New York City is, all elevators above the
    first floor must be enclosed. What we are trying to do is stop
    the smoke from traveling up and spreading out to all the
    floors. You can have a very small fire and still have the smoke
    travel throughout the building. They are doing that now. We
    have some guidelines on that, and World Trade Center Seven,
    that type of elevator is going in. We also asked when we got a
    World Seven elevator dedicated to the fire service that will be
    used only for the fire service, but we encourage VIP use, so it
    is used every day. We see this in the British codes, where they
    have elevators, lifts to the fire service. Elevators, if we can
    run them outside of the building on the rain, snow, hail, why
    can't we get one or two that will run on adverse conditions in
    a building? So that initiative has gotten all the elevator
    people together to take a look at that.
        What can we do right now? Right now is just, don't rely on
    one elevator. What if that is the area that you have to
    evacuate? And if you use the elevator, if there is some type of
    contaminant, that is a piston that will drive that product up
    into the building.
        The Capitol Building is a low-rise building. However, I
    call it a hazard high-rise. It is over 700-feet long. How do
    you get from one end of the building to the other end of the
    building? Break it down, not to a full building. What if you
    are left with one stairwell to evacuate? That is thebottom line
    of that. How do I direct people when they leave?
        In our training aspect in New York high-rises, we train the
    staff first, get them comfortable. We drop them down, all the
    way down. They will see what horizontal corridors are. On the
    15th floor, you traverse over and go all the way down. We take
    them to the outside of the street and say, where are you? The
    only day we mark A, B, C and D on the stairs. We walk them
    around and say, if you are given specific directions--
    attention, attention, this is the fire safety threat, we have a
    Code Black, police, evacuate the stairs, and color green. When
    they get down to the bottom, they know they are at J Street.
    What direction do you have to go if we tell you north, south,
    east or west? So those are the things we are trying to define a
    little bit more. It has been thrust upon us.
        I agree with the architects here; every building is
    grandfathered. They were never designed to be fully evacuated
    like this. So we are trying to work in the confines of what we
    have existing. Now, however, going forward, how do we make
    these things better? Because if they weren't designed that way,
    all of these stair towers would be 6-feet wide. There would be
    15 exit discharges at the bottom at the street level as you
    have at the MCI Center and things like that.
        Mrs. Miller of Michigan. And they were not designed to
    carry as many folks who are in here, too. So you have all of
    those things now that have just expanded beyond the capacity of
    what we have now.
        There are so many questions to raise here. There are so
    many things. They are telling us the vote is going to go off,
    and we don't want to be in the middle of that.
        Ms. Styron has suggested a working group. I think there
    should be some type of a meeting with our experts and those who
    are responsible, because after all, with all these things they
    are trying to grapple with, we have to rely on the experts. And
    there should be an informal meeting just around the table where
    we all talk and then we all go and review what we talked about
    and see what is best.
        Mrs. Miller of Michigan. The last thing is this EvacuTrack.
    This is something that it seems like we need to invest in as
    well, where those that do not have the capacity to get to an
    elevator can go downstairs.
        Ms. Styron. We are looking at evacuation assistive devices.
    There are many different ones on the market to address
    different needs for different individuals, and when you are
    looking at possibly appropriating different pieces of
    equipment, we really need to have done what you said, a working
    group, and think about the considerations that we are really
    trying to address and what they can do for the individual.
        Ms. Davis. Factors that go into taking into account your
    selection of purchase of equipment would include not just the
    equipment itself, but the facility in which you intend to use
    it. Very different than just the type or intent, the user and
    cost factor need study too. These are all elements that come
    into play. And there are a number of marketed items now
    available that would meet these different needs, but it might
    be a different piece of equipment in one building rather than
    another or even on different floors of the same building. So as
    long as you keep that issue open, you will find the most
    appropriate solutions.
        Mrs. Miller of Michigan. I can accept that.
        Mr. Chairman, thank you.
        The Chairman. Let me just close, I just want to summarize a
    couple of things.
        I have learned a lot today. And I was just saying to our
    Ranking Member, we don't need an act of Congress to make this
    happen. We can sit down together. The Ranking Member is
    supportive--we have a bipartisan group here, and we have two
    staffs. We can work this out. We don't have to pass an act of
    Congress.
        This hearing went in the exact direction we wanted it to
    go, from the testimony of a Member of Congress himself and then
    from our officers who deal with this on a daily basis and then
    to our experts and advocates for these issues. I think it is
    healthy that we recognize that we have done a lot of things,
    with everybody working together in an unusual situation since
    9/11. We had to address a lot of different issues. Sometimes we
    take a broader picture and forget the important things.
        You do learn by loss. My cousin and her husband were deaf,
    and I worked a lot with the blind. When we had a staffer who
    was blind, the interesting thing is he had a device where he
    listened. It is for him, but I listened to it and realized, I
    can use that too. I don't have to read that. I can use it. That
    is a clear example where we learn. So things we do for persons
    with special needs will help the whole in a lot of cases.
        As I look through your testimony, there are some things you
    addressed that we aren't up to speed on, but that we can be up
    to speed on. We will sit down and form some type of a working
    group--our officers are always open to that--to see how we can
    make things better.
        This, to me, was a very positive hearing. I want to thank
    Ms. Styron, National Organization on Disability, and all of you
    for participating.
        Mrs. Miller of Michigan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for a
    great hearing.
        Ms. Styron. Thank you very much.
        [Whereupon, at 12:40 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]