[House Hearing, 114 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
LEGISLATIVE BRANCH APPROPRIATIONS
FOR 2017
_______________________________________________________________________
HEARINGS
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
_____________________________
SUBCOMMITTEE ON LEGISLATIVE BRANCH
TOM GRAVES, Georgia, Chairman
MARK E. AMODEI, Nevada DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, Florida
E. SCOTT RIGELL, Virginia SAM FARR, California
EVAN H. JENKINS, West Virginia BETTY McCOLLUM, Minnesota
STEVEN M. PALAZZO, Mississippi
NOTE: Under Committee Rules, Mr. Rogers, as Chairman of the Full
Committee, and Mrs. Lowey, as Ranking Minority Member of the Full
Committee, are authorized to sit as Members of all Subcommittees.
Elizabeth C. Dawson, Clerk
Jennifer Panone and Tim Monahan, Professional Staff
___________________
PART 2
FISCAL YEAR 2017 LEGISLATIVE BRANCH
APPROPRIATIONS REQUESTS
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
________________________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Appropriations
________________________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
99-994 WASHINGTON : 2016
COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
HAROLD ROGERS, Kentucky, Chairman
RODNEY P. FRELINGHUYSEN, New Jersey NITA M. LOWEY, New York
ROBERT B. ADERHOLT, Alabama MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio
KAY GRANGER, Texas PETER J. VISCLOSKY, Indiana
MICHAEL K. SIMPSON, Idaho JOSE E. SERRANO, New York
JOHN ABNEY CULBERSON, Texas ROSA L. DeLAURO, Connecticut
ANDER CRENSHAW, Florida DAVID E. PRICE, North Carolina
JOHN R. CARTER, Texas LUCILLE ROYBAL-ALLARD, California
KEN CALVERT, California SAM FARR, California
TOM COLE, Oklahoma CHAKA FATTAH, Pennsylvania
MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida SANFORD D. BISHOP, Jr., Georgia
CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania BARBARA LEE, California
TOM GRAVES, Georgia MICHAEL M. HONDA, California
KEVIN YODER, Kansas BETTY McCOLLUM, Minnesota
STEVE WOMACK, Arkansas STEVE ISRAEL, New York
JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska TIM RYAN, Ohio
THOMAS J. ROONEY, Florida C. A. DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER,
CHARLES J. FLEISCHMANN, Tennessee Maryland
JAIME HERRERA BEUTLER, Washington DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, Florida
DAVID P. JOYCE, Ohio HENRY CUELLAR, Texas
DAVID G. VALADAO, California CHELLIE PINGREE, Maine
ANDY HARRIS, Maryland MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois
MARTHA ROBY, Alabama DEREK KILMER, Washington
MARK E. AMODEI, Nevada
CHRIS STEWART, Utah
E. SCOTT RIGELL, Virginia
DAVID W. JOLLY, Florida
DAVID YOUNG, Iowa
EVAN H. JENKINS, West Virginia
STEVEN M. PALAZZO, Mississippi
William E. Smith, Clerk and Staff Director
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
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Testimony
Page
U.S. Capitol Police.............................................. 1
Architect of the Capitol......................................... 37
House of Representatives......................................... 63
Library of Congress.............................................. 125
Prepared Statements
Government Publishing Office..................................... 187
Government Accountability Office................................. 197
Congressional Budget Office...................................... 221
Office of Compliance............................................. 225
Open World Leadership Center..................................... 229
Written Testimony of Other Interested Individuals and
Organizations.................................................. 239
LEGISLATIVE BRANCH APPROPRIATIONS
FOR 2017
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Tuesday, March 1, 2016.
U.S. CAPITOL POLICE
WITNESSES
KIM C. DINE, CHIEF OF POLICE
MATTHEW R. VERDEROSA, ASSISTANT CHIEF OF POLICE
RICHARD L. BRADDOCK, CHIEF ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICER
Opening Statement of Chairman Graves
Mr. Graves. Welcome, everyone. The subcommittee will come
to order, and we will begin our hearings on fiscal year 2017's
budget requests of the various agencies of the legislative
branch.
I look forward to continuing our work with all the members
of the subcommittee, including our ranking member, Debbie
Wasserman Schultz of Florida, our vice chairman, Mr. Amodei;
Mr. Rigell of Virginia; Mr. Jenkins of West Virginia; Mr.
Palazzo of Mississippi, welcome you back; and Mr. Farr of
California; Ms. McCollum of Minnesota.
I want to thank each of you for being here and appreciate
your dedication and attention to the important issues of this
subcommittee.
And as everyone of this subcommittee knows, our national
debt is at the tune of now $19 trillion, and as we all know,
this is unsustainable and unacceptable. While major reforms to
the Federal programs outside the jurisdiction of this committee
are certainly needed, we nonetheless must lead by example, and
we will.
The budget that was submitted by the administration for
this subcommittee to consider, not including the Senate items,
or under the Architect of the Capitol for the Senate, is $3.6
billion, which is an increase of 6.8 percent over last year's
enacted level. So when you include the Senate, the request is
at $4.7 billion, or an increase of just over 6 percent over
last year's enacted level.
Now, our job is going to be to scrutinize the request under
our jurisdiction, and we will continue to lead by example by
being efficient, effective, and doing more with less, as we
have done in the past. I appreciate the hard work done to
prepare these budget requests, and I look forward to the
hearings from each of the agencies.
Now, today, we have with us the United States Capitol
Police, the Chief of Police--thank you for being here, Mr.
Dine; Assistant Chief Matthew Verderosa, who will be taking
over as Chief--we congratulate you--on March 20; and Mr.
Braddock, the Chief Administrative Officer.
This will be Chief Dine's last testimony before this
subcommittee.
And we are grateful for your service, Chief, in your
capacity now. I know it is since December 2012, you were
appointed to serve as the Chief of Police for the United States
Capitol Police.
Now, during his tenure with the Capitol Police, he has
overseen the 57th inaugural event of the President of the
United States, 4 State of the Union addresses, thousands of
visits from heads of state, dignitaries, and VIPs, joint
meetings, summits, events, and demonstrations, over 30 million
screenings for the Capitol complex in total, and the day-to-day
operations of running a police department.
Chief, well done. Thank you. All of us on the subcommittee
would like to thank you for your hard work and your dedication
to the safety and the security of the entire Capitol complex,
and we would also like to thank the officers and the civilians
of the Capitol Police for their service.
Their presence has allowed Members and staff to safely
conduct the people's work and ensure that all visitors can
safely enjoy this rich history of the Capitol that we all
endure and love.
Now, your budget request for fiscal 2017 is $409.6 million.
This is an increase of just under $35 million, or around 9
percent, over last year's level. And while we understand your
critical mission to ensure that our Nation's legislative and
democratic process of government are conducted without
disruption, our job, obviously, is to scrutinize this request
and to make informed funding decisions as we move forward.
So with that, I would like to conclude my opening remarks
and ask Ms. Wasserman Schultz, ranking member, if she has
anything she would like to add, and then certainly recognize
the ranking member of the full committee afterwards, Mrs.
Lowey.
Opening Statement of Ranking Member Wasserman Schultz
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chief Dine, really I want to echo the chairman's sentiment
and add to it. Your service has been remarkable. To come into
an agency that you did not grow up in, so to speak, and take
command the way you did and be able to steer us through the
myriad of challenges that a police agency faces every single
day really reflects incredibly well on your management skills,
and on the respect that your officers had for you. We were very
fortunate to be able to have you lead the Capitol Police
through this last 4 years.
I can tell you that I personally wish you extremely well
moving forward. I enjoyed the conversations that we have had
and always appreciated how you were readily available whenever
we had questions and gave us really thorough and frank
responses, because we don't always get those in the political
process. So I just can't thank you enough for your incredible
service.
Assistant Chief Verderosa, I'm looking forward to having
that leadership continue. You have done a remarkable job. Now
we will switch to an institutionalist, so to speak, to someone
who did grow up inside the Capitol Police family, I'm looking
forward to working with you and having the same kind of
relationship that I have enjoyed with Chief Dine.
As we are all aware, the Capitol Police was provided with
the largest budget increase of any other agency in the fiscal
year 2016 omnibus; $27 million, or 8 percent above fiscal year
2015. By comparison, the House was provided with a zero percent
increase, the Library of Congress, a 1.5 percent increase, and
the Government Accountability Office, a 1.7 percent increase.
The budget before us today requests an additional $34.6
million, or 9.2 percent, in addition to the $27 million just
provided in December.
Chief Dine, Assistant Chief Verderosa, we want security,
but we do not want security to the detriment of everything else
that makes Congress work, including our staffs. Part of the
difficulty is the inability for this committee to see a force
that is adequately preparing for current global threats.
In fiscal year 2016's request, as part of your $27 million
increase, a $4 million carveout was fenced off until a plan was
delivered by the Capitol Police Board. Those funds were
provided was to prepare for threats after the tragedies in
Paris and San Bernardino. Before receiving the plan, I expected
initiatives that were focused on preventing and recovering from
the type of mass casualty events that we have, unfortunately,
seen play out across the country and the globe.
Instead, the plan that we received was to hire more police
officers and place more magnetometers. That is no different
than the basic Capitol Police budget and far from the forward-
thinking vision that we need to prepare for our worst-case
scenarios in an ever-changing world. In addition, 1-year
infusions are meant to be just that, 1 year. Hiring officers is
a 30-year financial commitment that grows with inflation each
and every year.
Chief Dine, as you prepare to depart, we once again need
your frank assessment on how the agency is prioritizing its
resources and if we are being asked to fund a 20th century
police force as our threats become more 21st century every
year.
Just as important as how the decisions are being made
within the department to prioritize funding, I would like to
understand the process by which those decisions about preparing
our force for how forward looking approaches are made. If we
are having outside forces come in and make decisions for you,
that is something that I would like to hear about during this
hearing, and you should expect a healthy exchange from me
during questioning.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I look forward to their testimony.
Mr. Graves. Thank you, Ms. Wasserman Schultz.
And I am delighted to have us with us the ranking member of
the full committee, Mrs. Lowey.
Thank you for joining us.
Opening Statement of Ranking Member Lowey
Mrs. Lowey. I am delighted to be here, and I thank you very
up much. And I thank the ranking member. It is a pleasure to be
with you both today. And I am delighted to join you in
welcoming the witnesses.
And thank you so much in advance for your testimony.
I particularly want to join my colleagues in commending
Chief Dine on your years of hard work and service. You have
been instrumental in ensuring the safety of this campus. And as
I mentioned before, it is a real, real challenge. And we are
very, very grateful. You will be missed.
And, Chief Verderosa, I want to congratulate you on your
appointment as Chief of Police, and we look forward to working
together.
Each year, my colleagues, between 3 and 5 million people
from around the world visit the U.S. Capitol and surrounding
buildings. The Capitol Police are tasked with protecting these
sacred halls and the visitors, school groups, advocates,
Members, and staff who come to the Capitol each day. This
subcommittee has recognized the changing nature of global
threats, has provided resources for the Capitol Police to
prevent and respond to a worst-case scenario event.
For all those who visit the Capitol, it is imperative that
funding from the Legislative Branch Subcommittee be used wisely
to reduce our risk or respond capably during and after any
incident. Addressing these needs, including enhanced security,
the cost of necessary repairs to aging buildings and
infrastructure, preservation of the Library of Congress, among
others, is imperative for Members of Congress to meet the
expectations of their constituents.
During these years of austerity, perhaps some of these
agencies and initiatives could have been better addressed had
the majority not spent over $6 million on a partisan political
Benghazi investigation, 2.3 million defending the Defense of
Marriage Act, and now hundreds of thousands more for legal
action against the administration on the Affordable Care and
Guantanamo Bay.
Since the elections will be over for the majority of fiscal
year 2017, I hope we can set aside some of those excessively
partisan endeavors to adequately invest in the legitimate
security priorities before this committee.
So in closing, I want to thank you again, Chief Dine, for
all your hard work, and I look forward to working with you.
And, Chief Verderosa, good luck to you. We know the
enormous task ahead, and we look forward to working together.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Graves. Thank you, Mrs. Lowey.
And, Chief Dine, now if you would like to give us a
presentation of your written statement you have already
submitted. I know that that is being submitted as part of the
record, but we look forward to hearing from you as you want to
describe some of your plans looking ahead and your final
hearing and testimony.
Statement of Chief Kim C. Dine
Chief Dine. Yes, sir. Thank you, Chairman Graves, Ranking
Member Wasserman Schultz, and members of the committee. I am
honored to be here today, and I appreciate the opportunity to
present the United States Capitol Police budget request for
fiscal year 2017.
Before I begin, I would like to note that my full
testimony, as you mentioned, outlining the Department's request
has been submitted for the record.
I am joined here today by Assistant Chief Matthew
Verderosa, our Chief of Operations and soon to be Chief of
Police, and Mr. Richard Braddock, our Chief Administrative
Officer, as well as some members of my executive management
team and our Inspector General, Fay Ropella.
First, I would like to thank the committee for its
sustained and unwavering support for the United States Capitol
Police. I would specifically like to express our appreciation
to the committee and to the Congress for providing the
necessary salaries and general expenses funding for fiscal year
2016 to support our personnel and operations.
The women and men of the Capitol Police work tirelessly to
ensure that the legislative process of our government functions
without disruption or lapses in security or safety 24 hours a
day, 365 days a year. But none of this would be possible
without your support and that of the Capitol Police Board.
The Department's fiscal year 2017 request totals nearly
$410 million and represents an overall increase of $35 million,
or 9 percent, over the fiscal year 2016 enacted funding level
of $375 million.
The Department's fiscal year 2017 personnel request
reflects our continuous efforts at all levels of management to
effectively and prudently manage our existing resources to
achieve the best possible balance of staff versus overtime and
to meet mission requirements. We are constantly analyzing our
workforce to align job functions, assignments, workload, risk
management, and organizational readiness, along with the ever-
changing assessments and mandatory mission requirements within
a dynamic environment.
Our fiscal year 2017 request includes base funding for
1,823 sworn officers and 373 civilian positions. These are the
staffing levels funded during fiscal year 2016. In addition,
the request also includes half-a-year funding for an additional
72 officers and 51 civilians.
With the rise of ISIL and continued efforts of Al Qaeda and
other terrorist organizations to attack public venues, as well
as increased occurrences of homegrown violent extremists and
lone wolf-type episodes, we have seen a rise in the number of
mass casualty events around the world and in the continental
United States.
Based on this rise in terrorist events and the tactics
displayed by the assailants, the United States Capitol Police
have once again reviewed its operational and tactical posture
to ensure that the department is taking every measure possible
to maintain the security of the Capitol complex while allowing
the legislative process to continue to function in an open
environment.
In close coordination with the Capitol Police Board, the
Department believes that the implementation of security
measures to better secure and screen within House garages, the
full implementation of additional screening and prescreening at
various building access points, and the implementation of
enhanced screening portals is necessary.
Before requesting additional personnel, the Department
looked at its current mission load and worked closely with the
Capitol Police Board to modify or eliminate mission
requirements in order to offset new mission requirements.
Additionally, the Department has reviewed duties currently
performed by officers that could be civilianized in order to
repurpose current officers to better meet operational
requirements. Funding for 48 new civilian positions requested
will be utilized for this civilianization process, and funding
for 3 new civilian positions will support the increased
physical security infrastructure.
The funding request represents an overall increase of
approximately 8 percent over fiscal year 2016 salaries enacted
level, which includes funding for the 2017 Presidential
Inauguration, natural salary increases, additional staffing
requirements, and increased overtime costs, since the
department's current sworn staffing levels do not entirely
provide the necessary resources to meet all of our mission
requirements.
The second area I want to cover in some detail is our
requested general expenses budget, which includes protective
travel, hiring, outfitting, and training new sworn personnel,
supplies and equipment, management systems, nonpersonnel
Presidential Inauguration support, and other nonpersonnel
needs. We are requesting $76 million for general expenses,
which is an increase of $10 million over the fiscal year 2016
enacted level.
The increase results from normal increases in operating
costs, inauguration costs, cost to train, recruit, and outfit
the new employees previously mentioned, the cost of life-cycle
key items and routine equipment systems, and the restoration of
annual levels, reduced in previous fiscal years, to meet
regular department needs. The request also includes an
additional requirement to equip a fully functional Alternate
Command Center.
In closing, I am very grateful for your time today. As you
know and as you mentioned, this is the last time I will appear
before you representing this great organization. I have had the
distinct pleasure of serving as the Chief of Police through one
Inauguration, four State of the Union addresses, six Joint
Meetings of Congress, historical events, the African Summit,
which included over 50 heads of state at the Capitol, and as
you noted, over 30 million screenings, over 600 demonstrations,
the rollout of our new strategic plan, the achievement of the
Gold Standard accreditation from the Commission on
Accreditation and Law Enforcement, the implementation of our
new digital encrypted radio system, the creation of a field
commander program, the implementation a new field training
program for new officers, the completion of active shooter
training for the entire department, a new hiring process for
recruits which has resulted in over 20,000 applications over
the last 3 years, the hiring of a labor relations specialist to
maximize labor-management relations, the hiring of a new chief
information officer, a new diversity officer, and a new
communications director, and lastly, the implementation of a
new communication practice to better communicate with you and
the greater congressional community.
All of this has been a possibility because of your support
and the excellent work by the women and men of the United
States Capitol Police.
I would like to make special note that all of this was done
while keeping the congressional community safe. And so I would
like to thank the women and men of the USCP for their
commitment to our mission and their unwavering dedication every
day to ensuring the safety and security of our Members, staff,
and many visitors who come to the Capitol to see our great
democracy in action.
Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today,
and I would be pleased to answer any questions you may have at
this time.
[The prepared statement of Chief Dine follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Graves. Thank you, Chief, for your testimony, and also
you took a moment there to summarize your tenure and experience
and a lot of the accomplishments you have seen and participated
in. I really, on the onset, only have one quick question for
you, and then I will go to Ms. Wasserman Schultz next.
FUTURE THREATS AND CHALLENGES
As you leave and as you are, so to speak, passing the baton
to your right, what challenges do you foresee that you feel
comfortable in sharing, that are looking at us in the horizon,
aside from monetary, budgetary, those kind of things, but more
just some of the physical threats or challenges you see that we
should be aware of?
Chief Dine. Well, thank you, sir. That is a great question.
I think the challenges we face are somewhat unique to this
great organization. Police departments across the country face
all types of challenges in terms of gaining the trust of the
communities they serve, and that is no different here.
But as everyone here knows, we are essentially an
antiterrorist organization. We face asymmetrical threats. We
face a threat posture now that is much less clear than it has
been in the past. As is publicly known, a lot of communication
now is frankly in the dark, so we don't know what we don't
know. We protect an open campus, it requires people paying
attention, and it does require a lot of resources.
We are very much plugged into the intelligence community
across the country at multiple levels in a number of task
forces, and every single day we take the temperature of the
threat posture. We also do that yearly as part of our own
internal business process to see what type of budget we should
build around these threats.
I think the challenges we face center around the fact that
homegrown violent extremists are on the increase, the number of
attacks over the years are on the increase. There have been 60
arrests of United States citizens since March of 2014 and
August 2015. Since 9/11, there have been 144 terrorist plots;
85 percent of those have been since 2009.
Mr. Farr. There are plots on the Capitol?
Chief Dine. No, across the country. There have been 81
total arrests, ISIS-related arrests in the United States.
So we face all of those challenges and the day-to-day
challenges of keeping everyone here safe in an orderly, open,
free environment.
I will say, on a daily basis, and we are very proud of
this, and this is also something other departments face also,
we rarely make the news, the fact that every day we protect
people's rights to be heard when they come here and express
their first amendment rights. We manage those demonstrations
with sophistication and communication and through teamwork, so
you don't hear much about those.
It does require coordination and sophistication. As you
know, we work very, very closely with the United States Secret
Service, the United States Park Police, the FBI, the
Metropolitan Police Department, pretty much all of the agencies
in the National Capital Region, as well as departments around
the country, when we engage in our dignitary protection
efforts.
Mr. Graves. Well, thank you. I know that myself and many of
the members of the subcommittee had the opportunity to visit
the headquarters and were greatly impressed with the assets,
the intelligence, the information, all that you are working
with and coordinating to keep this a safe environment, given
all the threats you have identified.
Knowing that we have votes coming up at some point later
this afternoon, I respect everybody's opportunity to have
questions here.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz, let's go to you next, and then we
will go around the room some.
LONG-TERM IMPACT OF THE SPENDING PLAN FOR ENHANCED SECURITY
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you very much.
Chief, in my opening statement, I made mention of being
surprised an additional $4 million was provided in the omnibus.
Those funds were fenced off specifically to fund approaches to
keep us safe in the wake of mass casualty attacks in places
like San Bernadino and Paris, and require committee approval
before they are used. But, again, as I mentioned, those funds
are now simply going towards more officers and more
magnetometers, 48 actually, and those funds are going to be
used to hire, train, and equip those 48 sworn officers.
Since the plan came up after your fiscal year 2017 request,
does your budget need to be adjusted to pay for those officers?
And much has been made by many Members about the need for us to
return to regular order in both the appropriations process and
the process that we are using to move legislation, and that, to
me, is not representative of regular order by any means,
especially when we are obligating a lot of money through the
balance of an officer's career. It is not 1-year money.
So if you could touch on that. Additionally, I want to ask
you, as I asked you when we first had a chance to talk at one
of these hearings, about the Capitol Police Board. Because, if
you will recall, I asked your opinion of the Capitol Police
Board and its structure, and you had only been on the job a
couple of months and had good things to say, including positive
reviews to the Board, and the direction that they provided.
So three years later, as you are departing this
institution, I would like that same assessment. How has the
governance structure of the Board worked? Has it allowed the
Chief to function in a way that enables reasonable planning,
allows the Chief to address appropriate security needs, and be
held accountable for those decisions?
Specifically in the fiscal year 2017 request, how much of
the Capitol Police budget would you estimate is due to
direction from the Board or the Sergeant versus what your
department has prioritized?
Chief Dine. Thank you.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. I told you it would be challenging.
Chief Dine. You did, and you were correct.
I think the first and third answer go together. It is a
function of the threats we face, the timing of the threats, the
timing of things that happened in Paris and San Bernardino, and
also some longstanding issues within the Capitol complex, such
as garage security, so that has been sort of----
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Have we faced a credible threat
similar to San Bernardino or any other----
Chief Dine. Well, the good news is at this time we do not
have any current credible threat against the United States
Capitol, although, as you know, there have been some. The
challenge is we don't know what we don't know. Over the last
four years we recovered 62 weapons, 60 tasers, 389 knives.
Those are just some of the day-to-day police activities that
our officers do either at checkpoints or traffic stops as they
work to try to keep----
ROLE OF THE CAPITOL POLICE BOARD IN THE USCP BUDGET PROCESS
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. How much of your request is due to
your prioritization as the leader of the police force and your
fellow officers and direction from the Capitol Police Board or
the Sergeant?
Chief Dine. We worked with the Capitol Police Board to
identify three priorities.
One was prescreeners, which we believe helps keep the
Capitol safe and within the perfect world would be the best way
to deploy staff around the Capitol. Without getting into too
much detail about our security, but people know we staff our
posts. In the best possible world, we would have multiple
prescreeners at multiple doors to see a threat coming and
engage that threat outside. That was the first priority.
The second priority was garage screening, and the third
priority was enhanced portal screening for the chambers. Those
are done in conjunction with the Capitol Police Board and
ultimately the Board's direction as we formulate those plans
together.
We formulated a strategic approach to address all three of
those priorities, hence the budget as it was crafted, and the
challenge, as you noted, is those are new tasks which require
officers.
We have made a creative attempt to better utilize our
manpower, to see what functions we can civilianize, which is
why the 48 civilians are requested to move officers from our
Communications Division and our Command Center and some sworn
from the Training Division and reassign them to other posts to
be efficient and make the best use of our sworn personnel.
There have been creative efforts to try to do that and to
take on these additional tasks.
STATE OF USCP READINESS
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. What is the readiness state of the
police? we have given you upwards of 8 to 10 percent increases
with flatlining the other agencies. How many officers is the
ideal number? We all want to be safe, and we want to keep the
visitors that join us here safe, but it does seem that there is
never an ideal number.
I remember, Mr. Chairman, when I was the chair of this
subcommittee, and it is a question that I still ask any agency
head to respond to: there are the ``got to haves'' and the
``nice to haves.''
I have seen many, many bells and whistles that are
available to the Capitol Police, and I could see the value in
each and every one of those. But when we have just come through
a recession and there are real needs for the rest this bill, we
need to make sure that we are funding those real needs and not
the bells and whistles that could maybe wait so that we can
fund the overall needs of an agency that is an entire branch of
our Government.
I know that is not your job to prioritize, but it is a
question that is in need of an answer because it is hard to
know when you are ready.
Chief Dine. It is a brilliant question, and it faces every
Chief in the country.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. A brilliant question. Thank you very
much.
Chief Dine. Well, and I don't think there is a Chief that
knows, generally speaking, what that perfect number is, and in
my previous lives, I have had that same conversation. I think
in some ways it is easier for us because of the functions that
we face, which are quite often specific.
We have a number of posts that, for a number of reasons, we
have to staff. Because of the fact we have so many fixed posts
and assigned specific duties, it makes, for instance, training
those officers more of a challenge than it would your
traditional police department where you literally could take
maybe half the officers offline and the public might not even
realize that there are half of the officers working for a 2-
week period or a tour of duty.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Are you in a posture where you will
just ask for whatever we will give you and you will take
whatever we will give you because you could always put it to
good use?
Chief Dine. No, the----
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Or are you actually crafting a
budget that is representative of what your actual needs are to
be able to make sure that we can cover the Capitol complex and
its security needs?
Chief Dine. Well, first of all, we will always do the best
we can with the resources that you give us, and we appreciate
those resources. We feel that Appropriations takes very good
care of the department and the congressional community. That
being said, this budget and the budgets that we craft are
specifically crafted to meet the very specific and focused
duties that we are being asked to do by the Capitol Police
Board and our multiple stakeholders.
There are literally post-by-post reviews, and we scrub
every assignment and we analyze every post. We want to have
sufficient number of relief for those officers. We want to be
able to have a response capability. In fact, we want to be able
to have multiple response capabilities as we saw a couple of
years ago when we had simultaneous disruptions in some
hearings. We can't be equipped to only respond to one
disruption. We need to be able to respond to multiple
disruptions.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Mr. Chairman, I yield back. I have
other questions, but I will reserve them.
Mr. Graves. Thank you, Chief. And I think from the onset I
mentioned there would be some scrutiny in questions, and as
demonstrated with the brilliant questions coming from Ms.
Wasserman Schultz, with brilliant answers, obviously, from the
Chief.
Mr. Amodei has indicated he has no questions at this time,
but----
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. My work here is done, Mr. Chairman.
USCP RADIO SYSTEM
Mr. Graves. Mr. Palazzo is next in the queue.
Mr. Palazzo. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you to our Chief and our Capitol Police. You make
us feel safe, not just here in D.C. and our staff and our
families, but also at home, being very responsive to possible
security situations. I am glad to have you on our side.
In 2014, I believe you all upgraded to a new interoperable
radio system after years of delay. Do you care to tell us, is
it working?
Chief Dine. Thank you for that question. Yes, sir, I am
proud to say, because of the work of Mr. Braddock and his
entire team, that system, the minute we turned it on has worked
flawlessly. We are extremely proud of the way that system
works. There is not a day that goes by as I am traveling around
on the campus or in the city or in the region where I don't
marvel at the effectiveness of that system.
Just the other day, we were in a tunnel and there were some
accidents there. We stopped to deal with that. It works pretty
much everywhere, but it is built to be continually improved and
upgraded as necessary, as we need to put things online.
Thank you for your support for that system. And yes, it is
working very, very well. We are very proud of it.
Mr. Graves. Anything else?
Mr. Palazzo. Well, Mr. Chairman, I do have some questions,
so if we ever do a more secretive--probably more about the
operations and the things that we don't see on a daily basis
that they are probably doing to keep us safe.
Mr. Graves. Yes. All right.
Mr. Palazzo. I don't think this will be the setting.
Mr. Graves. That might be a different setting, yes.
Mr. Farr.
Mr. Farr. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I hope that after the
votes we will come back, because this is a half-a-billion-
dollar budget hearing, and we haven't even talked about the
Architect of the Capitol.
Mr. Graves. I appreciate you bringing that up. That is the
plan. That is probably likely after your question. We will see.
Maybe Mr. Jenkins will have a question, and then we can go
vote. We will suspend, recess for a moment, and then return.
Mr. Farr. Well, I would like to echo, Chief Dine and the
others, your incredible public service.
Chief Dine. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Farr. I want to also thank you for allowing the kids to
sled on the west slope after the Snowmageddon. I think that was
a great uplift for the Hill, and I appreciate your tolerance in
that.
Chief Dine. Thank you.
Mr. Farr. You just laid out, I mean, to me it seems have
built an empire since you have been here. And that is a good
thing. I think people in charge need to build empires. But when
you talk about an open campus, I would argue that your actions
make it is less open. The garages are less open because we have
closed permanent doors in Longworth and Rayburn garages. We
have closed hallways. We now want to put a magnetometer and
officers in the garage off of Longworth.
I am concerned because right now, as we speak, somebody
just sent me a video--I mean, a picture of the long line
outside of Longworth. All this week people have been out there,
and last week in the rain, out to the sidewalk. You haven't
changed the number of officers in that line, you have two
magnetometers there, and only one is ever open. The same number
of officers are on there. And we keep giving you more officers.
This building is owned by the American public, not by us in
Congress. They lend us these jobs, and in turn we hire you. But
our function for all of us here is to make government
accessible and petitionable and all of those things, and I know
we have to have all this security. We have to have good
security. But I am concerned about sort of the mission creep,
and I want to get into some questions.
COORDINATION WITH LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCIES IN DC
One of them is, and I asked this last year, but I don't
know if I got an answer about how many law enforcement agencies
are there, including all the Federal agencies, the Park Service
Police and the White House, both uniform and un-uniform. How
many law enforcement agencies are there in the District of
Columbia?
Chief Dine. There are about 32.
Mr. Farr. Thirty-two separate law enforcement.
Chief Dine. I believe so.
Mr. Farr. And do you have interoperable agreements with
them, like the fire department does, on backup responding?
Chief Dine. Yes. We work very closely with many or most of
them. We have interoperability with our radio system with many
of them, and we do support each other. I think as time has
passed, I was actually, as you may recall, with the DC Police
Department during 9/11. After that, the departments, frankly,
began to communicate better, and I think each of us also began
to, it is sort of a double-edge answer, carve out our role and
responsibilities.
Mr. Farr. Well, as I understand, last year, when you were
asking for the increase, it was for overtime, and the overtime
was being paid because we had to release officers on these new
special duties. We have a canine team, we have a chemical team,
we have a SWAT team, we have all kinds of different teams, and
officers have to be specially trained for that, and we give
them overtime. We suggested that, perhaps with mutual aid
agreements, that these 32 departments together could probably
respond to a lot of these specialty needs without having to
have our own in, without having everything in-house.
I mean, this is the kind of problem the Government has
everywhere, just needing more and more and more. We are coming
to the end of the line of that. We are really looking for
building of more cost-effective collaboratives.
Chief Dine. We do collaborate during our national security
special events. There is great cooperation and teamwork among
all the agencies. I think the challenge we face from a day-to-
day perspective, those functions you just mentioned, those are
daily tasks that we have to engage in at that time. There are
layers----
Mr. Farr. Don't each of those 32 agencies have to do the
same thing? I mean, doesn't the Metropolitan Police, which
surrounds us, have all those functions? You have a 4-block
jurisdiction, they are responsible for everything in that and
outside.
Chief Dine. Right. Their role and responsibilities are
different. Where our role and responsibilities are detecting
both vehicle-borne explosives and personal-borne explosives,
the Metropolitan Police Department deals with other issues. The
challenges we face are separate and distinct in that regard,
and I know that none of them have the ability to take on those
functions for us.
In regard to the Department's overtime, as we often say at
our budget hearings, we actually have more mission than we have
people, which is why there is always some----
Mr. Farr. Well, that is what I am kind of hinting at, that
maybe some of that mission ought to be more shared and more
mutually responsive than just stand-alone here.
Chief Dine. Right.
Mr. Graves. Mr. Farr, before you go on to your next
question, I am watching the vote clock behind you.
And Mr. Jenkins, if he could get in any kind of comment or
question you have before we recess and come back, the chief and
his team will still be here, and we will continue if that is OK
with Mr. Farr.
Mr. Jenkins.
Mr. Jenkins. Just like those who are looking forward to
retirement, they can count the days, the hours, and the
minutes, we watch as well.
Chief, thank you for outstanding service. We wish you the
very best. Thank you for all you have done to keep us safe and
the public who comes to visit. So thank you for your service.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Mr. Graves. OK. Thank you, Mr. Jenkins.
Well, this committee will stand in recess until we return,
and we will be back in not too long, I would hope. Maybe 10 or
15 minutes, Chief.
Thank you all very much. We stand in recess.
[Recess.]
LONGWORTH MAGNETOMETERS
Mr. Amodei [presiding]. We are going to call the meeting
back to order. Thanks, Chief and Assistant Chief and Mr.
Braddock, for your patience. I understand, Chief, you have
leave at 2:45.
So we are going to start with the gentleman from
California. I think he had some other questions.
Mr. Farr. Thank you.
Mr. Amodei. So please proceed.
Mr. Farr. Thank you very much.
When you were in the office last Friday, we were talking
about the new magnetometers that were going to be placed in the
Longworth Building and the personnel that would be needed for
that, for passage from the Longworth garage. You indicated that
you would need no new personnel to staff those magnetometers,
you would arrange it, it would be budget neutral. Well, I see
in this budget that you have requested 72 new officers.
So which is it? Is it budget neutral, no new staff, or 72
new officers? Is it budget neutral when you are requesting $5.7
million more? I don't think that those magnetometers and
officers truly are budget neutral.
But I am just curious as to where this suggestion
originated. Was it something that came out of law enforcement
or was it something that came more out of staff in Congress,
leadership staff? Who comes and says we need this in light of
San Bernardino? I am getting a feeling that some of this
pressure on you is not necessarily originated in law
enforcement circles.
Chief Dine. Well, there are probably a couple of answers to
that. As you know----
Mr. Farr. You are leaving, so we can say anything.
Chief Dine. It has been an identified vulnerability for a
number of years, probably over 10 years. That being said, we
work very closely with the Board, and as you know, each Board
member--even though I am a member of the Board, I am a
nonvoting member--each Board member has their own role and
responsibilities for their constituents. And that was a
priority of the House as well.
We work with the Board as a whole to craft--in addition to
our own force development process, every year we go through our
own internal process to identify threats and vulnerabilities to
build our budget.
Mr. Farr. Well, I appreciate that. I think what
Congresswoman Wasserman Schultz was talking about is the
Board's role.
I think, Mr. Chairman, one of the things that we need to do
in Congress, and everything we do in government, is to be aware
of mission creep. We gave no COLA to our employees last year.
The budget by the Architect of the Capitol, I think requests
about a--I forget the percentage increase, but it is a
substantial percentage increase. And the Capitol Police, it is
a 9, almost 10 percent increase in the budget request.
We all need to be focused on safety and morale. Poor morale
could lead to crazy gun shooters. We can secure ourselves
beyond necessity, at the same time leave ourselves vulnerable
to disgruntled people. So I do think you always have to balance
that.
I just wonder whether these new checkpoints--particularly
setting up a magnetometer in the Longworth garage access point
when staff have already been cleared to enter--is necessary.
Drivers to go in with your their own car, you have to show your
own ID, nobody can be in that car without an ID, officers look
in your trunk, you park your car, you get out, then you got to
do it all over again. That person is our staff.
In fact, you are going to hear, because I just, being late
to this, I rushed my staff through the security downstairs
because people said when you are in a hurry and your chief of
staff is with you, you can do that. And the officer called me
out, wanted to know my name, took it down, I gave it to him,
and he said he was going to talk to you about it. So you can
say: Well, that Farr, he is just a troublemaker anyway.
I think that by doing this we are questioning the loyalty
of our own staff. And, you know, you are only going to put this
magnetometer in one garage, in one place. It is not going to be
done in the Rayburn garage. So why not wait until it can be
done in all garages? Instead you should have officers opening
up building doors, so when the public is trying to get into
Longworth, they can get in, and probably Cannon as well, and
Rayburn.
If we need more officers for the door, that is fine, but do
we need more officers to check our staff? I am not with it.
CONCEALED WEAPONS IN THE CAPITOL COMPLEX
Let me just ask you one last question and then I am
finished. When we were talking, I went back and looked at the
stated priorities of the department, and your stated priority
is to provide comprehensive internal assessment, assessment
capability to identify and validate threats.
Is it true that there are Members of Congress who carry
concealed weapons on campus and even in the House Chamber?
Chief Dine. I don't know that for a fact.
Mr. Farr. Do they carry concealed weapons, some Members?
Chief Dine. I believe some Members have concealed carry
permits.
Mr. Farr. You don't know about those?
Chief Dine. But as how they carry them or where they and
when they carry them, I am not aware of it.
Mr. Farr. Can they get into their offices with those
weapons?
Chief Dine. They are allowed to have them in their offices.
How they get them there would be a subject of questioning. They
are allowed to have them in their offices.
Mr. Farr. Do you know every Member who has one?
Chief Dine. No, sir.
Mr. Farr. Isn't that part of your role under your
responsibility to know?
Chief Dine. That would be interesting information to have.
Mr. Farr. Well, interesting? It is essential. Here we are
trying to create a really secured campus, and we don't even
know how many Members are essentially violating the rules. the
law allows them to have a concealed weapon, I guess, but it is
not necessary to bring that weapon into the House and certainly
not on the floor.
Chief Dine. They may in fact be comporting with the rules,
and this is probably one place where the Sergeant at Arms--the
role of the Sergeant at Arms does come into play since they are
the direct liaison to the Members.
Mr. Farr. Would carrying a weapon onto the House floor be
committing an illegal act?
Chief Dine. That would be something that the Sergeant at
Arms and Capitol Police would not want to have happen.
Mr. Farr. Maybe with the Sergeant here tomorrow we can get
to the bottom of this.
Thank you.
Mr. Amodei. Thank you.
Anything from the gentleman from Mississippi?
Mr. Palazzo. I have already asked my question.
Mr. Amodei. Thank you.
Mr. Palazzo. And he answered, so thank you.
Mr. Amodei. The gentlelady from Florida.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you very much.
HOUSE GARAGES AND ENHANCED SECURITY
Chief, I want to just go more specifically into the issue
of the House garages and the security screenings that are in
the process of being implemented, or at least getting ready to
be implemented.
Why has a proposed security in the House garages suddenly
gone through an implementation process that did not go through
the normal appropriations process, was never discussed by any
elected Member of Congress, hasn't gone through regular order,
or allowed us to prioritize how much that would cost compared
to competing needs? I'm concerned this new proposal is causing
shifts of officers and causing what I would view as a shoddy,
disorderly process. This process ultimately will likely not
result in our being able to make sure that the security goals
are achieved. We should rather be going through an orderly
process that allows for people who were elected to make funding
decisions, and who were selected for this committee to do that;
to do our jobs.
So I have several questions in that category. Will the
screening of staff at garages mean that the screening of staff
and visitors at the Cannon and Rayburn tunnels are going to be
eliminated? For example, the Senate screens all the staff, so
they have closed out the screening in other places because they
have one sort of central point. I know they screen a lot less
people than we do.
Chief Dine. Yes, ma'am. Ultimately, yes. The answer to that
is long term, yes.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. OK. I thought that would be your
answer. We are only in the process of trying to do this in
Longworth. So, how are you going to achieve that if we are not
doing the same in Rayburn, which has, perhaps 80 doors inside
the garage? Let me preface this by saying I am absolutely 100
percent behind necessary security measures. I mean, we
absolutely should have these in place. But we have a process
that exists for us to follow as appropriators, and it has not
been followed.
Now you have to come up with how many officers you are
having to shift midstream that you haven't planned for. Are you
going to leave them wherever they were uncovered, or have those
slots covered by something else or someone else?
Why would we partially implement a garage security project?
It seems to me like you should do it all or you don't do any of
it until you can do all of it. What is the total startup cost
to fully implement garage security? How much is it going to
cost us in staffing each year after it is up and running?
Because it is not just a cost now. That is the first one, for
starters.
Chief Dine. I think the timing is a function of a couple
things, what has happened recently across the country and as
well as working with the Board. And as I mentioned----
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. But what is the urgency? I mean, do
we have--you mentioned earlier we don't have a credible threat.
Of course, anything could happen at any time and you always
have to be ready. But we are 15 years past 9/11, and we have
been functioning, and it has been a concern the whole time, but
we have been functioning without that security at the garages.
What is the ``all-fire emergency'' that it has to be done
outside the appropriations process, outside regular order? And
essentially, where did this order, where did this come from?
Chief Dine. As we work with the Board in terms of our own
internal force development process and threat assessment, we
also work with the individual Board members and their desires,
as really they are stakeholders. This initiative clearly was a
desire on the part of the House Sergeant at Arms to move this
forward as----
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. I just met with the House Sergeant
at Arms in my office, and without discussing our conversation,
that is not my understanding. Where did this come from?
Chief Dine. Well, we work with the Capitol Police Board and
the various Sergeant at Arms----
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. I know you are just doing your job
and you have to follow the direction that you are given.
But I would like someone, Mr. Chairman--I realize you are
the acting chairman for the moment--but I absolutely would like
an explanation as to why we have gone outside regular order. No
one on the Capitol Police Board is elected to anything. And we
have an Appropriations Committee for a reason, and we are the
ones that spend time, over many years, prioritizing what our
needs are.
Perhaps we would decide that this is an urgent need that
has to be done immediately. Then we could prioritize where we
shift funds, and decide what is going to be at the top of the
priority list and what we reduce down lower, if this is an all-
fire emergency. But it has not been an all-fire emergency for
15 years, so I don't know how it is now.
I need a more specific explanation, which I am happy to
further explore with the Sergeant when he is here tomorrow.
Mr. Chairman, this is no way to run a rodeo, and this might
prove to be a need that is more urgent than it has been up to
now. However, that is our responsibility as appropriators to
make that decision, not for it to be imposed upon us and
dropped in, in the middle of what we all committed to and that
I heard the leadership pledge fealty to when the current
Speaker took his office, which is to return to regular order.
And this is anything but that, and it is a very significant
amount of money, millions upon millions of dollars committed
many years in the future. I mean, I think you have asked for
something like 57 officers to cover this, and they serve until
they are 57. That is 57 officers who will serve until 57. That
is a very large commitment to never actually have gone through
the planning process that we have here.
So, Mr. Chairman, I would like you, if you could relay to
Chairman Graves that I would like to have my questions
submitted for the record, and whoever is responsible for
beginning the process of the House garage security project
outside of the Appropriations Committee should be asked and
required to answer our questions.
Mr. Amodei. OK.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. My questions.
Mr. Amodei. Thank you.
Chief, I want to thank you for your response to requests to
me, which kind of ties into the ranking member's stuff in terms
of--and I know you are getting a little loose in the saddle or
whatever. But I do appreciate the fact that having got a C or
above in civics, I think I understand something about
oversight.
So perhaps--we have had some luck with this in the future,
subject to the chairman's approval--if we ask you to put
together a briefing, with you and the Sergeant at Arms, we will
have a chance to ask him tomorrow, to schedule that, as opposed
to a letter, which in my experience, nobody else's, tends to
take about a quarter of most congressional Members' terms
around here. Not your agency specifically, that we can put
together a briefing perhaps and get the Sergeant at Arms in the
room, you guys in the room to basically have that discussion.
If that is appropriate, we will forward that on to the
chairman and see if we can't get that done before you go join
the ``older I get the better I was'' club.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Mr. Amodei, are you suggesting that
we come back together so that we can have that conversation? We
can even do it in closed session.
Mr. Amodei. Well, my thought is we will just set a meeting,
and the Members that are interested in it attend the meeting
and can have the discussion.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Right. I think that would be
extremely helpful.
Mr. Amodei. Great.
Chief, we kept you for 3 minutes, but over the course of
how many years, that is probably about as good as it gets, so
thank you for your service.
And thank you, folks.
Chief Dine. Thank you all for your support.
Mr. Amodei. As always, members can submit questions in
writing. We will work on that briefing.
Mr. Farr. Can you answer that question on the budget
neutral, whether it is budget neutral or not?
Chief Dine. Right now it is, but long term, clearly it is
not because we are taking on new tasks. Right now, in the short
term, as the ranking member said, we are moving folks around
and we are trying to make the best use of the resources we have
to implement this as asked. Long term, obviously--
Mr. Farr. So you don't need the 72 officers for this.
Chief Dine. No. We will long term, because we are taking on
new tasks. We will, absolutely.
Mr. Amodei. OK. Thank you.
This session of the meeting is adjourned.
[Questions submitted for the record follow:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Tuesday, March 1, 2016.
ARCHITECT OF THE CAPITOL
WITNESS
HON. STEPHEN T. AYERS, ARCHITECT OF THE CAPITOL
Mr. Amodei [presiding]. We are going to restart this
section of the meeting devoted to hearing the budget request of
the Architect of the Capitol.
Mr. Ayers, welcome.
Mr. Ayers. Thank you.
Mr. Amodei. I have got some stuff that talks about your
statistics here, which is very good, and I will keep that in
case I ever need to know that. But I don't think I am going
to--since we are a little bit late, I will go ahead and forego
that and defer to the ranking member from Florida.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz, your opening remarks, please.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
And welcome back to the committee, Mr. Ayers. It is always
a pleasure to work with you, and I enjoyed the opportunity to
briefly review your budget request, which is $694.3 million and
13.3 percent above the enacted.
I am pleased to see that the budget includes some funds for
the Historic Buildings Trust Fund, and I appreciate the
chairman keeping the Historic Buildings Trust Fund alive last
year while separately funding the Cannon project. Funding
Cannon's restoration as its own line item was the right thing
to do, really important for us to use the Historic Preservation
Trust Fund to bank resources for future restoration and
renewal. We have got hundreds of millions of dollars in front
of us, and so one of the things I am concerned about, as I
mentioned to you, is, while our oversight is important and we
want to make sure that we can have as much transparency as
possible--that is why the separation was important--this year's
budget request for the Historic Buildings Trust Fund is only
$10 million. I am concerned that we are not banking enough
funds to save for future large-scale projects. Cannon is $800
million by itself, and we know Longworth and Rayburn will be
even more.
So, in 10 years, if we keep going at this rate, we would
only save $100 million for future projects. The Cannon House
Building alone, as I said, will cost close to $800 million. I
am certain the next building to need major renovations won't be
any less. So saving $10 million a year for the next big project
is not enough, in my opinion. And I would ask my colleagues to
consider that as we go through the process of crafting this
budget.
As we consider a budget that reflects our interests, our
values and our needs, we have to start with responsible
planning within our own walls.
In addition to the Cannon project, the Architect is in the
home stretch of restoring the Capitol dome. Congratulations on
that. This subcommittee funded the $126 million needed to
restore the dome and the rotunda to its former glory. I am
looking forward to seeing it before the inauguration next year,
and that project is the most visible example around the world
of our roles as stewards of these great institutions that make
up Congress.
And I look forward to your testimony.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Amodei. Thank you.
Mr. Ayers, we have your opening statement. If you want to
summarize that or remove that from the record and start from
scratch, the option is yours.
Summary Statement of the Architect of the Capitol
Mr. Ayers. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member
Wasserman Schultz and members of the subcommittee, I am
delighted to be here today to present the Architect of the
Capitol's 2017 budget request.
2016 promises to be a banner year for the Architect of the
Capitol as several important projects will be coming to a
close. Most visibly, before the 2017 Presidential Inauguration,
restoration work on the Capitol dome and rotunda will be
complete. On the dome, the installation of cupola windows is
complete. The reinstallation of large ornaments is in progress
and, in fact, scheduled to be completed today. The cast iron
repairs continue through the mid and lower section of the dome.
Inside the rotunda, coffers have been stripped of old paint,
and new painting is about to get underway. Here on the House
side, work is progressing well on the initial phase of the
Cannon House Office Building renewal.
STEWARDSHIP THROUGH PRIORITIZATION
Updating and improving our facilities through fiscal
responsibility continues to be the most important priority for
us. For example, the redesign of the Bartholdi Park project, as
you see under construction now, resulted in a cost reduction of
nearly $4 million. Over the course of the past 10 years, the
installation of over $90 million in energy conservation
measures in our buildings using energy savings performance
contracts significantly aided in our ability to achieve the
legislated 30 percent reduction in our energy intensity in our
buildings. In fact, we exceeded that with a 30.9 percent
reduction. This exceeds the target set by the Energy
Independence and Security Act and is something that we are
very, very proud of.
These projects are all success stories but are also
compelling examples of the need for sustained, significant
investment in our deteriorating infrastructure. Continuing to
defer our needs results in critical damage that compounds and
becomes costlier to repair. Safety and state of good repair
upgrades are the centerpiece of our 2017 request of $694
million. We continue to address an enormous backlog today
estimated at $1.49 billion.
FISCAL YEAR 2017 REQUEST
Our 2017 budget request builds on our successes, seeking
$165 million for major capital projects deemed urgent or
immediate. These include replacing obsolete chillers at the
Capitol Power Plant to ensure safe and efficient air
distribution throughout 23 buildings across the Capitol campus;
eliminating water infiltration that has deteriorated facades of
most of our buildings on Capitol Hill, in particular, the
Rayburn House Office Building garage is in need of a
comprehensive project to address concrete delamination and, if
not funded, will jeopardize the structure of the garage;
repairing leaks, corrosion, and aging piping systems in the
Capitol Building threaten to affect the operation of this
building; improving the life safety of the Library of Congress
buildings through the second phase of the Thomas Jefferson
Building North Exit Stair B project, which will increase the
capacity to quickly evacuate that building in an emergency.
Failure to address these and several other critical
projects in the short-term will exacerbate the aging process
and facilitate new deterioration and failures, ultimately
increasing the cost of these repairs.
I believe that working together we can remain a strong and
healthy symbol for our Nation's growth and prosperity, and I
thank you for the opportunity today, and I would be happy to
answer any questions you may have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Ayers follows:]
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HOUSE PAGE DORM
Mr. Amodei. Thank you.
The gentlelady from Florida.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you very much.
Mr. Ayers, I have a few questions.
I will try to flip through them, but you might want to
bounce back and forth to other members, Mr. Chairman.
I wanted to ask you about the page dorm because if you
remember, in fiscal year 2014, I included language in our bill
to make sure the committee is notified before any work is done
to the page dorm or there is any discussion or proposal to use
it for a different purpose. Has there been any work done to the
building since the page program was eliminated, and have there
been any discussions about the future of that building that you
are aware of?
Mr. Ayers. I am not aware that we have done any work to
that building other than routine maintenance to keep it from
deteriorating. So we have done no new construction work there.
However we have received a request from the Speaker's Office to
begin reviewing that building for potential future uses.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Are there specific future uses? Have
they been specific?
Mr. Ayers. Yes.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. And what are those?
Mr. Ayers. They have asked us to look at a potential
childcare center in that space.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. OK. So the language in the fiscal
year 2014 bill directed you to make sure that you made the
committee aware before you made any changes. So I would very
much appreciate if we make sure that those discussions don't go
any further without including the subcommittee in those
discussions.
Mr. Ayers. Of course.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. There is nothing wrong with child
care, but the purpose of it was to make sure that we could make
a decision, as I keep raising, that is ours to make when it
comes to prioritizing how funds are spent and the appropriate
use for the facilities that are on the Capitol, that are in the
Capitol complex.
Also, just to give Members something to chew on, while that
is an interesting proposal--and as a mother of young children,
I certainly understand the need for expanded childcare
opportunities. But any decision that we make that permanently
alters the ability for us to maintain that building as a dorm,
as a dormitory, forever precludes us from reinstituting the
page program if future House leadership ever chooses to do
that.
I, for one, lament that we do not have a House page program
any longer. There are generations of young people who were
inspired by their participation in that program to engage in
public service. I remain convinced that we could go back and
try to reform that program and make sure that if it were
reinstituted, we could keep young people engaged.
Mr. Farr. The Senate still has one.
RAYBURN SMALL ARMS FIRING RANGE
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Yes, they do. They do, and they have
their own dorm. Ours is closed.
OK. The Rayburn firing range, as you know, is closed. It is
a brand-new firing range that the AOC was responsible for
managing the construction. How long was it open before the
problems of ricocheting bullets were identified, and what is
the timeline for reopening it? What happened with the
contractor that the design of the firing range resulted in
ricocheting bullets? I mean, it is sort of baffling how this
could occur.
Mr. Ayers. The range was open for approximately 2 weeks,
and we were notified by the police officers' union of a number
of safety concerns with the range. The Capitol Police, I think
appropriately, shut it down while we could investigate and
understand what all of those issues were. We don't know today
whether it is an operational issue, meaning a usage issue, or
whether it is a design flaw. We are in the middle of working
through all of that right now.
We have a really good team of people from my organization
and Chief Dine's organization that are working together with
the designers, the contractor, and the manufacturer of the
range to understand whether or not there are any design flaws.
Second, the police are working apace to determine what are the
operational requirements that they need to have in place, and
they are bringing the range manufacturer on board as a
consultant to them to help them design systems and procedures
to safely and effectively use this range.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. What is the timetable for
determining why this happened and what the cause was and/or
reopening the range?
Mr. Ayers. I think my best guess----
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Are there any additional costs that
we are going to be incurring as a result of the process that
they have to go through now?
Mr. Ayers.My best guess is, perhaps 2 months as we work
through possible causes. There are 15 issues on the table.
Three or four are closed out already, and as we work through
all of those, it is going to take a little time to do that.
We don't know whether there is a design problem which would
result in us having to reconstruct something, so we don't know
when the range will reopen or if there will be a future
expense. There are, I think, expenses that we are incurring
today and Capitol Police are incurring today. For example,
bringing in a third-party consultant to help us understand
whether there is a design issue or not. The police bringing in
a team to help them write their operation and maintenance
procedures, the cleaning procedures, and the procedures for
effectively using this range will cost a small amount of money
out of their budget.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Is there a provision in the
contracts that you had with the vendors that designed it, or
built it for reimbursement of costs incurred from design flaws
or errors that are determined ultimately to be the fault of the
contractor, rather than the fault of the Architect of the
Capitol's personnel?
Mr. Ayers. There are those provisions in our contracts, and
we have used them before, not on this contract, obviously, but
on other contracts, and if we find there are errors, or
omissions, or negligence, we will take the necessary action to
recover our costs and protect the government's interest.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. How much would you say you plan to
spend to address the problems thus far, and what do you
anticipate it costing going forward?
Mr. Ayers. I don't think we have actually spent any money
yet, but if we hire a third-party consultant, we could spend
$20,000, perhaps, to have someone work with us for a few weeks
to help us work through all of the design details and determine
whether they are produced correctly.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. But, potentially, we could have to
have a reconstruction or a redesign that could cost far more
than that?
Mr. Ayers. That could be the case. We really don't know,
but it could be the case.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. And the range remains closed. Was
anyone hurt during the use of the range from the ricocheting
bullets?
Mr. Ayers. No, and these, of course, are fragments of
bullets, and they bounce back off of the end wall and tumble
across the floor.
U.S. CAPITOL DOME
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. I mentioned in my testimony the
Capitol dome project being in the home stretch, and I wanted to
ask you whether you expect that it is going to come in at the
full $126 million expenditure, or do you anticipate there being
any funds that will remain at the end of the project that could
possibly be used for other projects.
Mr. Ayers. That is a very distinct possibility. You know,
the dome is in three phases. On the outer phase, we are 87 or
88 percent complete. We are really in the home stretch there.
We will see the top portion of the scaffolding coming down this
month and then 63 or 64 percent complete on the interstitial
space and about 50 percent complete with the rotunda work. And,
given all of that, we still have ample contingency amounts
available to us should we need them. But we are so far along in
the job, that it is very unlikely that we will need to use
those. I think there is a very distinct possibility that we
will have money left over.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. About how much, do you think?
Mr. Ayers. I couldn't wage a guess on that.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. If you could let us know, that would
be helpful.
When the scaffolding is removed, what will people notice?
What is the biggest differences that people will notice about
the dome, the most visible change after the restoration?
Mr. Ayers. It is interesting that, on the outside, as you
take off 13 layers of lead-based paint, the dome and the detail
really come alive, and I have been able to see it up close, and
I am really excited about taking the scaffold down and
unveiling it for the country, if not the world, to see. I think
there is going to be a renewed sense of beauty and a renewed
sense of the incredible detail that went into building this
dome.
Similarly, I think, on the inside, you will see a slight
change in color of the rotunda. The rotunda has been painted
four times since it was first constructed in the 1860s. And the
color scheme that we have chosen goes back to the 1906 and 1946
era. The current colors that you see are from the early 1970s
and really don't have a historical precedent to them. So there
will be a slight change in color.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Mr. Chairman, just one more
question, and then I will just be done instead of coming back
to me, if you don't mind.
Mr. Amodei. OK.
WORKING CAPITAL FUND
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. We talked about the working capital
fund in my office earlier, but can you explain what the
Architect's personnel believe is wrong with the way that we
fund your construction division through separate appropriations
that we provide? And can you address the real issue of reduced
oversight on our part if we allow you to move some of those
separate appropriations to a working capital fund?
Mr. Ayers. Sure, I would be happy to. Thank you. We have a
200-person construction team that does work throughout the
Capitol complex on a daily basis. And the way they are paid are
from our appropriation in the Senate, our appropriation in the
Library, our appropriation in the House. There are no
appropriated dollars to pay their salaries. They are reimbursed
from projects they undertake across the Capitol campus. And so
it is an accounting nightmare for us to be able to track all of
that. And a great example of that is: You take a plumber that
is doing work today in the Senate Office Buildings installing a
wet pipe sprinkler system, and that employee is earning annual
leave and benefits and sick leave. And he will take those,
perhaps, 2 or 3 months from now, while he is working on another
job. Well, appropriations law will require us to find a way to
take that leave entitlement and pay it from the job he was
working on when he earned it. That is an accounting nightmare
for us to do that, one that is recognized by our inspector
general. Our inspector general recognized our inability to
effectively and consistently do that through the long term and
suggested that a working capital fund would be a much better
way to run that operation. And we agree.
And, of course, any controls that are necessary to ensure
that the Congress has oversight and that we are transparent
about that and that we are not spending money in any way that
hasn't been authorized by this committee I think we would
certainly welcome that.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Well, it would be important if we
allow that shift to make sure that we put a mechanism in place
that ensures that we can maintain the same oversight we have
been able to under the current way you do it.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back and thank you for
your indulgence.
Mr. Amodei. Yes, ma'am. The gentleman from California.
ENERGY SAVINGS
Mr. Farr. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
How much money do you save from these energy investments,
on the bill, on just the, you know, the monthly bill?
Mr. Ayers. The three energy savings and performance
contracts that we installed--one in the House, one in the
Senate, and one in the Capitol--was an investment of about $90
million of private money, and we pay back those vendors through
the energy savings. The money that we are saving, we are
actually paying back to those contractors because of that
investment. And so today we have saved over the course of these
projects, $7- or $8 million. The rest of that has been used to
pay back the vendors for their investment.
Mr. Farr. Did that investment include changing the light
fixtures?
Mr. Ayers. It did include changing the light fixtures.
Mr. Farr. Are these LED lights? They don't look like it.
Mr. Ayers. Carlos, do you know if these are LED lights?
Mr. Elias. Yes, they are.
Mr. Ayers. They are LED lights.
DATA CENTER RELOCATION
Mr. Farr. I need some. Great. We are moving the House data
center to southwestern Virginia. Right?
Mr. Ayers. Correct, yes, we are.
Mr. Farr. And you are very involved in that.
Mr. Ayers. Actually, I am involved tangentially in terms of
my agency has a small data center, and a number of years ago we
colocated our data center into the House's data center instead
of running our own. So if the House moves their data center, to
us, it makes sense that we continue to stick with the House and
go wherever the House goes.
Mr. Farr. Yes, I presume that the decision to move sort of
out of the Washington area was a strategic one, plus probably
cost-effective for real estate purposes.
Our leg branch services, the Library of Congress, wants to
colocate their data center with ours. It makes a lot of sense.
They are part of this family. Are you involved in that? I mean,
we ought to be doing this. Who is accountable for--they say
they have gotten no response from anybody and are suggesting
they have got a huge cost involved. And it certainly makes
sense if we are going to build one data center for ourselves,
that we ought to include our family members in that design.
Mr. Ayers. So the data center----
Mr. Farr. Is that your responsibility?
Mr. Ayers. It is not. It is with the House Chief
Administrative Officer.
Mr. Farr. Do we have jurisdiction for that office?
Ms. Panone. I think so.
Mr. Farr. So the Chief Administrative Officer is in charge
of the building for the House itself, for our data center.
Right? And yours, because you are colocated with them, or you
are part of that?
Mr. Ayers. The data center in Virginia, that we are
speaking of, they are responsible for that.
Mr. Farr. And they are also responsible then if the Library
of Congress wants to be there? Are they responsible for that
capital outlay?
Mr. Ayers. I think they are negotiating the real estate
deal and the lease deal, and so they would be the ones that
would expand those negotiations to include others. I am not
involved in that.
Mr. Farr. How about for the design of the center? Wouldn't
they use your resources? I mean, you are the Architect.
Mr. Ayers. No. We are not involved in the design of that
data center.
Mr. Farr. Well, Mr. Chairman, I hope that we can use--I
mean, the dream here, the idea is, if we are going to move one,
let's move all, and let's all be in one place.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Well, the Library is planning on
piggybacking on this as well.
Mr. Farr. They want to piggyback, but they are not
getting--as I understand it--they are not getting any help or
invitation to piggyback.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. I am sorry, Mr. Chairman, if I
might. My understanding is that it is in their budget request,
and also, in last year's bill, we put language that allowed
them to review, and study piggybacking onto this data center.
Mr. Farr. OK. So everybody agrees it makes sense.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. I just met with the acting
Librarian, and he expressed a strong desire for it to happen,
and they need it.
Mr. Farr. Yes.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. He didn't suggest to me--you should
check with them, Mr. Chairman--but he didn't suggest to me that
there was a challenge.
Mr. Farr. From what I understood is that they have really
gotten no feedback, no response from wanting to be a partner in
this.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. From the House?
Mr. Farr. Maybe they don't know that it is the Chief
Administrative Officer, thinking it was your--I have the
question to be asked of you. So they might think that--they
have been asking you. And, obviously, you don't have the
responsibility for it.
Mr. Ayers. No, I don't.
Mr. Farr. All right. Well, we will check on it.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Yes, the information that I got a
few hours ago from the acting Librarian is that they are
working with House Administration, the Chief Administrative
Officer in the House, and----
Mr. Farr. Well, let's check on that.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. They will be with us tomorrow, so we
can ask them then.
ADVICE AND LESSONS LEARNED
Mr. Farr. OK. Fine. Thank you. This is probably my last
question. I am leaving, and I am always asking this of
everybody because I am always curious as to lessons learned. Is
there anything in your career that you want to--lessons learned
or advice you would give to us about the role of the Architect?
I mean, it is an old role. It has been around for a long time.
Mr. Ayers. It has been around since 1793, when George
Washington first laid the cornerstone. And, you know, I think
one of the challenges that all building managers face is
managing a massive backlog of work that needs to be done, and
you can't quite get it funded. I think this committee made such
an important strategic decision in establishing the House
Historic Buildings Revitalization Trust Fund that will really
enable us to make the best, the proper investments in our
buildings over the course of generations to come. And, so, I
know, as I look back, that is one of the things that is so
important for me as the steward of the buildings that you all
use on a daily basis.
Mr. Farr. Did that trust fund receive private contributions
as well?
Mr. Ayers. I don't believe it can receive private
contributions. But it can receive contributions from a wide
variety of efforts, not just appropriated dollars or sweeping
up unused dollars from the Architect. It has the ability to
receive other dollars as well, but not private dollars.
Mr. Farr. Well, like foundation dollars, or no outside--it
has to be public money?
Mr. Ayers. Correct.
Mr. Farr. Why is that?
Mr. Ayers. As I look back on my nearly 20 years here, we
have had a number of opportunities to receive public money for
a variety of projects. And I think it is not something that the
Congress--I don't want to speak on behalf of the Congress, but
my personal view of the situation is that it is not something
that the Congress is eager to enter into agreements like that,
for fear that there is perhaps some influence or quid pro quo
of someone donating dollars. And the Congress, in my personal
experience, has always wanted to fund projects themselves.
Mr. Farr. I am looking at the Washington Monument right
now, which was restored with private money.
Mr. Ayers. It was.
Mr. Farr. And Members enjoy the President series at the
Library of Congress, paid for by a private individual. I think
it is time that we revisit that. Families or foundations may
want to contribute. I think there has been a call for why the
private sector doesn't do more to support all of these
incredible public assets, as they do in the national parks, as
they do in our communities and libraries and so on, schools.
Why not also allow them to contribute privately to this fund,
which is so necessary to preserve the history of the political
history of America?
Mr. Ayers. We did accept some very generous donations when
we constructed the Capitol Visitor Center. And we did accept
some very limited funds when we constructed the National Garden
at--west of the United States Botanic Garden. So there has been
some very limited use of that in the past. And there is perhaps
opportunity to expand that.
Mr. Farr. Perhaps that could be some report language just
to explore it.
Mr. Amodei. I would imagine that the devil would be in the
details: Who do you contribute to? How is it insulated from
your concerns?
Mr. Farr. Firewalls.
CANNON RENEWAL
Mr. Amodei. Thank you.
Mr. Ayers, just a couple of things. Where are we at--and
these are just kind of housekeeping. So Cannon costs, is that
on track? Guaranteed maximum price, all of those fancy things
that you guys are up on, but there is no warning signs on the
horizon as far as Cannon costs go.
Mr. Ayers. That is correct. In fact, just the opposite. We
have recently completed our third cost and schedule risk
analysis, and both of those say we have a greater than 80
percent chance of achieving this project for the cost that we
have identified and the schedule that we have identified,
number one.
Number two, we have also received the guaranteed maximum
price from our contractor for all four phases coming up. And we
are comfortable with that number. And it is within our cost
estimate, and it is our desire to notify you in the coming
weeks and move out and award that guaranteed maximum price
contract in the middle of April.
We have no warning signs, only signs of success at this
point.
Mr. Amodei. Good. Congratulations. How about the disruption
stuff? When are the musical chairs going to start? Is that
still scheduled based on the original information put out? And
I know you could go on a long time. Please don't. Although you
are not in Cannon anymore. Are you?
Mr. Ayers. She is in Longworth.
Mr. Amodei. And I know you are not in Cannon. Just supposed
to be junior Republicans that are in Cannon.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. That is what you do when you are in
the know about what is coming.
Mr. Amodei. Only if you plan to sleep there. So how is that
going?
Mr. Ayers. We have moved over 400 people to the O'Neill
Building already, and as we approach phase 1, it is in December
that we need to move Members out of the west wing in Cannon and
move them to Longworth and Rayburn. And we are on track to do
that.
Mr. Amodei. OK.
Mr. Ayers. Prior to December, we will be moving non-Member
spaces, so late summer, and early fall, we will clean up a few
other committees that are still in that space, and we don't see
anything holding us back from emptying out a wing of that
building and being able to turn it over to our contractor in
January.
Mr. Amodei. Does that have anything to do with why you
decided to leave, Mr. Farr? You are just like: I am not hanging
around for that program.
I do want to let the ranking member know that I had some
questions about future use of the page dorm. Took a tour of it
a while back, shared those with the Architect's staff and House
Administration's staff, and they did a phenomenal job of saying
in a very professional way that those are some of the dumbest
ideas that they have ever heard. And so I am not going to speak
for the Architect's Office, but when they get back to you with
their report, please have your heavy coat on and stuff like
that, even if it is a warm day for: Well, have you thought
about this, that, or the other sort of thing? And it has
basically just kept me minding my own business, even though I
walk by it every day.
But I completely agree with you in terms of the oversight
stuff. It would be nice to know beforehand and have some
meaningful input into that process.
I wanted to thank you publicly for the access that we have
had to your divisions, whatever they are called, in terms of
going through the various shops. You know, with your folks in
the paint department, the folks downstairs in the metal stuff,
the wood shop people and all of that have been absolutely
great. You have been very responsive, which means that we don't
have a lot to do in these formal settings.
I still do want to talk to the yard guys, though, because I
am a frustrated farmer that lives on a 90-by-110 subdivision
lot. So don't take that seriously. But anyhow, I want to thank
you for that in terms the transparency and our requests have
all been timely.
CAPITOL POWER PLANT
Finally, the last thing I have is just an update on how
things are going at the Power Plant. We have boiler things. We
have chiller things. What is the quick and dirty on that?
Mr. Ayers. So, on the boiler side, obviously, we need to
replace a boiler now, so we have entered into a contract with
Washington Gas to provide a cogeneration system that makes
electricity and steam at the same time. That contract is
signed, and in the fall of 2018, that will be fully operational
and part of our inventory.
Our work on the chilled water side is moving out very, very
well on the refrigeration plant revitalization project, and we
have the last of the chillers that we think we are going to
need in our 2017 budget request.
Mr. Amodei. OK. Good. Well, we have got to keep those
pansies in Longworth cool in the summer. So that is good.
I don't have anything else. Is there anything else of the
other committee members? Then this meeting is adjourned.
The committee will get back together tomorrow at 1:30 to
hear from House Administration and Leadership. Thank you.
[Questions submitted for the record follow:]
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Wednesday, March 2, 2016.
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
WITNESSES
HON. KAREN L. HAAS, CLERK
HON. PAUL D. IRVING, SERGEANT AT ARMS
WILL PLASTER, CHIEF ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICER
Opening Statement of Chairman Graves
Mr. Graves. I will go ahead and call the subcommittee to
order. Welcome, everyone.
Today we will begin our hearings on the Fiscal Year 2017
Budget Request of the House of Representatives. I would like to
welcome the officers of the House.
Ms. Haas, thank you for joining us, Clerk of the House.
Sergeant Paul Irving, Sergeant at Arms, thank you.
And, our new Chief Administrative Officer, Mr. Plaster.
Welcome. Congratulations to you on your new assignment. I look
forward to working with you.
Also in attendance we have Mr. Kerry Kircher, the General
Counsel; Ms. Strokoff, who is Legislative Counsel; and Mr.
Seep, who is Law Revision Counsel. I also understand that we
have Ms. Theresa Grafenstine, the Inspector General, with us as
well.
So thank you, everyone, for joining us.
This 2017 budget request for the House agencies is just
under $1.2 billion, which is a little over $6 million more than
last year's enacted amount. Much of the work that each of you
and your offices do on a daily basis in an ideal world is
certainly invisible. And if everything goes well, your work
stays behind the scenes and generally unnoticed.
However, we wanted you to know that this committee
appreciates you and all the work you do for the House; and to
keep the House secure, virtually and physically, and to ensure
that we have all the proper tools. So we certainly recognize
all the work you do for our work environment and keeping the
environment safe.
So, I look forward to working with each of you as we have
certainly some challenges facing us in this fiscal year 2017.
As we had a discussion yesterday, obviously there will be
questions, and our job is to review the request and scrutinize
where possible and save taxpayer dollars where possible. But I
know that you all have presented something that is responsible,
that accomplishes the objectives you have in mind. The
committee will certainly take that into consideration.
And at this point, I would like to welcome our ranking
member, Ms. Wasserman Schultz, for any remarks she might have.
Opening Statement of Ranking Member Wasserman Schultz
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
I join the chairman in welcoming our witnesses.
Mr. Plaster, welcome to your first hearing in
Appropriations. I know you are new to the job and that you are
acting in a so-called interim capacity. But you have been of
service to the House of Representatives for many years. We are
looking forward to working with you and looking forward to your
insights.
The budget before us, unfortunately, provides no increases
for the Members' Representational Allowance, our office
budgets, committees, or leadership offices, with some increases
for the officers of the House and for hearing room renovations.
Mr. Chairman, I consider the House, as you know, the staff,
operations, and its buildings, our primary ward. We are
responsible. As unsexy as our portion of the budget for the
United States of America is, it is a critical component because
we are helping to make sure that the greatest democracy the
world has ever known is able to function.
It is in both parties' interest to ensure that the House
functions at the highest levels so that we can attract and
retain the best and brightest talent. We have heard countless
discussions here where we lose to other agencies because we
continue to be less and less competitive when it comes to the
salaries that we pay, the benefits that we provide, and our
ability to make sure that we can provide the best and brightest
with enough attraction and reason to come and work for us
instead of other competing potential opportunities.
We have to leave this institution better than we found it,
and that is our challenge and our responsibility as members of
this subcommittee. I don't believe that we will accomplish such
a laudable goal by providing the Capitol Police, for example,
with an 8 percent budget increase while providing the House
with a zero percent increase, which we did in the Omnibus that
we just passed in December 2015. We cannot carry out our
constitutional duties with those types of priorities.
Assuming that our allocation remains the same in fiscal
year 2017, I certainly hope that we can realign our priorities.
I know I might be starting to sound like a broken record. I
don't mind that. I am going to continue to advocate for our
staff and for the institution.
If you recall last year, Mr. Chairman, I reported that in
2013, legislative assistants who work for the House of
Representatives were being paid $6,000 less than they were in
2009, when adjusted for inflation. And just in case we forgot
how difficult it is to survive when you are just starting out
in your career, I will point out that a median-priced one
bedroom apartment in the DC area costs $2,000 a month. After
paying for rent and eating in the House cafeterias, we are
lucky that we can keep anyone on staff.
Now, let me highlight something in the Fiscal Year 2016
Omnibus that we were able to accomplish. With the help of the
Clerk of the House, the committee funded $7 million in the
Financial Services bill to increase the capacity of the
National Archives and Records Administration to store archives
of the House and Senate. The National Archives and Records
Administration, which is funded in the Financial Services bill,
is running out of space to store Legislative Branch archives.
So that is not in our bill. NARA is, though, of great benefit
to future Congresses, to historians and researchers, who will
use this information to judge us when we are long gone.
That was phase one, and I hope we can impress upon our
colleagues on that subcommittee to keep this project going. And
I would recommend to any member who has not been over to the
Archives and been in the Legislative Vault, it is a sight to
behold. And, you have an opportunity to have that.
Mr. Chairman, you may even want to bring us on a field
trip, as you have been wont to do, to the Archives, because the
things that we will have an opportunity to see will, I think,
motivate all members of this subcommittee to impress upon our
Financial Services colleagues how important that is.
But before I conclude, Mr. Chairman, I do want to voice my
frustration at how our committee continues to be circumvented
outside of the regular order, which I know is a top priority of
Speaker Ryan.. Decisions about funding are being decided in
ways that cannot be brought to light through congressional
oversight because they are being made outside of our ability to
oversee them.
We have spent from Federal appropriations more than $6
million combined on the Benghazi Select Committee and on the
Energy and Commerce Committee for the Select Investigative
Committee on Planned Parenthood. The House budget presented to
us to consider does not reflect the increased budget
requirements for these partisan lawsuits, the Benghazi
Committee, or the additional needs for the Planned Parenthood
panel under Energy and Commerce.
To add insult to injury, the Benghazi Committee, unlike
every other committee of the House, and a committee that has
existed for years now, does not receive its own appropriation
and does not even receive funds through the Committee Funding
Resolution that is voted on by the whole House. In other words,
we have unelected people deciding how much money that committee
gets.
To add insult to injury, unlike every other committee of
the House, it does not receive its own appropriation and it
does not receive funds through our Committee Funding
Resolution.
We may never agree whether these activities are worthwhile,
but for the sake of regular order, a refrain I have heard is
being important to your side of the aisle over and over and
over again, we must insist that these items be funded through
the regular appropriations process and authorization processes.
Not only do we not have oversight of how millions are being
siphoned for political games, but this is threatening Congress'
real work.
These new political committees and panels come at the
expense of our standing committees that have enacted very
little authorizing legislation on important issues of our day.
We can only surmise that if we funded those committees for
their real policy work, that this Congress could actually begin
working for the American people again and pass--shudder the
thought--bipartisan legislation.
Mr. Chairman, if for no other reason than for transparency
for the American people, this subcommittee should insist on
regular order and require the justifications to provide budget
details on these committees and on the partisan lawsuits that
we have, unfortunately, been funding at every turn. We know
that they can provide that. They have gone on long enough.
I have heard the General Counsel answer questions of mine,
Mr. Chairman, in the past, where he said, we just don't know
what the costs might ultimately be. Well, neither does the
Department of Justice. But they are required to provide us with
a budget justification and anticipate what their needs are,
even when it comes to the uncertainty of their lawsuits.
So within our limited scope, I look forward to hearing the
testimony of the witnesses that are here today, and I yield
back.
House Officers Opening Remarks
Mr. Graves. Thank you, Ms. Wasserman Schultz.
And now we will take an opportunity to hear from the
officers. I would love to start with Ms. Haas first, ladies
first, and then Mr. Irving and then Mr. Plaster. If each of you
could just go in that order, and then we can have questions
after that. Members will likely direct questions to one or all
of you at some point.
My understanding is our calendar, as long as yours allows
for it, goes to about 2:30, that is what we were expecting
here, no later than that, then we will have Library of Congress
after that. So that sort of gives the Members a lay of the land
here.
So, Ms. Haas, thanks for joining us, and look forward to
your comments. If you can briefly share what you have already
prepared and know that your written statement will be submitted
for the record.
Opening Remarks--Clerk of the House
Ms. Haas. Thank you. Chairman Graves, Ranking Member
Wasserman Schultz, and members of the subcommittee, I
appreciate the opportunity to testify before you regarding the
operations of the Office of the Clerk and our fiscal year 2017
budget request. Thank you for providing the resources and
guidance to allow us to continue to carry out our duties and
responsibilities for the legislative and institutional
operations of the House.
There is much to report since our last hearing. We have
made great progress on our Web site redesign and expect a beta
version to be available in January of 2017. The Web site will
focus on our legislative responsibilities and have a robust
search function that will include more advanced vote searches.
We have completed updates to the docs.house.gov. Web site,
the financial disclosure electronic filing Web site, and an
internal requisitions program. The requisitions project will
streamline internal functions and make it easier to reconcile
GPO billing.
We continue our efforts to make legislative information
more accessible. I am proud to report that, working with our
partners, the Bulk Data Task Force released bill status
information in bulk form. This was a significant step forward
and well received by those that use our data regularly.
Outreach to Members and committees regarding their records
continues to be a priority. With the support of this
subcommittee, we were able to make progress on the storage
challenges we face for House records.
Working with the House Historian and his team, we have seen
tremendous growth in the use of the history.house.gov Web site.
This unique historical content is available to the public and
used frequently by teachers and researchers.
The robust hearing schedules have increased the demands on
our Official Reporters. I expect that these services and others
provided by our office will continue to see growing demand.
With our professional staff and the support of this
subcommittee, we are ready to meet those challenges.
Thank you for your time, and I am happy to answer any
questions.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Haas follows:]
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Mr. Graves. Thank you.
Mr. Irving, thank you.
Opening Remarks--House Sergeant at Arms
Mr. Irving. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, Ms. Wasserman
Schultz, and members of the committee. I appreciate the
opportunity to appear before you to present the Sergeant at
Arms Budget Request for Fiscal Year 2017.
Before beginning, I would like to say that it is truly an
honor to have an opportunity to serve this institution, and I
look forward to continuing to work with you and the other
members of the committee as the year progresses. My full
testimony, which I have submitted for the record, has my entire
fiscal year 2017 budget.
As you know, the Office of the Sergeant at Arms provides
security, safety, and protocol services to Members, committees,
and the staff who serve them. To accomplish our mission, we
have an extremely dedicated team whose diverse strengths
provide the highest level of professionalism and expertise.
Employees of the Sergeant at Arms have supported numerous
special events over the past year, including the unprecedented
visit of His Holiness Pope Francis of the Holy See, the annual
State of the Union address by the President, off-site retreats,
visits by heads of state, honorary ceremonies, concerts, and
other events throughout the year. Planning is currently under
way for the inauguration of the 45th President of the United
States.
As Sergeant at Arms, I receive real-time intelligence
information providing an overview of campus wide, local,
national, international events which may have an impact on the
safety and security of the House of Representatives. The
information is gleaned from a myriad of sources through a
partnership with Federal, State, and local intelligence and law
enforcement agencies.
However, as a point of note, despite our best intelligence
assessments, prudent security protocols are always our best
measure to keep Members, staff, and visitors safe. All of these
resources and efforts in intelligence gathering assist me in
evaluating security countermeasures in the context of new and
emerging threats. And, I want to assure this committee that I
carefully evaluate and balance the security protocols and
security posture of the House with the effects that any new
security protocol may have on the business process of the
institution.
In partnership with the Capitol Police, my office maintains
a strong, effective outreach program with Member offices
regarding district office security. We offer guidance on best
practices, providing information on how to obtain a thorough
security review and how to coordinate security surveys when
requested. We will continue to provide this essential service
to offices, remaining mindful of the need to provide cost-
effective recommendations and solutions.
Two of our most successful initiatives to date have been
the implementation of mail hoods in the district offices and
our Law Enforcement Coordinator program.
In closing, I would like to thank the committee once again
for the opportunity to appear before you. I want to assure you
of my deep commitment, and that of my entire office, to
providing the highest quality services for the House of
Representatives, while maintaining the safest and most secure
environment possible. We remain vigilant and focused on
security preparedness, striving to adhere to the strict level
of fiscal accountability entrusted to us by the House of
Representatives.
As always, I will keep the committee informed of my
activities, and will be happy to answer any questions you may
have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Irving follows:]
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Mr. Graves. Thank you, Mr. Irving. Thank you for your
service too.
Mr. Irving. Thank you.
Opening Remarks--Chief Administrative Officer
Mr. Graves. Mr. Plaster, welcome. Your first hearing before
us in your new capacity.
Mr. Plaster. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Graves. And we certainly congratulate you and welcome
you.
Mr. Plaster. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member
Wasserman Schultz, members of the committee, I appreciate the
opportunity to appear before you today on behalf of the entire
team of women and men who serve the House in the Office of the
Chief Administrative Officer.
This is the first time I have appeared before the
committee, and I am quite honored to be here today alongside
the Clerk and the Sergeant at Arms. While I have only been in
this position for 2 months, I have served the House for over 25
years, and I can safely observe that the close working
relationship that the House officers have fostered in recent
years, among themselves and with the other service providers in
the House, has been vital in ensuring that the institution is
supported effectively and efficiently.
I look forward to collaborating with the committee on this
budget request in order to tackle the many issues and
challenges facing us in fiscal year 2017, particularly our work
to improve the delivery of services to the House community and
our comprehensive program to protect House IT systems from a
persistent and evolving threat.
The Fiscal Year 2017 Budget Request for the Office of the
Chief Administrative Officer is $117,165,000, which is flat
with the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2016. This request
will support the CAO priorities in information technology and
improving CAO core services, such as financial management,
acquisitions management, logistics, human resources, and other
support services.
Within these core services are activities supporting
cybersecurity, payroll and benefits, mail delivery, food
services, broadcasting, human capital, furniture and
furnishings.
Although our request is flat, the CAO does anticipate
increases for fiscal year 2017 in personnel, annual
maintenance, and licensing, Housewide subscriptions, and key
projects, such as knowledge management. However, we also
anticipate savings due to decreases in contractor support,
modular furniture installations because of the Cannon Renewal
Project, and project initiatives that will be transitioning
from implementation to operational status.
We are confident that by utilizing available funds
efficiently, and working in concert with our House partners, we
will be able to meet and exceed the expectations of House
Members and staff.
Again, I appreciate the opportunity to be here today, and
look forward to addressing your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Plaster follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Graves. Thank you very much.
I know each of the members of the committee have done their
diligence and read through each of your proposals and
recommendations from the budget requests. I want to start off
today, I am going to yield my time to Mr. Rigell, who is a
great advocate of good government and has done an amazing job
on the Appropriations Committee. We were sad to see him
announce that he wasn't going to run again this year.
Mr. Rigell. That is quite an introduction, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you.
Mr. Graves. You have been a great member of the committee
and we appreciate you.
Mr. Rigell. I appreciate that.
Remarks--Mr. Rigell
Mr. Rigell. First, I am a student of management, and I have
been so impressed by the House leadership and management on the
support side since I have gotten here. And, so I appreciate the
good work that you do for the American people.
Let me say that there is not a whole lot of common ground
in this institution, unfortunately, but the comments that the
ranking member made, I think that she has made a good point
there. You know, I feel like in some ways at the House we have
kind of flogged ourselves on the back of cutting our own
budget, which I think is a principle of leadership by example I
very much respect and try to integrate into my own life. In the
administration there wasn't any commensurate sacrifice there.
That troubled me.
But as I see the young people who work in our offices, and
how they do struggle, and the distances some of them are
driving to get away from the high cost of living here, that I
think this needs to be looked at again, and it is part of
maybe, ideally, a comprehensive fiscal solution.
ELECTRONIC VOTING MACHINES
But there was just one question, Mr. Chairman, I had, that
I would like to direct to Ms. Haas, Office of the Clerk.
You had mentioned in your testimony that there are some
challenges with the voting machines, the cards themselves,
things like this. And, I had not experienced any trouble
whatsoever. I am not saying they don't need attention, but what
are you experiencing that causes you to want to address that?
Ms. Haas. Sure. Well, the one challenge that we ran across
this particular Congress was on the voting cards. The cards are
old technology. They haven't been updated in the last 15 years.
So it was difficult to get those cards. They no longer make
those, so we had them specially made.
Mr. Rigell. I see. I see.
Ms. Haas. So the voting system itself, we have been going
through a multiyear upgrade of the system. So the next part of
that upgrade includes the voting stations, the cards, and then
the wiring under the floor. All of the wiring needs to be
upgraded.
Mr. Rigell. I see.
Ms. Haas. It has not been done in quite a long time.
The stations themselves, another thing that we are looking
towards updating, is in the most recent election we had two
candidates that ran that were visually impaired. Our current
system doesn't allow for visually impaired, doesn't assist them
in any way. So we are looking at adding Braille type to the new
stations.
Mr. Rigell. I applaud that.
Mr. Chairman, my questions are quite simple today, and that
is it. And, I thank you for the opportunity and yield back.
Mr. Graves. Thank you, Mr. Rigell.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz.
CAPITOL POLICE BOARD
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you very much.
Sergeant, I would like to start with you. Good afternoon. I
have asked you and the Chief over the years about the
appropriate layout and management structure for the Capitol
Police Board, on which you sit.
For others that are not aware, the Chief, as I mentioned
yesterday, is not a full member of the Capitol Police Board. He
or she is only an ex officio member. And that setup really
cripples our ability to conduct oversight. We can't question
the Senate Sergeant. The Senate can't question our Sergeant. So
the Chief is left to answer for decisions that, frankly, were
set in motion by the Board, yet we don't have consistent
oversight over those decisions because we can't ask everyone
making them questions about them.
Now, I know the Senate appropriators and the authorizers
have asked GAO to update a review of the Capitol Police Board,
and that is ongoing. I support that.
STRUCTURE OF THE CAPITOL POLICE BOARD
But I would like to ask you, does the Board in its current
iteration and management structure remain useful? Should there
be changes to the way it makes decisions and its oversight
responsibilities? And how would you address my concern that
Congress really doesn't have enough ability to conduct
oversight over the Board's decisions? Because we can't do that
with the entire Board.
I have other questions. For example, like, how much of the
Capitol Police budget would you estimate is due to the
directions from the Board or from the Sergeant versus what the
Capitol Police believes are priorities? And then I want to ask
you also about the garage security initiative.
So if you could address the management structure first with
the Board's role?
Mr. Irving. Of course, Congresswoman. The management
structure as it currently exists, as you know, as House
Sergeant at Arms I am very responsive to Members of the House,
leadership, and my committees of jurisdiction. When there is a
concern, I raise that, obviously, before the Board, if there is
a House concern. The Senate Sergeant at Arms does the same.
When he receives an issue from his leadership or his committees
of jurisdiction or his Membership, he will raise that to the
Capitol Police.
Many times the issues are in synch, we have the same
issues. Sometimes not. Each Chamber has its own, as you know,
set of unique circumstances. We work very closely together and
with the Chief. The Chief, we consider him a full partner.
Ex officio, there is a historical aspect to that. The
Capitol Police Board hires the Chief, and I believe that is one
reason why, for that matter, may be ex officio.
THE HOUSE SERGEANT AT ARMS VS. THE SENATE SERGEANT AT ARMS
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Let me give you an example of what I
am talking about.
Mr. Irving. Yes.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. I appreciate that the Sergeants each
go to one another when there is concern from the other side.
But we have had conversations outside of this setting when you
and the Senate Sergeant disagreed on the appropriate response
to a security concern.
Mr. Irving. Yes.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. They made a different decision than
you chose to when it came to an evacuation issue.
Mr. Irving. It was the lockdown during the Navy Yard.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Right, that lockdown issue.
Mr. Irving. Yes.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. So if that was something that this
subcommittee chose to review, I could only talk to you about
it, to the Chief, and maybe the Architect of the Capitol, who,
by the way, also sits on the Police Board, which most people
don't realize. I don't have the ability, if there was a
difference of opinion, to hold the Senate Sergeant accountable.
Mr. Irving. I will say that later this month the Capitol
Police Board will be meeting with the committees of
jurisdiction on both sides, House and Senate, authorizers and
appropriators. This is something, actually, that we have been
discussing for some time to increase the transparency.
CAPITOL POLICE BOARD OVERSIGHT
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. So this subcommittee is going to be
meeting with the Capitol Police Board along with the House
Administration?
Mr. Irving. Yes. There is an invitation, I believe for the
16th of this month, but if not, forthcoming. We have discussed
this issue of transparency, and we think it is important for
our oversight committees on both sides to hear what the Capitol
Police Board has to say, listen to how we make our decisions,
talk about some of our agenda items.
REFORMING THE CAPITOL POLICE BOARD
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. My specific question is, do you
think there needs to be reform to the way the Capitol Police
Board functions and makes decisions in order for us to ensure
that we don't have to rely on you being willing to sit down
with us in a meeting?
Mr. Irving. I don't think so. I believe that I, as I report
to your committee, to the appropriators, to the authorizing
committees, to leadership, I believe that I receive clear
direction and oversight, and I carry that to the Board. I also
make recommendations to you, to leadership, to authorizing
committees, to Members on my best view on our security posture.
But at the end of the day, it is a combination of working
within the business process of the institution and those
security parameters that I would recommend, and as you know,
all the other factors that go into it, our fiscal resources and
what have you.
There is that same dynamic on the Senate side. And we do
our best to let the Chief of the Capitol Police be the Chief,
and run the department. And, as we get together as a Board,
talk broad policy oversight issues, strategic plan, the future
of the department, and those sorts of things.
So, I think the Board's structure is small, it is nimble,
with both Sergeants at Arms, the Architect, and the Chief. We
can get together pretty quickly on the fly and make some pretty
quick decisions. But I am always available to interact,
obviously, with our committees of jurisdiction and leadership
if there is anything that is concerning to you that I must
bring before the Board.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. I look forward to the GAO
recommendations, but I remain concerned.
GARAGE SECURITY INITIATIVE
I want to ask you about the garage security initiative.
Mr. Irving. OK.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. The Chief was clear yesterday in my
questions of him that he was directed to initiate the garage
security project by you as the Sergeant at Arms and by the
Board, and you as a Board member. He did not deny that it is a
vulnerability that we are only doing it in one part of the
garage. And he was not able to explain why we needed to bypass
the appropriations process, as we were able to previously put
it through prior to this year.
My question is, Mr. Irving, why wasn't this project
justified and explained as part of the budget justifications in
previous years? Why did funding need to be added and moved
around during the year after we held hearings and allowed all
Members to vote on the Legislative Branch appropriations bill
in the House?
The Chief was clear that the direction to do this project
in what I see as a potentially shoddy and haphazard manner, was
outside of the regular order. Again, the strength of our
security is reliant upon its weakest link. We are not securing
all the garages. So if I am a terrorist, I am going to go to
the garage that is not secure.
Can you explain why this had to be done outside of the
regular order? The Chief, in answer to my question, said there
were no specific credible threats that were pending or that we
were concerned about. So what pressure did you have to do this
project without full funding and in the middle of the
appropriations process?
Mr. Irving. OK. Let me see if I can address your concern.
Over the last number of years, I have received some degree
of funding for the initiative from this committee. And, I
cannot thank you enough for your support in beginning to move
the process forward, because we have identified the House
garages as a vulnerability, one of our big vulnerabilities.
So we did receive funding in fiscal year 2014--to begin to
implement the initiative, which would start with the
infrastructure. It was a combination of infrastructure money
for the Architect of the Capitol to run conduit, wiring, and
such to our doors so we would be able to control the doors from
the garages into the House office buildings. And there was also
some funding provided for security-related equipment for the
doors, locking mechanisms and such.
NEED FOR THE GARAGE SECURITY INITIATIVE
So as we were at the point in time whereas that phase one
was nearing completion, we were looking at world events. We had
a particularly tough year 2015 relative to terrorist hits. We
have had, based on world events, intelligence, we felt----
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Elsewhere in the country.
Mr. Irving. Elsewhere in the country, correct. We felt it
was important to move forward on the initiative as quickly as
possible.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Who is ``we''?
Mr. Irving. I would say the Capitol Police Board. The
Capitol Police Board.
The fact that we had the infrastructure in place and the
Capitol Police had surplus, had equipment, magnetometers, x
rays. The missing piece, frankly, was the manpower piece, the
FTE piece. In working with the Chief, we realized that we could
rearrange some internal posting and find some efficiencies,
some short-term efficiencies, to begin to move forward with the
initiative.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. So the Capitol Police Board on its
own initiated a mid-appropriations cycle addition to this
project without any credible threat or indication that there
was anything that required us to move outside the
appropriations process even though that is how we were
proceeding prior to this fiscal year?
Mr. Irving. I will say that I take responsibility for any
action that is taken, decision that is taken----
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. I know you take responsibility. I am
asking if it was your and the Capitol Police Board's initiative
to take this initiative outside the appropriations process even
though there is no credible threat, there is no emergency, and
we were proceeding in an orderly way?
Mr. Irving. I will say that the fact that we had reached
the stage in the garage security initiative that allowed us to
do some initial screening, even though it is not the full
screening that you alluded to, but it is incremental----
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Did you feel that you were not going
to be able to accomplish what you needed to by going through
regular order in the appropriations process that we are in the
middle of right now, which is a matter of a couple of weeks'
difference?
Mr. Irving. No, I felt that we could find some efficiencies
to get the process underway. The garages have been a tremendous
vulnerability for us. I understand that we did not have
intelligence that was--any real-time intelligence. But
nonetheless----
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Sergeant who directed you to
initiate this project in this way?
Mr. Irving. I have to tell you that I take responsibility.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. I know you take responsibility. That
is not my question.
Mr. Irving. It was a Board decision.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Only a Board decision? No one else
was involved?
Mr. Irving. I work with staff, with leadership, with the
committees of jurisdiction, both authorizers and appropriators.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Who directed you to initiate this
project outside of regular order?
Mr. Irving. I have to take responsibility for that,
Congresswoman. I can't tell you----
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. So you initiated it on your own
because in your analysis you decided, without any outside
influence or pressure, that this was necessary and so essential
that we remove it from the regular order process.
Mr. Irving. I did not view it as outside of the regular
order process considering the fact that----
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Did you decide this on your own, of
your own initiative, with no outside pressure or direction?
Mr. Irving. No, I worked very closely with the Committee on
House Administration on this project. But I would say that
ultimately the decision was mine to move the process forward.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. So no one else but House
Administration and you?
Mr. Irving. The leadership staff was also involved. But
again, I was the one who----
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Did the direction come from the
leadership?
Mr. Irving. I wouldn't say that I--the relationship is such
that direction comes from leadership when we are putting a
security posture in place. The implementation of a security
posture is my decision. It is a give and take with the staff in
terms of what our vulnerabilities are, intelligence. And
ultimately, I have to take the responsibility for----
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Was this brought to you?
Mr. Graves. Ms. Wasserman Schultz, let me hit the pause
button----
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Mr. Chairman, I am getting extremely
frustrated. I don't think I am getting veracity in the
responses to my question.
Mr. Graves. I can understand that and sense that and
understand the Sergeant to say he takes responsibility for the
decisions that have been made, and he made that clear.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. I understand that. That is not my
question. I will have other questions for the other remaining
officers, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Graves. And let's all keep in mind that the Sergeant at
Arms and his team has a responsibility to keep this complex
safe.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. They also have the responsibility to
be truthful when they are asked questions.
Mr. Graves. I wouldn't suggest that he was anything but
truthful. He took responsibility, is how I understood it to be.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. OK.
Remarks--Mr. Palazzo
Mr. Graves. Mr. Palazzo.
Mr. Palazzo. Are we sticking to the 5-minute rule?
Mr. Graves. We will see how you do.
Mr. Palazzo. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, I will keep it
short.
Thank you, Mr. Irving, for what you do to keep us safe
here. And I think anybody in certain positions, we have to take
actions to make sure that they are protected and taken care of.
I appreciate everybody's service. It is sometimes not a
thankful job, but we thank you.
I would like to lend some of my remarks to my colleagues
and the ranking member. I think I was hearing it right, you
know, some of the cuts that we made to our representational
accounts have been ridiculous. Over a 3-year period, 20 percent
in cuts.
We are all elected to come up here by our constituents and
do a job. There are several components of our job. One is
legislatively. But you can be here 20 years and never pass a
bill. But back home, we have casework, we have interactions
where constituents come to us. And when they come to their
Member of Congress, they are desperate, right? They don't come
to us first. They usually come to us last. They exhaust
whatever approach they have with whatever Federal agency.
In my district, we have the Veterans Administration, we are
heavily military-oriented. So we do a lot of VA work--a lot of
VA work--and I want to have talented staff that is not afraid
to work hard and make sure our constituents are taken care of.
So I just think any restoration to our MRA that we can make
it is good business, because we want to keep talented people
around so we can take care of our customers, which are our
constituents. Twenty percent cuts, I mean, I won't beat it to
death--I might--but it worked so well for us the first year we
came back and cut the other wrist. It just makes no sense.
But we have to lead by example, and I think we have done
that by freezing our salary increase for, what, 5, 6
consecutive years.
Mr. Farr. Ten years.
Mr. Graves. Ten?
Mr. Palazzo. It shows that wage increases, we have seen
that flat in the real world, and we should only be held subject
to that, unless of course we are performing. But our
performance hasn't been quite that stellar.
HOUSE CYBER SECURITY
But getting back, can we talk cybersecurity? Mr. Plaster, I
think that would be you. From time to time we get pop-ups
warning us about scamming and phishing. And some staff takes
that as, you know, it is like they lock up for a minute because
they are maybe doing some research and they go to a site that
they shouldn't, and they have to do, I guess, control-alt-
delete and start over.
I am OK with that. I think we need to have strong IT
protections in place because cybersecurity is real. There are
bad actors out there that want to know what we are doing,
whether we are talking about maybe Armed Services or Homeland
Security issues, they want access to our servers and our
communications. We are not always--we think we are safe and
secure in our office and we can type and say or do anything
that we want. Might not always be the case.
Can you tell me what we are doing to try to get into the
21st century and not lag behind the people that are out there
trying to steal our secrets, steal our information?
Mr. Plaster. Yes.
Mr. Palazzo. And are we investing enough? Because I think
it is extremely important. But there is a perfect world and
there is a realistic world, and try to get somewhere in-
between.
Mr. Plaster. I will try to cover all of those.
What we are doing to adjust our cyber defenses against an
evolving and very sophisticated threat, as you point out, is we
are evolving our defenses from an older model that came up over
the last 10, 15 years that was more--it was more focused on
perimeter security on the House network. We had very
sophisticated tools that were put in place, in layman's
language, to stop the bad guys at the front door. And that was,
I am oversimplifying our model for IT defense.
Lately, as has been evidenced by events that have been in
the news, OPM, Target, and others, the nature of the threat has
changed fairly dramatically and the sophistication of those who
are trying to infiltrate our network has increased
dramatically. And they are not knocking at the front door
anymore, they are finding much more creative ways to get into
our network and then move within our network once they are
inside.
THREE GENERAL AREAS OF CYBER SECURITY
So looking forward, we are concentrating, if you will, on
three general areas. One is the perimeter defense. Those are,
again, very sophisticated tools run by very, very smart people
that are monitoring what is coming and going out of our
network.
Just to give you an idea of the volume of network traffic,
we received in 2015 about 200 million emails into the House of
Representatives. Roughly a third of those could be categorized
as virus, malware, or spam. So we are stopping, roughly, a
third of 200 million emails coming into the House--that is just
emails--using our tools.
We have in place, and we are putting more into place, tools
to monitor the traffic within the network because the threat
now is the very bad guys, if you will. Once they get in they
move around. So they may come in through one office, but once
they are on the network what they try to move around within the
network to get, kind of information you are talking about,
financial information, communications, and then they want to
take that and get it out of our network without us knowing.
So we are putting in place additional tools to monitor for
that kind of activity so that we can stop it if they try to do
that. And we are segmenting up, if you will, the network to
make it harder to move around from one office to another.
And then the third component really is the users, 12,000
users on the House network. Every one of them is a potential
vulnerability. And that is why you see the requirements on
password changes and information security training.
The 12,000 users that we have are the subject of threats.
The very sophisticated threats are coming after the users. They
are looking for user passwords. They are looking for users
outdated software and equipment that hasn't been patched, even
in district offices, because they can get a toehold into our
network that way.
So users and the awareness of users about the security
threats, about the phishing, and how to combat that on the user
level is important. And we are going to have to do more to make
sure that Members and staff are aware of the scope of the
threat and the role that they play in combating that.
ADEQUATE RESOURCES FOR CYBER SECURITY
Mr. Palazzo. Do you believe that we are giving you the
resources to make sure we are safe? And again, I think we have
talked about this is a must-have versus if-we-could-afford-it-
have. Are we doing that?
Because cyber warriors or people involved in the IT, it is
such a huge demand. Are we paying them to keep them in or do
you see a turnover? Because if you hire good staff, you train
them up, and they become very proficient with the system, you
don't want to lose them to a private contractor or public
company, because they are having their own issues and threats
to deal with, like our military and homeland security.
Because something as simple as your itinerary, we could
very easily become a soft target if someone wants to do
something with your calendar. Of course, I am not near as
important as many of the other Members or people in leadership,
but travel in the district or going on a codel, that
information in the wrong hands could be dangerous.
Mr. Plaster. It could. And, I can tell you that it is not a
hypothetical threat, There are people who are pursuing that
kind of information for whatever reason, whether or not it is
for a physical threat or not. But there are plenty of attacks
on our network, and they are looking for all of that
information, all of your information. So it is not
hypothetical, it is happening.
RECRUITING AND RETAINING QUALITY STAFF
In terms of recruiting and retaining the quality staff so
that the folks on our team are better than the folks on the
other team, that is a struggle. A lot of these guys probably
could command multiple times, not just more in the private
sector, but multiple times what they can here. So we have to
provide them with other reasons that aren't financial for
working for the House and for staying here, and we have to work
very hard to give them those sorts of rewards.
But we have very good people, and I am very content with
the quality and the dedication of the staff that we have. We
have a new CISO, relatively new CISO, who, again, I am glad is
on our team.
So in terms of are we spending enough? I think a lot. I can
answer that question in the same way you could answer, are we
spending enough on physical security? You could spend more. You
could always spend more and be more safe. So where is the sweet
spot? We are spending a lot. We are not uncomfortable with our
current budget request. We could probably spend more and be
marginally more secure. We probably could not spend a lot more
and do so in any justifiable way. You want to give me a lot
more, I will spend it, but I would have a hard time----
Mr. Palazzo. Might not be the most efficient.
Mr. Plaster. Right. I would have a hard time defending it.
Mr. Graves. It comes out of your MRA, by the way.
Mr. Palazzo. I can't afford anymore.
Mr. Graves. Another thought-provoking questioner of our
committee, Mr. Farr, who has served well for many, many years.
this is your last term as well. We appreciate your work on
the committee.
Remarks--Mr. Farr
Mr. Farr. I am getting congratulated by everybody. Half of
them are friends and the other half of them are congratulations
and good riddance.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
First of all, I just want to make a comment. The spam
screening, they are pretty good. They pick out my wife's emails
and send them to spam and then I can clear them. But the Arabic
messages in Arabic get all the way through, right to me. I
don't know how those escape the spam filter.
I want to go back to this issue that Congresswoman Debbie
Wasserman Schultz talked about. What triggered it is this
magnetometer, putting it in the Longworth Building, in the
garage. And it just seemed, in looking at it, is why here, why
now, why this place?
You said you initiated this from what happened in Riverside
and so on, in San Bernardino County, as an intel sort of
problem. Yesterday, the Chief told us we have 32 police
departments in this town. If it is an intel issue, it ought to
be shared with all them and they ought to be involved in
perimeter security, because I always learned what you want to
do is perimeter security.
I know you have plans for installing an underground alarm
around the perimeter of the Capitol, providing full camera
coverage of the Capitol Grounds, to bolster the physical
structure of the outer planters and Olmstead wall, to upgrade
the lighting on the Capitol plaza. I hope that is not going to
create light pollution. All of these would be enhancements to
counter outside threats. Why don't we do that before we install
just a magnetometer in Longworth when we are not going to do
anything about Rayburn, which has 80 doors?
We always thank all of you for your leadership role. I
would like to thank everybody in this room. We all work for the
same government. This is what I love about this committee: It
is the only time that everybody in here is part of this family.
These discussions on our budget essentially are our household
finance. It is about how do we pay these people and do the
things that we have hired them to do.
And when I asked about this in my office it was: Well,
don't worry, it is not going to cost us anything. But it is not
in your budget. It is in the Chief's budget. And here they
asked for 72 new officers, 48 civilian positions, and more.
MAGNETOMETERS THROUGHOUT THE HOUSE CAMPUS
So I pointed out to him yesterday, as we were speaking,
there was a line to enter Longworth, as I see all the time. My
office is on the first floor of Longworth and I go through the
front door. Often that door, you have two magnetometers in
there, one of them is just totally there, never manned.
We had people last week, when it was raining, standing in
the rain all the way to the curb. When I go in there and ask
the officers, I say, ``Can you call and see if you can get some
more up here to help you?'' because I am out there telling
people to go around to the sides or whatever, the officers on
duty just kind of shrug their shoulders and say, ``We can't get
any help.''
ACCESS TO THE CAPITOL CAMPUS
So why don't we prioritize where our problems are right now
rather than building that magnetometer at the Longworth garage?
You are not going to have the manpower to do it. And it hasn't,
as Debbie pointed out, it hasn't been discussed and budgeted.
But I think the most thing that it does, it is just an
affront to staff So much since 9/11 has happened. The whole
West Front of the Capitol is shut off, this incredible space
and beauty of this spot where you really see the Mall. But the
public can't go there. I don't know why not.
Then, we close the garages. And so what we are doing is
shutting it down so the people who work here have a harder time
getting in. I do my town hall, electronic town hall meetings at
night. It starts at 9 o'clock or 9:30 Washington time. That is
6:30 California time. So my staff isn't out of the building
until 11 o'clock at night, and the garage is closed, or they
can't get in at 9 o'clock to come back and do the town hall
meeting because we don't have enough people to man the garages.
So why don't we create the priority that really allows us
to do our work rather than distrusting our staff?
And lastly, I would just like to ask you as part of this
question, how many Members carry weapons?
GARAGE SECURITY INITIATIVE CONTINUED
Mr. Irving. OK. First, Congressman, I appreciate very much
your thoughts on the garage security issue, because, believe
me, these decisions weigh heavily on me.
The vulnerability of our House garages has been something
that has been in the background for a long time. We feel that
proper security protocol would be to include the House garages
or the House office buildings in our secure perimeter. So
similar to the Senate and the Capitol, once you enter, you are
in the secure perimeter, and then you, for example, would not
need to get, let's say, rescreened going from the House office
buildings to the Capitol.
Mr. Farr. So you have put one in Longworth now. When are
you going to put them in Rayburn?
Mr. Irving. Well, it would be incremental. That would be
something, obviously, working very closely with the committee
to eventually work toward.
Mr. Farr. So you get screened coming in from Longworth
garage, but you can drive in the Rayburn garage, get out of
your car, no screening, take the underground, and go right in
the Longworth Building. You will make those Rayburn parking
places a premier place for the Longworth employees.
Mr. Irving. It is such a large project getting all our
House garages secure that we felt an incremental approach,
little by little. To do it all at once would be----
ORDER OF THE LONGWORTH SECURITY INITIATIVE
Mr. Farr. Why pick on Longworth then? I mean, what is the
impact on the morale of staff? You know, this isn't fair.
Mr. Irving. Well, the Longworth, Cannon, the east and west
underground were certainly the easiest, along with the Ford
Building. The Rayburn, as you have said, is quite a bit more of
a challenge.
Mr. Farr. Why not do it all at once?
Mr. Irving. We could do that, but we would rather get
some----
Mr. Farr. Is it such a high priority you have to do that
right now? I mean, we are going to solve the San Bernardino
threat by putting up one magnetometer in Longworth?
Mr. Irving. It is a judgment call, but I think those of us
in the security field would like to put as much security in
place as possible.
Mr. Farr. Sure you would love it. That is mission creep. I
think mission creep is, one of the criticisms I have of your
team. You even suggested that we could do a lot more through
interoperability of all our other law enforcement agencies. You
are building an empire on the Hill. Your budget is bigger than
my town of 200,000 people that has a gang killing almost once a
week.
I would love to have this budget for my town, where we
really do have threats. And those are drive-bys, innocent
people getting killed, kids walking home from school, mistaken
identity, and boom, you are dead.
I don't talk about this budget back in my hometown because
people would be angry as heck. They would think that weYou are
sort of taking care of ourselves first and not taking care of
them.
I think that we have to set priorities. I think the
Longworth magnetometer just doesn't seem to have gone through a
normal process of thinking this out. I think you ought to be
more involved with working with all these other law enforcement
agencies. Why do we have to have our own SWAT team, our own dog
team, our own bomb squad, our own chemical squad just among the
Capitol Police?
CAPITOL POLICE BOARD CONTINUED
And as I understand it, the Board sets all of those
mandates, then they come in here and need all this money for
overtime. I mean, the budget is just expanding. At the same
time, our Member budgets don't expand. The airfare to
California has just doubled. GSA just negotiated a wonderful
Government rate with United, and it is double what it was. Do
you think our MRA gets bigger? So what does staff do? I let
off, so I can fly home.
If we are going to take care of the family, let's take care
of everybody, not just say that law enforcement gets it and
everybody else has to wait their turn.
SCREENING MEMBERS
So, Mr. Chairman, I am concerned that if we don't do this
right, we create an internal dissension. Staff is not getting
COLAs, but seeing others getting it. And finally I would like
to know if, with all this security, how many Members of
Congress carry weapons?
Mr. Irving. We don't know that number, considering that
Members don't get screened. We don't know that number.
Mr. Farr. But they do?
Mr. Irving. I am sorry?
Mr. Farr. Members do have weapons and they can bring them
into the Capitol?
Mr. Irving. They are permitted by statute to----
Mr. Farr. Statute? I thought it was against the law to
bring a weapon into the Capitol.
Mr. Irving. There is statutory authority within the
Capitol. For example, they can bring firearms to their office.
I can provide you with all that information. And because of
that, we don't, as you know, we don't screen Members, so we
just have no----
Mr. Farr. You have no idea?
Mr. Irving. No.
Mr. Farr. So here we are going to take all our staff, and
you have got to go through double, triple inspection, but
Members can walk in here with a weapon and you don't even know
if they have it, to get away with it.
Mr. Irving. That is the statute.
Mr. Farr. That is a statute.
Mr. Graves. Mr. Farr, you have done a great job of taking
us exactly to 2:30.
Mr. Farr. I have another question.
Mr. Graves. And I appreciate that.
Mr. Farr. One more.
Mr. Graves. I know Ms. Wasserman Schultz does as well. And
as I think about this, and I know we do have the Library of
Congress next, there is probably more to discuss, I would
suspect, and I am open to that. And if the Sergeant at Arms is
open to that, I would suggest that we meet together again at
another time and.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. In an open hearing?
Mr. Graves. We can have that--why don't you and I have that
discussion together, because I think you bring up some fair
points, Mr. Farr does, and there might be other members on our
side that would have some other questions as well. But as we
end the committee.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Mr. Chairman, I did have other
questions for the remaining officers. And I would think there
would be more questions for this group than there is going to
be for the Library and for the Copyright Office.
Mr. Graves. You think so?
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Just a guess.
Mr. Farr. I have a question of the Administrative Officer.
I don't know how you are going to do this.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. I would just request, respectfully,
that if we could lengthen this meeting, because I don't think
the next meeting is going to be quite as long.
Mr. Graves. If we can----
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Even though I am asking the most
questions, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Graves. I would suspect to lengthen this meeting a
little we would have to shorten the questions a lot, because
our questions tend to be very long.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. I will do the best I can. But we
have an abbreviated hearing schedule, so we are having to cram
a lot in, in just a few minutes.
Mr. Graves. I understand.
Let me say for the Sergeant at Arms real quick, just
hearing the discourse here a second, I don't in any way want
you to sense that there is disrespect for what you or your team
does. We are grateful for the security you provide. And, I
don't personally believe it is the role of this committee to
micromanage each and every activity you do. It is, obviously,
our role to take heed to the requests you have made, the
spending, and then to make our recommendation back as we pass
the bill through.
But I suspect there is an opportunity for each of us to get
back together to maybe resolve some of the questions that are
still outstanding.
Mr. Irving. I would look forward to that. I really would.
Congresswoman, I do want to address some of your points as
well, because I don't want there to be a question, a veracity
question in your mind. If we have more time we can chat a
little further about this. I just want you to know that I do
make ultimately--many Members coming to me day in and day out--
I don't really make those. But I would like to engage in a
little more conversation with you on this.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. As would I.
Mr. Graves. You have a very challenging role, but a great
track record with this complex. We are grateful for that.
So one question each? Is that what I understand?
Mr. Palazzo, you have a question for anyone else on the
panel?
Mr. Palazzo. Was Mr. Farr trying to make a point to let our
staff carry weapons? I think it is only fair, if Members are
carrying weapons and if you go through enhanced security, maybe
we should let our staff carry as well?
Mr. Farr. Well, I think I was agreeing with your suggestion
that we ought to lead by example. If we are going to not allow
anybody else to have weapons in this Capitol, you certainly
shouldn't allow Members to have them.
Mr. Palazzo. I apologize. Like my wife says, I only hear
what I want to hear. I am just exercising my second amendment.
AMOUNT OF DOLLARS REPROGRAMMED FOR LAWSUITS
Mr. Graves. Ms. Wasserman Schultz.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have two
questions for the CAO. So I would ask your indulgence in asking
both of them.
Mr. Graves. You asking them together, jointly?
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. They are completely different
questions, but I am happy to ask them together. And I can
assure you that the CAO knows they are coming.
Mr. Graves. OK.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Briefly, last year Mr. Kircher and I
went round and round over his inability to budget for the
partisan lawsuits that appear to be cropping up against the
administration over the Affordable Care Act. Guantanamo Bay now
is being prepared, as is Planned Parenthood and the Planned
Parenthood Select Committee. We recently learned that Mr.
Kircher has hired another law firm to eventually enter into
legal action against the Obama administration to prevent their
efforts at Guantanamo Bay.
We might disagree on the merits of the cases, Mr. Chairman,
that is not my issue. But again, you can sense the running
thread through everything I have asked in our last two hearings
is that we are doing things that we absolutely could anticipate
and have the right to exercise oversight for here outside of
the regular order process. As a result, unelected--no
disrespect to Mr. Kircher, but he was never elected to
anything, and neither was the CAO--unelcted people are making
these decisions. So the decisions about millions upon millions
of dollars made outside our regular order process aren't
responsible.
There is no agency that knows exactly what litigation they
are going to enter into, but there is a possibility of, as the
Department of Justice does, anticipating what their needs are
going to be. But we are doing a disservice to the House if we
continue to fund lawsuits through reprogrammings, because those
are not public documents, no one sees that. And I know, Mr.
Chairman, you are committed to regular order, and so many of
your members are.
So since we don't get an estimate of the lawsuits, I do
want to enter this article into the record, if I might, because
we do need to know what the House majority has spent thus far
on taking this administration to court.
[The information follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. I would like Mr. Plaster to give us
an estimate of the total cost that has been reprogrammed from
other House offices since 2011 until now to the Office of the
General Counsel. And I would like Mr. Kircher to provide
details of his budget, including how much has been spent or
budgeted for each litigation that he has entered into from 2011
until now. If they can get me that information outside the
meeting, I would appreciate it, because it is important.
SODEXO--HOUSE FOOD SERVICE VENDOR
Mr. Plaster, the other question I have is regarding
Sodexo, the new vendor that has taken over the cafeterias, as
well as our convenience store and dining room. I don't have to
tell you that there has been an explosion of complaints about
both the quality of the food and the cost of the food. Again,
we have hard-working young people here who are not earning very
much money, and it costing them an arm and a leg to eat is
really unfair. I mean, when you have The New York Times write
an article about how bad and expensive the food is in the House
cafeteria, you know you have a problem.
So I would like you to answer, when the contract is up for
review? We are putting up a lot of money for infrastructure to
redesign the House cafeteria, and I want to make sure they
succeed. But what are we going to do to turn this problem
around in the confines of the contract?
FEMININE HYGIENE PRODUCTS AVAILABILITY
The other thing I want to raise here is the Longworth
convenience store. We seem to have forgotten that there are
women who work in the Capitol complex. It has come to my
attention that the convenience store has stopped stocking
feminine hygiene products. I know that some might be concerned
about my going there. But if you are not a woman, it is tough
to understand that when you need a feminine hygiene product you
need one immediately. So for the convenience store to stop
stocking products like that is really inconvenient, the
opposite of the purpose of a convenience store.
The other thing, which I know may have more to do with the
Architect, but if you could take it as your responsibility to
communicate with the Architect, every woman has faced the
frustration, whether it is a staff person, a visitor, a Member,
of going into one of the women's bathrooms anywhere in the
Capitol complex and finding a completely broken feminine
hygiene products machine. I had my staff text me today a
machine that has an out of order sign on it, and I will show it
to you. It is right here. Out of order. Just today.
These are essential items that are just as essential as
toilet paper is, and it is absolutely a necessity to remedy
this situation. I would like to ask you what we can do about
making sure that the convenience store is stocked fully with
the range of feminine hygiene products that women need, and
also to make sure that we have functioning machines--which,
quite frankly--my colleague, Grace Meng has raised this as
well--should be free. It is like charging for toilet paper. And
we certainly wouldn't want to do that. So if you could respond
to that concern.
CAO RESPONSE FOR LAWSUIT REPROGRAMMING QUESTION
Mr. Graves. Mr. Plaster, real quick. The question on the
dollars from 2011 forward. If you happen to have that, feel
free to share that figure. I imagine that is a pretty simple
number.
Mr. Plaster. $2.891 million since 2011.
CAO RESPONSE FOR SODEXO QUESTION
Mr. Graves. And then I know the cafeteria question is
something you are probably prepared to give a bit of response
to. And then the other questions, I don't know if you are ready
for a response today.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. He is ready.
Mr. Graves. And welcome to your first hearing.
Mr. Plaster. Obviously, food service, to no one's surprise,
has been often brought up and brought to my attention since my
first day on the job, and with a variety of complaints. It is a
daily occurrence where I am engaged with our contract
management folks and the Sodexo management in an effort to help
Sodexo better adjust to the environment that they are now
working in here at the House.
I believe they are committed to making those adjustments.
They may not be happening as fast as all of us would like them
to. But I think they are sincere in their efforts to effect the
changes and the improvements that have been asked of them. So
we are working on that every day.
TERMINIATION TIMELINE FOR SODEXO FOOD SERVICES CONTRACT
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. And we have the ability to terminate
their contract for cause?
Mr. Plaster. For cause we would, as in any contract.
The specific answer to your question is, when is their
contract up for review? It would be 2019. The contract started
last year. So their base period ends in 2019.
As for the other issue, I found out this morning that
complaints similar to yours had already been registered, and
the vendor has responded already with some additional stock. I
was in contact with the Superintendent of the House office
buildings this morning and made sure they understood your
concerns.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you.
Mr. Plaster. As we speak, I believe, making sure that those
are addressed.
FEMININE HYGIENE AVAILABILITY (CONTINUED)
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you. I mean, not to go into
too much detail, but I saw what was added to the inventory in
the convenience store today, and that is insufficient.
Mr. Plaster. We will continue to review it.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. So if we could expand the
availability, that would be great.
COMMITTEE AND CAPITOL POLICE BOARD MEETING
And, Sergeant, the meeting you referenced is a staff
meeting, it is not a meeting with Members. So that is not the
same thing. Related to the Capitol Police Board and House
Administration, that is a staff-level meeting.
Mr. Irving. Yes, that is staff, but we can certainly,
absolutely, do Members as well. So I will address that with my
counterpart, with the Senate Sergeant at Arms.
Mr. Graves. Mr. Farr, you had an additional question.
INCREASING MEMBERS' REPRESENTATIONAL ALLOWANCE BUDGET
Mr. Farr. Just a suggestion on the Sodexo issue. My staff
gave me this note that Francisco Fimbres, who is supposed to be
the liaison with Sodexo, never responds to emails and has no
on-site phone. There is not even a suggestion box in the
cafeteria anymore. You have got to give some way to get
complaints. They are all going to come--the main issues are all
going to end up in your office.
But I have a bigger question, and I think it has been a
theme all around here, is that, why doesn't your office ask for
a bigger budget for Members' offices? I mean, this budget that
we are dealing with, the appropriations bill deals with, is
Library of Congress, Capitol Police, the Architect of the
Capitol, the GPO, Congressional Budget Office, Library of
Congress, CRS, and that is just to name a few. All those
budgets request funds to cover natural salary increase, merit
awards, and COLAs. For fiscal year 2017, the COLAs for these
agencies is 2.6 percent, which is exactly what the President
asked for in the pay raise request, plus locality pay.
Last year, this committee was forced to return $33 million
to the Treasury because the House had hit its authorized cap
and could not use these funds to increase allocations to House
offices. These could have been used for our COLAs. Staff hasn't
had a COLA increase in 5 years Members in 10 years. That is our
fault because we don't vote for it.
But not our staffs. Haven't had a COLA increase in 5 years.
But in the interim, the inflation costs have risen 7.7 percent.
That means our offices had to do the same or better jobs with
less money, and that stretch is really causing problems in our
office now.
So my question to you is, why don't you ask for an increase
in our Members' offices? And what is keeping you from bumping
up the budget number?
DETERMINING THE MEMBERS' REPRESENTATIONAL ALLOWANCES BOTTOMLINE
And I want add to that, as I said, GSA just came out and
negotiated the new Government rates which Members fly by, and
from Washington to San Francisco it is double what it was. And
so we have to just eat that. And what happens is you end up,
frankly, having to let people go who thought they had a career
here, or at least whatever career you have in politics.
You ought to be the champion for our own offices.
Mr. Plaster. Remember, I have only been on the job for 2
months. Hopefully, I can have a little bit of leeway in not
having to relate exactly what the deliberations were prior to
my being in the office between the budget office and the
various stakeholders that weigh in on the budget formulation
numbers before the CAO's office is submitted.
It is a discussion between our budget office and this
committee and the House Administration Committee and others
that leads to a consensus about what the submission is. If the
committee----
Mr. Farr. Well, why did $33 million have to be returned?
Mr. Plaster. I can't speak to that. I am not familiar with
the circumstances around that. We can find out and we certainly
get back to you on that.
Mr. Plaster. From last year you are talking about?
Mr. Farr. Yes.
Mr. Plaster. But in terms of the request for fiscal year
2017, if the committee feels that it is important to add money
to the budget request for the MRA, that is certainly within
your prerogative.
Mr. Farr. Do you take into considerations like this GAO? We
all have to travel with that rate. Maybe in some areas it has
gone down. But transcontinental traffic has really gone up.
Mr. Plaster. I believe the travel costs are somewhat
factored into the formulation of the MRA allocation by the
committee. But I don't want to speak for the House
Administration Committee.
Mr. Farr. Say that again?
Mr. Plaster. Not all MRAs are the same. Not every Member
gets the same MRA.
Mr. Farr. I know the California delegation wrote a letter,
presumably to you, asking that we get--or I guess to the
committee, asking them to increase the MRA for travel, long
distance travel.
Mr. Plaster. That would have been probably to the Committee
on House Administration.
Mr. Farr. There was no response.
Mr. Graves. That it, Mr. Farr?
Mr. Farr. Yes, sir.
Mr. Graves. I would recommend also, and we can do this from
our office, is just reach out to the House Administration
Committee as well. They are heavily involved in formulating
what MRAs are comprised of for each and every Member based on
some formulary calculation that is adjusted based on cost of
living and other things. That is my understanding.
Mr. Farr. We don't go over the Senate's budget, but the
rumor was that the Senate gave their staff COLAs.
Mr. Graves. That is quite possible. As you will recall, the
Senate has not cut any spending in the Senate or Senate offices
or any of their funds or COLAs since, I guess, since 2010.
While we have taken the 21 percent cuts, they, in fact, were
increasing their office budget.
Mr. Farr. It is a good thing we are leading by example.
Mr. Graves. The Senate doesn't often follow our great
example, trust me.
Closing Remarks--Mr. Graves
To each of you, thank you for joining us today and for the
extended time you gave us.
Ms. Haas, you had the easiest question of the day
apparently.
Mr. Irving, we will look forward to following up.
And, congratulations on your successful completion of the
hearing today, Mr. Plaster.
And I guess we will hang around a few minutes then for
Library of Congress.
[Questions submitted for the record follow:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Wednesday, March 2, 2016.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
WITNESSES
DAVID S. MAO, ACTING LIBRARIAN OF CONGRESS
ROBERT R. NEWLEN, CHIEF OF STAFF
Opening Statement of Chairman Graves
Mr. Graves. If everyone is ready, we will start our next
hearing. Thank you for joining us today.
We would like to welcome acting Librarian of Congress David
Mao and the Library's Chief of Staff, Robert Newlen. Thank you
all for being with us today and for your patience as we were
getting through the last hearing.
We will start this panel concerning the Library's 2017
budget request, and then we will have an additional panel after
we go through some of the questions with the Library itself,
and that is to discuss bringing the Copyright Office into the
digital age.
I am personally pleased to see that the Library is
positioning itself for the future through a lot of the critical
improvements to its information technology. It is something I
know we discussed a lot last year. Additionally, the Library
continues to make available its collections in digital as well
as physical form, all while transitioning to the new
leadership.
The Library is requesting $667 million, which is an
increase of over $73 million from 2016's appropriation. That is
just over a 11 percent increase that they are requesting. And
as we have shared with all the panels before us, obviously that
is your request. Our role, and as you have seen and heard, is
to question, scrutinize, and see if there are areas of savings
that we can achieve for the taxpayers, but also respecting that
your request was put forward in good faith in order to carry
out the acts and the duties that you see fit.
And next, I would like to welcome Ms. Wasserman Schultz for
any opening remarks she might have.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you.
Opening Statement of Ranking Member Wasserman Schultz
Thank you, and welcome back to the subcommittee, Mr. Mao.
There have been many changes at the Library since you were in
front of the subcommittee last year as the Deputy Librarian. We
continue to honor the service of 28 years of our retired
beloved librarian, Dr. Billington, who now has moved to his new
role as Librarian of Congress Emeritus, which I know we were
really thrilled to be able to bestow upon him. It was well
deserved.
We also have a new nominee for this esteemed position. The
President just nominated Dr. Carla D. Hayden, who I am looking
forward to meeting, who has admirably served in a variety of
roles in libraries across the Nation, and she will bring a
wealth of experience and knowledge. She would be the first
woman and the first African American to become the Librarian of
Congress if the Senate moves forward with her confirmation, and
I hope they will do so in a timely fashion.
I would be remiss, though, if I did not thank Mr. Mao and
the Library of Congress Chief of Staff, Robert Newlen, for
their extraordinary leadership during what has been a
significant time of transition. Mr. Mao and Mr. Newlen have not
missed a beat, and they have not waited to make necessary
improvements, notably regarding governance issues and the
Office of Copyright. You both stepped up to the task and
provided leadership and service, and we thank you all for your
efforts.
The Library, as I have said many times, is the jewel of
this bill and of our jurisdiction, and the return on investment
that we get from your work is immeasurable. The Library has
always had a robust campaign to leverage private sector dollars
for important programming, and Congress, researchers, and eager
learners everywhere immensely benefit from it.
One fantastic example of this collaborative nature of the
Library is the Rosa Parks Collection. The collection, on loan
for the Library for 10 years from the Howard G. Buffett
Foundation, has made approximately 7,500 manuscripts and 2,500
photographs available to researchers and the public.
Looking more closely at this budget writ large, the Library
has appropriately put forth a request that prioritizes IT
needs, information technology needs, storage deficits, and data
management. Our Library must keep pace with rapidly changing
technology and have the right staff to do so.
Two of the Library's components are seeking increases that
deserve serious consideration, Mr. Chairman, if for no other
reason than their importance of their mission to Congress and
the Nation.
CRS' budget has remained virtually flat since fiscal year
2014. For reference, CRS was funded at $112.5 million in fiscal
year 2010, and their current appropriation is only $106.9
million, $5.6 million less than levels provided 6 years ago. So
not adjusted according to inflation, actually less.
As our own staff budgets remain flat, Members and
committees continue to rely on CRS experts to provide critical
analysis of legislation and quick turnaround of information
that are used by Members and committees. I mean, I would argue
that our need to rely on CRS is even more critical given the
flat funding that we have had in our MRA budgets.
Although this subcommittee oversees the smallest bill, the
Library is an example of why we must fund agencies that have
high returns on our investment. GAO and CRS both fall into that
category by helping Congress analyze the vast executive branch,
its many programs, and other critical information that benefit
the American people.
Mr. Chairman, I appreciate you having a second panel with
Maria Pallante, the Register of Copyrights. We put a lot of
requirements in the bill last year to put Copyright on a path
to modernization. We just received a 5-year plan that we asked
for in the omnibus on Friday. I am looking forward to reviewing
it.
Finally, as a result of our bill, the public will provide
comments on ideas for funding strategies to accomplish this
critical modernization. Ultimately, it will require some
combination of Federal appropriations and increases in user
fees. We should have those comments back before we mark up a
bill. So we have a lot of ground to cover today with the
Register, and I look forward to hearing from both panels of
witnesses.
Mr. Graves. Thank you.
We will invite Ms. Pallante to join Mr. Mao in a few
minutes, after we go through this panel, but feel free to
summarize your statement and know that your statement will be
submitted for the record as well as your statement for the
Register of Copyrights and the Director of CRS.
Opening Statement of the Acting Librarian of Congress
Mr. Mao. Thank you very much.
Chairman Graves, Ranking Member Wasserman Schultz, members
of the subcommittee, good afternoon. Thank you very much for
the opportunity to provide testimony in support of the Library
of Congress fiscal year 2017 budget request. We are very
grateful for the continued support that you and the Congress
give to the Library. And in particular, I want to express deep
gratitude for your help last year with some of our urgent
fiscal collection management needs.
The Congress has sustained its Library for more than 215
years. It is the largest collection of the world's recorded
knowledge ever assembled by one institution. And now, with over
162 million items, the Library includes the world's largest
collection of legal materials, films, recordings and maps.
Library staff have provided research and analysis to the
Congress for more than 100 years through the Congressional
Research Service and almost 200 years through the Law Library.
And the Library has supported and protected U.S. creativity and
innovation since it became the national home of the copyright
function in 1870.
But the Congress has been and remains the Library's primary
focus. Our highest priority as an institution is to support the
legislative, oversight, and representational work of the
Congress.
I appear before you today during a time of significant
change and opportunity for the Library of Congress. As we
prepare for new leadership for the first time in almost three
decades, our goal is to position the Library to serve the
Congress and the American people in a future where
technological advancement drives change at an accelerating
pace. The Library must adapt to this rapidly changing
environment.
Over the last year, we reconfigured the Library's
organizational structure to meet increasing demand. We also
released a new strategic plan for 2016 through 2020 that
provides a path forward and is deliberately flexible to
accommodate needs as they evolve.
As part of the realignment and to support the new
organizational structure, the Library made critical leadership
appointments of a Chief Information Officer and a Chief
Operating Officer, which centralize oversight of the Library's
information technology and operational infrastructure
functions.
Additionally, we appointed a director of the newly created
National and International Outreach unit to lead consolidated
outreach activities, including collaborative efforts with other
institutions.
The Library of Congress fiscal 2017 budget request is for
approximately $667 million. It is a 11 percent increase over
the Library's fiscal year 2016 budget. And of this, 3.5 percent
covers mandatory pay and price level increases, or
approximately $23 million.
The balance of the increase represents critical investment
in information technology and related infrastructure, the care
of and access to our digital and physical collections, and
human capital with new expertise.
As the important work of the Library continues, demand for
our services grows. We therefore seek to achieve much-needed
transitional improvements, particularly in response to the
Government Accountability Office findings on the Library's
management of information technology.
We are dedicated to strengthening our information
technology and physical infrastructure that will significantly
leverage the Library's capabilities and capacities. Because
complete transition cannot be accomplished in one year,
however, we must first address the most urgent shortfalls in
key infrastructure areas: information technology, care of and
access to our collections, developing and maintaining human
skills.
Through several years of declining budgets, we compromised
and took risks in these areas, often making difficult choices
to cover mandatory cost that ensured current operations while
sacrificing investment for the future. Continually funding
near-term operational demands at the expense of long-term
investment has allowed some mission critical areas, such as the
data center/primary computing facility, to reach the point
where they represent serious risks.
Much has changed since the Library put key infrastructure
into place in the 1990s and early 2000s. Technology has
advanced, congressional and public demands have changed, and
some infrastructure has become outdated. The Library's budget
request, which represents transition and transformation, aims
to position the Library to move forward.
To avoid mortgaging the future by continuing to support
infrastructure that cannot handle current and future demands,
we must make long-term investments that move us in the most
economical way and bring in new expertise. Our future service
to the Congress and the American people depends on having a
modernized infrastructure and one that is efficient, proper,
and lasting.
Chairman Graves, Ranking Member Wasserman Schultz, and
members of the subcommittee, the Library is both America's
first cultural institution and part of the innovative
infrastructure of America. So I thank you again for supporting
the Library of Congress and for your consideration of our
fiscal year 2017 request.
[The prepared statements of Mr. Mao, Dr. Mazanec, and Ms.
Pallante follow:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
CONGRESSIONAL DIALOG
Mr. Graves. Great. Thank you. Thank you for your statement
there.
And I was just thinking back as you were giving your
comments there, I know in the past you have generally sat in
that seat and with Dr. Billington sitting where you are. So it
is big shoes you are filling, I know a big void, but tremendous
history and heritage that he has provided, and we are grateful
for that. And appreciate you stepping in during this interim
period and look forward to continuing working with you.
Quick question from my end and then I will go to Mr.
Palazzo, I will yield the rest of my time to Mr. Palazzo, if
you have a question.
PRESERVATION--MASS DEACIDIFICATION
Last year, a lot of focus was spent on protection of books
and manuscripts and such through the deacidification process.
What is the plan for fiscal year 2017? Is it maintaining the
200,000-book level of protection?
Mr. Mao. Mass deacidification is one of the preservation
tools that we have in our toolkit for preserving all of our
materials. It is one of the ways that we will continue to
preserve our materials going forward.
Mr. Graves. And you suspect you will stay on the goal? I
know that you have a lot to get to over the years.
Mr. Mao. Yes.
Mr. Graves. Are there objectives, number of books or
manuscripts over time?
Mr. Mao. Exactly, and we will tweak those as we see fit.
Certainly, we have done a large amount of mass deacidification,
and we see less material as a whole coming in that may need
mass deacidification. And we try to balance all of our
preservation needs. Certainly if we do one type, it comes at
the expense of another, as with any budget. And so we are
looking at all of our preservation needs, and certainly mass
deacidification is something that we plan to continue.
Mr. Graves. Thank you.
Mr. Palazzo, I yield the rest of my time to you.
MASS DEACIDIFICATION PROGRAM
Mr. Palazzo. To kind of follow up on the chairman's
question, I know we budgeted $5.5 million and we got 200,000
books--I think that was part of that fiscal year 2015 budget--
and a million manuscripts, and then the same amount of money
for fiscal year 2016. Have we done the same amount of books?
Can you give me a number? Are we projected to do again another
200,000?
Mr. Mao. We are projected to continue on with the plan that
we have moved forward, yes. It depends. The quantity will be
tweaked depending on how many books actually come in and how
many actually need the treatment, and the increase in unit
costs.
Approximately 190,000 books and 1 million manuscript sheets
will be treated.
Mr. Palazzo. And so it leads me to ask, there seems to be a
slight uptick in fiscal year 2017 of 121,000. Is that because
you are going to do more books, or is that covering something
different? Or do you expect more books because it is a budget
request increase.
Mr. Mao. Exactly. And there is additional cost for that. We
are moving forward, and we anticipate that there might be some
more books. It really is a little hard to tell the exact
numbers, but I can certainly get back to you with some firm
numbers, if you would like.
Mr. Palazzo. And I could have done some more digging of my
own, but the $5.5 million, is that personnel? Is it process? Is
it materials? Chemicals?
Mr. Mao. It is a combination of all of that. Part of it is,
of course, we have a contract on mass deacidification, so
certainly there are costs associated with that, and there are
costs associated with the different pieces of the project.
Mr. Palazzo. Is this off-site?
Mr. Mao. Yes, some of it is.
Mr. Palazzo. Is there a way a Member can walk over to the
Library and get you all to show us how you actually----
Mr. Mao. Sure, certainly. Come over, and we would be happy
to show you what we do.
Mr. Palazzo. All right. That was my primary question. Thank
you.
Mr. Graves. Ms. Wasserman Schultz.
CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
If I can ask Dr. Mazanec to come to the table, please.
Thank you very much. Thank you for the work that you do
to--and all of the folks that work at CRS--to support Members
of Congress who really need the information that you provide to
be able to represent our constituents effectively.
Your request is $114.4 million. That is a 7 percent
increase over last year, which I don't find excessive, given
the reference I made to how flat your funding has been. Not
only flat, it has been concave over the last 4 years. You are
currently funded, as I mentioned, at $5.6 million less than in
your fiscal year 2010 level.
Can you outline for us, one, if the subcommittee continues
to deny your budget request increases, what are the
consequences? What is the impact? Second, what has been the
effect of absorbing inflationary increases and mandatory pay
increases with additional appropriations as you have gone
through that process?
I have another series of questions for you as well.
Dr. Mazanec. OK. Our FTE ceiling is 651. But in reality,
last year, in fiscal year 2015, our budget was able to support
an FTE count of 609. We have a flat budget in 2016. That will
require us to reduce our FTE count to approximately 599 in
order to absorb the increase in personnel costs and
inflationary costs.
CRS PERSONNNEL
Ninety percent of the CRS budget is personnel cost. During
my tenure at CRS, we have taken measures to increase our
operational efficiencies. As an expert left, we would look at
their portfolio and divvy it up and assign issue areas to other
analysts. But there is only a finite capacity there, and CRS
analysts are now spread exceedingly thin. In many areas, we are
one deep.
So what would be the consequences of a flat budget? If CRS
capacities are not maintained, gap areas will intensify. Right
now we have a gap due to an unanticipated departure in Russian
and Ukrainian foreign policy. In these areas, as gaps develop,
we cannot always immediately backfill, which means it becomes a
challenge for us to produce the highly analytical, nuanced work
that you expect of us.
I can almost state with 100 percent assurance that
timelines will increase, especially in the areas that are high
volume: education, health care, defense, appropriations, and
budget. Analysts will be challenged to update and maintain the
currency of their reports.
And finally, one more thing. I don't think we will be able
to effectively leverage the vast amount of data that is
currently being collected to better inform the work that you
expect of us.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you.
And that is my concern as well, is we need CRS to be
responsive. I know when I have asked for CRS reports, Mr.
Chairman, you want to know what you want to know when you want
to know it, and it often is time sensitive. And so this
constant flat funding or even reduced funding will continue to
cause us problems.
PUBLIC ACCESS TO CRS REPORTS
Dr. Mazanec, I am anticipating that we are going to have
another debate about the release and public posting of your
reports.
And, Mr. Newlen, I would like to also ask your opinion on
this since you were there at CRS for a very long time.
My concern with basically making CRS like GAO, where you
post your reports on a Web site, is that it would basically
bring all the work that you are doing to a screeching halt. I
mean, GAO, we have great respect for the work that they do.
They have a completely different function. They provide
comprehensive analysis on complex topics. They make
recommendations to Congress.
And what they are not billed to do though is act quickly
and responsibly and privately. And my concern is that CRS, if
you have a new interface that is public, in other words, your
interface is with the public not with Congress, that we are
going to create another GAO.
So could you share with the subcommittee your insights,
both of your insights, on CRS' culture and how any change to
those policies related to releasing reports could change that
culture. And I know supporters of releasing reports to the
public on the CRS Web site point to language in the
appropriations bills as the reasons that reports are not
listed. So if this language was removed, would that then allow
CRS to release their reports?
And lastly, so I am mindful of the time, is there a middle
ground on this issue that we could release certain
informational reports through the House Clerk and the Secretary
of the Senate so that the House itself is controlling what gets
released as opposed to turning you into an agency that
basically directly serves the public instead of serving as a
service for the Congress?
Because there are times when, as I have said before, Mr.
Chairman, you and I might have an idea that we may never decide
to explore. But if we change the way CRS works and suddenly
everything, every idea we ever explore is immediately posted on
a Web site, then a lot of things that you begin to explore as a
Member of Congress, as a legislator with the speech and debate
clause being in the Constitution, wouldn't be ripe or ready or
even appropriate at the incubator stage of preparation.
So I just would love to have both of your thoughts.
Dr. Mazanec. Do you want to start?
Mr. Newlen. Go ahead.
Dr. Mazanec. As you know, CRS--and I think I can speak for
the Library--does not take a formal position on this. It is a
complex situation, but there are potential impacts and
unintended consequences. And let me just run through three, one
of which you already mentioned, which is that as we release our
reports and our products more broadly, it may alter the way we
conceptualize and perform our work for Congress.
Right now, we work for a congressional audience. We write
for a congressional audience. We meet your timelines. And we
are high volume. As we take on more of a public presence, that
may shift. Analysts may feel they have to vet their work more
carefully. They may feel that only certain topics should be
written about; realizing that their reports will be released
into the public domain.
Another potential or unintended consequence could be the
erosion of the speech or debate protection that CRS has for the
confidential work it does for Congress. As we take on more of a
public persona, so to speak, the Service may be viewed
differently by the courts. Previous decisions that have upheld
the speech or debate protection for CRS, have been predicated
on the fact that we work exclusively for the Congress.
The other thing is there are going to be tangible costs to
publish our reports. We have to put them in a format for public
release. We would also have to manage the expectations from the
public for us to be responsive to them.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you.
IMPACT ON CRS
Mr. Newlen. I think Dr. Mazanec covered the concerns that
Congress needs to think about. You hit the nail on the head in
terms of options. That is making the least impact on CRS
analysts and any kind of outside pressure that they might
experience. You suggested that the House would work with CRS.
I think these are all options worth exploring, we should
outline those options that are most cost efficient, have the
least impact on CRS, and provide you with the kind of
information and analysis that you need.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Seems to me that that, Mr. Chairman,
is a way that we could provide transparency. I am from the
Sunshine State. That is not being funny--we have the most
stringent sunshine law in the country. So I am from that
culture.
But I also know that there are things that we all do as
legislators that are the dumbest ideas on the face of the
Earth, and when you consult an expert at CRS, they help shut
you down right away. You may not want to expose that dumb idea
or it is not the direction that you ultimately choose to go.
So there are unintended consequences. There are fully baked
reports that we could share. I just think to protect the speech
and debate requirements that we have here, that that is
something that should be initiated and controlled by the House
of Representatives and the Senate rather than it forced on the
people who are providing a service to us to be able to do our
jobs effectively.
So thank you. I yield back.
CONGRESSIONAL DIALOG
Mr. Graves. Thank you. Yes, well said.
In addition to, I think it is not the intent of this
committee to put any additional duties or responsibilities or
CRS whatsoever. You are doing a great job with limited
resources, and we are grateful for that. And I have read your
testimonies. Remarkable work.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Let's get them more money, Mr.
Chairman.
Mr. Graves. We are very limited here.
Mr. Farr.
USE OF CRS
Mr. Farr. Thank you very much.
I have to confess something here: I am an addict. I have
been told that our office is one of the 10 top users of CRS. So
I am really addicted to it. I think that the worst thing in the
world would be to allow CRS opened up. It will become the
biggest recipient of homework assignments in the United States.
We don't allow our lawyers to draft bills for the outside
world. That is done inside. I think that the reference research
service is ours and we ought to use it as such. I say that
because I just learned from CRS that as a retired Member, you
still get to get access to it.
David Mao, I just want to tell you, I have so enjoyed your
leadership and your spirit. I wish you weren't the acting
Librarian. I wish you were the permanent one.
USE OF PRIVATE DONATIONS
But I just thought of something. We were discussing whether
private donations can be used for restoring the Capitol and the
Grounds, and it seems to me the Library of Congress, don't you
have the ability to receive private gifts from foundations and
individuals and things like that?
Mr. Mao. Are you talking about money or books?
Mr. Farr. Money.
Mr. Mao. Yes, we can certainly receive donations, and we do
receive donations.
Mr. Farr. Have there been any problems with people sort of
saying, well, you know, if you get a private donation, like
from the Ford Foundation or something, is there a concern that
it is going to be used for commercial purposes?
Mr. Mao. No, not at all. And we have lots of donations and
gift agreements with people, individuals, companies, and
corporations, that may have a particular interest in a
particular collection area to help supplement or they may
encourage us to have programs in certain areas. And it allows
us to do these extra things that our sparse appropriated
dollars don't necessarily allow us to do. And so we do accept
donations.
Mr. Farr. I think this is going to generate another
research question for CRS, the question being why can't we use
private donations for restoration projects here in the Capitol,
because that was brought up yesterday when we were talking
about it.
PRIMARY COMPUTING FACILITY
We talked a little bit yesterday, I don't know if you were
here, but we talked about this co-location of the data center
in southwest Virginia. the chair and ranking knew more about it
than I did, that that seems to be on target. But I don't think
any money has been appropriated for it.
The question here is, if the Library does not get the funds
requested in the fiscal year 2017 budget, what would be the
impact on the Library's services? What would be the fiscal
impact on the Library if it is required to build its own new
data center? I don't even know if that is an option. I don't
know if the House has agreed to accommodate the Library in co-
location.
Mr. Mao. Well, thank you. The Library is interested, as you
know from our budget request, in participating with the House
in the legislative branch data center. We have had great
support from the House in working with the House, and, in fact,
we have based a lot of our decisions on the great studies that
the House has done and working in tandem with them in providing
us with the great studies that they have already done so that
we don't have to recreate the wheel.
The key question is the money. So we don't have the funding
to actually move our data center.
Mr. Farr. Is that in your budget?
Mr. Mao. What?
Mr. Farr. The funding. Is the money there to--well, if you
co-locate, that means that the design of this center is going
to have to be bigger, right?
Mr. Mao. No. There would be room at the House data center
for a Library of Congress to--legislative branch data center--
for the Library to participate along with the House. What we
are asking for is to actually move, and that is what the
funding is for. There is approximately $55 million total.
Mr. Farr. I don't mean to ask this question if it is all on
track, but I got the feeling somehow, either discussing with
you or others, that there was some glitch in this process.
Mr. Mao. No, we are very happy with moving forward. It is
just the money to be able to afford to do it.
Mr. Farr. But that is in your budget?
Mr. Mao. That is in the budget request, yes.
Mr. Farr. So the question is for Congress to approve it or
you can't do the co-location.
Mr. Mao. That is correct. We would submit it again next
year because we do believe that it is the best practice moving
forward and that we would need to do that, if not now then at
some point.
Mr. Farr. Have we ever denied that before or cut back that
request?
Mr. Mao. We haven't asked for it before.
Mr. Farr. All right.
VETERANS HISTORY PROJECT
The other question I have is on the Veterans History
Project, which, by the way, was created 10 or 12 years ago.
Mr. Mao. Fifteen.
Mr. Farr. Fifteen years ago. Congress created the
authorization that we could go out and collect oral history
projects from veterans of any war. Usually it's all the heroes
who get the medals. But part of our national cultural
collection is what grandpa did during the war, a sort of Story
Corps-type things.
I have used it in my district and it is just--I mean,
everybody who sees these things ends up in tears. People,
families, spouses even say: My husband never told me about his
war experience. But he will tell his grandson or granddaughter,
who usually gets an assignment as a school project, to go out
and interview grandpa, and the vets decide at that age, well,
maybe--I have never told these stories, never wanted to, but I
will do it. Then we can archive these stories in the Library of
Congress. I think it has really taken off and it gives our
veterans a chance to feel like they are really appreciated.
I see that you ask for a 4 percent increase. I want to
know, is that enough? Because I think every 435 Members of
Congress are now starting to use this process as a constituent
tool, especially now that we have troops back from Iraq and
Afghanistan. Are there any special plans to reach out to this
particular group of veterans to record their stories?
Mr. Mao. Yes. And so to answer your first question, we
certainly would take more money and would appreciate having
that. But seriously, it is a great project and it is a great
program that Congress----
Mr. Farr. But 4 percent will allow----
Mr. Mao. Allow us to keep pace. And, in fact, we just
passed our 100,000 mark. We celebrated receiving our 100,000th
oral history to add to the archive, and it is now the largest
oral archive history in the United States. And it is a great
way for us to continue to honor the men and women that have
served.
Mr. Farr. I, frankly, think that every library in the
United States ought to have oral history of that community.
That ought to be just part of the American culture. We need to
always tell our stories.
Mr. Mao. Yes.
Mr. Farr. That is how all information was passed along in
the early days. So we ought to go back to capturing that.
SPOKEN LANGUAGES
Mary, how many languages are there, do you speak in your
Service?
Dr. Mazanec. That is an interesting question. I don't have
the answer to that.
Mr. Farr. Are all your area specialists also linguists?
Dr. Mazanec. No, not necessarily.
Mr. Farr. So not all of them can read the local----
Dr. Mazanec. No. But I can find out how many different
languages are represented in the CRS staff and get back to you.
Mr. Farr. I have traveled mostly in Latin America and
everybody is fluent in Spanish. But we were talking the other
day about how thin CRS is. It has area specialists, just like
the military has foreign area officers. FAOs really live in the
culture, they live in those countries and in those regions. For
CRS area specialists to really catch up and sort of have a
refresher, CRS ought to be give sabbaticals for your area
specialists. But you told me that there is nobody to fill in
while they're gone.
Dr. Mazanec. Well, our travel and training budget has also
been one of the line items that we have reduced in order to
maintain the expertise across all the issue areas. And I know
that in my Foreign Affairs, Defense and Trade Division, the
analysts that do the regions or the countries do feel they need
in-country experience in order to be credible.
Mr. Farr. Well, we just ought to think about that when we
are looking at that budget.
FOREIGN EXPERTISE_INTRA-LIBRARY PARTNERSHIPS
Mr. Mao. If I may, Mr. Farr, sorry to interrupt, but that
is one of the great reasons why the Library is such a fabulous
institution where we can all help each other out. Certainly in
the Law Library there is a large staff of foreign-trained
attorneys, and they are all foreign-born and speak the
language.
And to the extent that CRS analysts need assistance with a
specific language or linguistic skills, we try to help out
across the entire Library, and that is not necessarily even the
Law Library. We have catalogers, people in our reading rooms,
in our area study reading rooms, that speak the language.
Mr. Farr. What I am really keen on, and this is for
everybody in this room, are lessons I learned while negotiating
with Plan Colombia. There we ended up trying to revitalize or
upgrading all the institutions in the Columbian Government. The
United States was angry with the military in Colombia because
they were violating all kinds of human rights and stuff.
We finally got around to realizing that the military is an
institution of government. You can't just ignore the military
and fund everything else. You have to train and upgrade and
clean up parts of the Colombian Government. Now Columbia is one
of our key allies in the world, including their military. Very
professionalized.
HOUSE DEMOCRACY PARTNERSHIP COMMITTEE
What we always forget to do is to help professionalize the
legislative branch of government. The House Democracy
Partnership Committee is reaching out to do this. Members of
Congress talk parliamentarian to parliamentarian to emerging
democratic nations.
I think what we need to do is leave behind or allow staff
members from the Library of Congress and CRS to travel to these
emerging democracies and work with their staffs. Many of these
countries tell us: We want some independent information. We
want a budget office. We want a Library of Congress.
But that is not in our budget. I know we have had
difficulties asking the Library to sponsor Open World. The
ranking member and I have had two different opinions on that.
But I understand the Senate reauthorized it and appropriated
money last year.
But I understand that Open World directed to create a
strategic plan on how it could collaborate with other
congressional engagement activities, like the House Democracy
Partnership Committee. That plan is due at the end of this
month, right? Is it ready? Or who does that?
Mr. Mao. Not sure.
Dr. Mazanec. To engage with HDP?
Mr. Farr. Yes, that plan is supposed to be due to Congress
on March 31.
Do we know?
Mr. Graves. I don't know. We will have to get back with you
on that one. The question continues, yes.
EMPLOYEE MORALE
Mr. Farr. Last one. Just a question on how you do your
professional sort of upgrading. I mean, there have been rumors
around that among staff at around CRS is, in some reports,
declining morale. I don't know whether it is true or just, you
know, there are always people who are complaining.
I wondered whether you might have thought about bringing in
an independent outside management consultant to perform an
assessment and recommendations on possible improvements to
morale and welfare of the Library and CRS.
EMPLOYEE FEEDBACK
Mr. Mao. Well, I mean, I will certainly defer to Dr.
Mazanec to talk specifically about CRS. But what I would say
is, I think the morale question at the Library, my experience
in walking around and speaking to employees and meeting with
employees over the last--I guess since October, when I assumed
this position--is that they are a very dedicated staff and all
very concerned and really into the work of the Library of
Congress and want it to continue to be the great place that it
is.
And we have walked around, both Robert and I, and we have
met with small groups to hear what people think about different
areas, because certainly it has been a long time since there
has been a transition. And during the time of transition we
want to make sure that we engage the Library and have them
involved in setting the course for the Library moving forward.
And from my experience, we have gotten a lot of great, great
feedback from employees about different things at the Library.
And so certainly we will take those into consideration.
Mr. Farr. Well, I guess it depends on the extent of--if
there is nothing broken, don't fix it. But there have been
complaints.
CRS STAFF
Dr. Mazanec. Let me just make a few points.
First of all, I would echo what David said about the
dedication of the CRS staff. It is one of the--actually the
best staff, the best group of colleagues that I have been
associated with in my professional career.
I think, though, we are asking them to do more with less,
and they are stretched, and they are feeling that. And that
sends a message to them about the value that is placed in CRS.
I just finished a 5-year strategic plan for CRS. I held
over 40 hours of all-hands and brown bags and there was a
tremendous engagement. They are interested in the institution.
They are very dedicated to the mission. They love working for
Congress.
Mr. Farr. We just don't pay them enough, or we give them
too much work.
Dr. Mazanec. They are here to support you. They are here to
support you.
Mr. Farr. Well, maybe, I don't know----
Mr. Graves. Mr. Farr, we actually have one more panel, if
you are open to inviting Ms. Pallante up, and we will ease into
the next panel.
Doctor, thank you very much for all you are doing, for
answering the questions.
Mr. Newlen. Mr. Chairman, could I just make one remark.
Mr. Graves. You could. Could I invite Ms. Pallante up to
join the panel.
DEDICATED STAFF
Mr. Newlen. I just wanted to thank Ms. Wasserman Schultz
for bringing up the Rosa Parks Collection today, because this
is just a recent example of what our talented and dedicated
staff do so well: acquire, preserve, and make accessible rare
and unique material. And this is a wonderful, wonderful example
of that.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. And have the opportunity for people
to see it.
Mr. Newlen. Exactly. So thank you for bringing it up.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. You are welcome.
Wednesday, March 2, 2016.
U.S. COPYRIGHT PROGRAM PROJECT AND ACTIVITY REVIEW
WITNESSES
DAVID S. MAO, ACTING LIBRARIAN OF CONGRESS
MARIA A. PALLANTE, REGISTER AND DIRECTOR
COPYRIGHT MODERNIZATION
Mr. Graves. Well, thank you. That is nice.
Thank you for joining us. We will sort of step into a
second panel here, to discuss the digital age and Copyrights
just a little bit.
I know in fiscal year 2015 the Senate requested, and GAO,
to examine the Copyrights' information technology
infrastructure and to identify any deficiencies or obstacles to
serving the copyright community in a modernized environment.
Now, this report was released almost 1 year ago.
Last year, this subcommittee included report language
requesting a detailed plan on necessary IT upgrades that are
required for a 21st century copyright organization.
Now, we received this report this past Friday, the 26th. We
want to thank you for your work on the report. And I know there
have been some hearings held by some other committees. But this
committee as well wants to hear your thoughts. And understand
that you have a very different mission than the Library, the
broader Library in itself.
So the purpose of this hearing is not to talk about making
the Copyright Office an independent agency--I know that has
been a topic in past, but not today--but to focus on the future
of the Copyright Office within the Library of Congress and what
is needed to ensure that we are able to meet the demands of the
digital age.
So I know there is not a statement or such that we would
ask you to present, but I know that we will have some
questions. And I might start off, if that is OK, and then Ms.
Wasserman Schultz, because I think mine is rather simple
because it just comes from questions you have probably already
received from those who are really trying to utilize the
Copyright Office in the right way and have access to it. you
have discussed in your report that the IT in the Copyright
Office is behind the times, and that may be a little bit of
your quote there.
COPYRIGHT OFFICE IN THE DIGITAL AGE
So when, at this point when our Nation has been online for
about 20 years now, will we be in the right spot when it comes
to the Copyright Office? And why is it taking so long, in your
opinion?
Ms. Pallante. Well, thank you, Chairman Graves. And before
I answer your question, thank you for the support of the
committee the last couple of years, with respect especially to
our registration program. We were able to add to our depleted
staff and that has really made a difference.
So this report is part reacting to what experts in the
office know to be deficiencies currently, but it is very much
looking to where the copyright system is going as well. So I
wanted to make that point because I think good government is
future focused.
And we know that, for example, people will be registering
on phones. They want to look on their tablets to find out who
owns what. They want to create software APIs to collect our
data and create, say, a new delivery service. And so we are
focused on that, where is the system, where is the marketplace.
COPYRIGHT INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
What I would say in direct response to your question is
that when the Copyright Office--and this is all before our
time--first went online, the way that it was constructed was
that the Copyright Office would control at the application
level the software interface that customers see, but the
underlying IT would be controlled by the Library agencywide.
Over time, I think that has broken down, in part just
because what we do is incredibly complex. It is a 24/7 focus.
It is inefficient to try to explain our needs to a different
department. And that department doesn't have the benefit of
working side by side with the experts in the Copyright Office.
So everybody else--and some of my division heads are here
today--are by my side. The recordation staff, the registration
staff, the statutory license experts, the policy team, the
lawyers, the operations people. But the IT is not with us. And
that is, I think, where we are. I also think that we have been
underresourced.
Mr. Graves. So it will take time, still a little more time.
Ms. Pallante. Which I thought you probably knew I would
say. I mean, we have a plan. That was the long history. But the
good news is we can not only fix the deficiencies, but I think
get ahead of them. That is the goal.
Mr. Graves. That is good news. Good news.
Well, one other question, then Ms. Wasserman Schultz.
SEARCHABLE COPYRIGHT REGISTRATION SYSTEM
What I hear probably the most about when it comes to the
Copyrights is why is there not an updated searchable
registration system that is available to all the users who are
really trying to use a system correctly and not violate
anyone's copyrights?
Ms. Pallante. Yes, no, I agree. That has been my talking
point from the moment I became Register 5 years ago.
So you are talking about the back end of the system as
opposed to the filing side of the system. So the system, I
think, probably was designed primarily to allow people that
used to register with paper to do the same thing online. And it
is searchable. I mean, I don't know if you are hearing that it
is not searchable. It is not whiz, bang, Internet savvy
searchable. I think that is what people are saying, and we
agree, and it should be.
And why is that important? Because you want to generate
participation in the system and you want people to be found
once they have registered with the government. And they don't
have to. It is a voluntary system.
And we are trying to create a platform where people can
find out that so-and-so owns the rights or part of the rights.
You have many rights holders owning various parts of work,
music, the audio-visual, the underlying text, and you want to
be able not just to find them and then call them, you want to
be able to connect to the metadata and know exactly who owns
what. But you also want to know if there are no rights owners,
it is in public domain, you can use it.
Mr. Graves. Maybe I left out a phrase, maybe updated and
searchable.
Ms. Pallante. Yes.
SEARCHABLE HISTORIC COPYRIGHT RECORDS
Mr. Graves. I understand that something can be searchable,
but if something is current today, is it available and
searchable on the other end today? That that might be the
question.
Ms. Pallante. It is searchable within a reasonable
timeframe.
Mr. Graves. A day or 2 or a month.
Ms. Pallante. But not all records going back to the Civil
War are searchable. So it is basically after 1978. And most of
those things are what people are using, but there is a
historical piece that has not yet been digitized, because the
system started--it was a different system starting at that
point in time.
So the modernization effort would be comprehensive. You
have to fix the filing side. You have to generate interest and
participation and encourage people to put their data into the
government system. And then you want to make it clearly
searchable, user friendly, so that people can come and use that
data and use it for a different kind of business on the back
end.
Mr. Graves. Is that true with music or everything?
Ms. Pallante. Yes, music is a great example. Music is the
best example, because if you are a music creator, you want to
be able to tap into an app or a program that you are creating
the music in and register seamlessly, not log off, log onto our
funky system, put your data in, hope that it catches up.
Then on the back end, if you are an innovative music
delivery service, you should be able to come and get all of the
benefit of the government data on equal footing and build your
business from that.
And so we are supporting industries on both sides of the
copyright equation. That is a good use of government. That is
what we have been saying.
Mr. Graves. Thank you for your explanation.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you.
I also want to acknowledge that we are not talking about
the future status of the office here, but the confines of the
Library.
COPYRIGHT BUDGET REQUEST
Your budget request was built many months ago and we did
just receive your plan on Friday.
Ms. Pallante. Yes.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. We received it early, which was nice
and refreshing. But I am concerned that you built a budget
request that doesn't probably line up with your report.
Ms. Pallante. Yes, that is correct.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. How are we going to reconcile that
we have to build a budget but not ignore the report until we
build the next budget. I will just ask my questions all at once
and expedite this.
COPYRIGHT STAKEHOLDERS
The other fiscal year 2016 requirement was that your office
was to go out and ask stakeholders for their opinion of how we
fund the Copyright Office and take their temperature in terms
of their willingness to pay to improve IT infrastructure. I am
guessing that there is probably willingness out there.
I don't want to prejudge what we are likely to hear from
the public when you go through the comment period, but I would
like you to prejudge what we are likely hear from, large versus
small copyright owners. Also, if you could just give a brief
explanation of what we are allowed to pay for through fees
versus appropriations at the moment.
Ms. Pallante. Sure. So we have gone out with the Federal
Register process. It is in motion. You will have comments from
us, I would say, the first week in April. It closes on the 31st
of March, I think.
If I were to prejudge it, I think what you are going to
hear is that it should be a mix of appropriations and fees, as
it always has been, especially because you are potentially
asking, if you focus mostly on fees, one group of contributors
to the economy to fund the other part of the economy or
subsidize them. It will feel that way to people because we
don't charge them----
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. To large copyright holders.
Ms. Pallante. I wasn't even getting into the small versus
large. I just mean the copyright owners who are filing and
paying to put the data in versus those who would benefit from
using it and building different businesses on the back end
based on the fact that they have access to the licenses or the
data or the royalties, whatever it might be. And that is free,
and I think it has always been free. And again, we want to
government to provide a platform for that kind of exchange.
So, I guess, I am just saying that I think it is probably
not the case that you are going to hear that the people paying
into the system feel like they should pay for all of the
modernization, especially because, as the chairman said, some
of the complaints are on the back end. They want to be able to
search on the back end.
So because it is a voluntary system, it is an art. You will
also see that big copyright owners are probably willing to
subsidize small copyright owners. We already took their
temperature on that a little bit this last fee schedule. But
they also expect better service, and they expect their fees to
be put directly back into the copyright system. And that is, I
think, part and parcel to this plan.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. A little more whiz, bang.
Ms. Pallante. Yes. I think, because, again, because we
haven't----
COPYRIGHT FEES
Mr. Farr. Where do those fees go now?
Ms. Pallante. The ability of the Copyright Office to spend
fees for IT is very limited because the IT is not ours. It is
agencywide IT. And so if you are asking them to pay more, I
think--and this is what we are hearing--the fees have to be put
back directly into the copyright system infrastructure,
planning, IT, operability, focus.
Mr. Farr. So they are just going in the general fund, are
they in the Treasury?
Ms. Pallante. Well, eventually they go to the Treasury.
They come through Pay.gov. I think the issue is the more you
charge, the more that they want to see the results.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. They are not plowed back into the
service right now?
COPYRIGHT IT SYSTEMS
Ms. Pallante. I don't think you could say that they are--
because we are not picking IT systems based on the copyright
system, we are picking agencywide systems. There is that
concern then of course the system is not working right now for
copyright owners or for copyright users.
That doesn't mean there aren't synergies. That doesn't mean
that the Copyright Office and the Library shouldn't have shared
services, that we shouldn't have points where we touch. It just
means that we have to recognize that there may not be a one-
size-fits-all.
And this has been a very long time coming, and I think most
people agree with that. It is just figuring out what the points
of alignment are and allowing the office to take over the IT
that it is an expert in or allow them to work next to the
experts.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. you are building, it looks like, an
independent IT system, but you are still housed within the
Library?
Ms. Pallante. Oh, yes. I mean, it doesn't have anything to
do with the constitutional, legal arguments about whether there
are conflicts and what the structure should be and the
interagency process with other IP organizations and the
government.
It only is saying that we built it, we built an online
registration system. Recordation is still paper. We have all of
these other things we need to connect. It is unlikely we can do
that in the current paradigm where we are going to a central IT
office and saying, as one of your many clients, here are our
needs, because this plan is a 24/7, 5-year plan and it is going
to take that. And it takes being in the Copyright Office.
So we have a tiny, little team right now, and we have no
responsibility for administering IT as to the underlying
systems, the servers, et cetera. And it is stressful. We had an
outage. It was extremely stressful for the Copyright Office.
Because in part--I mean, things happen--but in part it is
because we are on the outside of those failures or plans.
I don't know if I answered your question.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. You did. Thank you.
Mr. Graves. Mr. Farr, any questions?
Did you have anything you wanted to add, Mr. Mao?
Anything additional?
AGENCY SUPPORT
Mr. Mao. No. We look forward to this plan as well and we
are looking to working together, because that is what we need
to do. The Copyright Office, their clients are clients of the
Library of Congress and the Library wants to make sure that all
of the clients are being served. And that is why our budget
proposal is what it is, to make sure that our infrastructure
can support all of our clients.
CHAIRMAN'S CLOSING REMARKS
Mr. Graves. Great. Well, if there are no other questions,
let me thank you all for joining us today, for working together
for the betterment of what we are all trying to do here for our
constituency across the country. And we will stand in recess
until we are called back.
[Questions submitted for the record and additional
statements for the record follow:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
W I T N E S S E S
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Page
Ayers, S. T...................................................... 37
Braddock, R. L................................................... 1
Burd, James...................................................... 240
Dine, K. C....................................................... 1
Dodaro, G. L..................................................... 198
Haas, K. L....................................................... 63
Hall, Keith...................................................... 221
Irving, P. D..................................................... 63
Mao, D. S
Newlen, R. R..................................................... 125
O'Keefe, J. M.................................................... 229
Pallante, M. A................................................... 163
Plaster, Will.................................................... 63
Sapin, B. J...................................................... 225
Schniderman, Saul................................................ 244
Schuman, Daniel.................................................. 256
Stiverson, K. A.................................................. 251
Vance-Cooks, Davita.............................................. 187
Verderosa, M. R.................................................. 1
I N D E X
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United States Capitol Police
Page
Concealed Weapons in the Capitol Complex......................... 29
Coordination with Law Enforcement Agencies in DC................. 26
Future Threats and Challenges.................................... 21
House Garages and Enhanced Security.............................. 30
Long-term Impact of the Spending Plan for Enhanced Security...... 22
Longworth Magnetometers.......................................... 27
Opening Statement of Chairman Tom Graves......................... 1
Opening Statement of Ranking Member Wasserman Schultz............ 2
Opening Statement of the Honorable Nita M. Lowey................. 3
Questions for the Record, Chairman Graves........................ 33
Role of the Capitol Police Board in the USCP Budget Process...... 23
State of USCP Readiness.......................................... 23
Statement of Chief Kim C. Dine................................... 4
Testimony of Chief Kim C. Dine................................... 8
USCP Radio System................................................ 25
Architect of the Capitol (AOC)
Acting Chairman Remarks.......................................... 37
Advice and Lessons Learned....................................... 50
Cannon Renewal................................................... 51
Capitol Power Plant.............................................. 53
Data Center Relocation........................................... 49
Energy Savings................................................... 49
House Page Dorm.................................................. 45
Questions for the Record......................................... 54
Cannon House Office Building................................. 54
Capitol Dome Restoration..................................... 57
Rayburn Building Garage Rehabilitation....................... 57
FTE's........................................................ 58
Zero Based Budgeting......................................... 58
Capitol Police Buildings and Grounds......................... 59
Grant Memorial............................................... 60
Stone Preservation........................................... 61
Ranking Member Remarks........................................... 37
Rayburn Small Arms Firing Range.................................. 46
Summary Statement of Architect of the Capitol.................... 38
Stewardship Through Prioritization........................... 38
Fiscal Year 2017 Request..................................... 39
U.S. Capitol Dome................................................ 47
Working Capital Fund............................................. 48
Written Statement of Stephen T. Ayers............................ 40
U.S. House of Representatives
Access to the Capitol Campus..................................... 101
Adequate Resources for Cyber Security............................ 99
Amount of Dollars Reprogrammed for Lawsuits...................... 104
CAO Response for Lawsuit Reprogramming Question.................. 109
CAO Response for Sodexo Question................................. 109
Capitol Police Board............................................. 92
Capitol Police Board (continued)................................. 102
Capitol Police Board Oversight................................... 93
Committee and Capitol Police Board Meeting....................... 109
Determining the Members' Representational Allowances Bottom-line. 110
Electronic Voting Machines....................................... 91
Feminine Hygiene Availability (continued)........................ 109
Feminine Hygiene Products Availability........................... 108
Garage Security Initiative....................................... 94
Garage Security Initiative (continued)........................... 101
House Cyber Security............................................. 97
Increasing Members' Representational Allowance Budget............ 110
Magnetometers throughout the House Campus........................ 100
Need for the Garage Security Initiative.......................... 95
Opening Statement of Hon. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Ranking
Member......................................................... 64
Opening Statement of Hon. Tom Graves, Chairman................... 63
Order of the Longworth Security Initiative....................... 102
Questions for the Record......................................... 113
Recruiting and Retaining Quality Staff........................... 99
Reforming the Capitol Police Board............................... 93
Screening Members................................................ 102
Sodexo-House Food Service Vendor................................. 108
Statement of Hon. E. Scott Rigell................................ 91
Statement of Hon. Karen Haas, Clerk, U.S. House of
Representatives................................................ 66
Statement of Hon. Paul Irving, Sergeant at Arms, U.S. House of
Representatives................................................ 75
Statement of Hon. Sam Farr....................................... 100
Statement of Hon. Steven M. Palazzo.............................. 96
Statement of Hon. Will Plaster, Chief Administrative Officer,
U.S. House of Representatives.................................. 84
Structure of the Capitol Police Board............................ 92
Termination Timeline for Sodexo Food Services Contract........... 109
The House Sergeant at Arms vs The Senate Sergeant at Arms........ 93
Three General Areas of Cyber Security............................ 98
Library of Congress
Agency Support................................................... 168
Chairman's Closing Remarks....................................... 168
Congressional Dialog
Congressional Research Service................................... 154
CRS Personnel................................................ 154
CRS Staff.................................................... 161
Impact on CRS................................................ 156
Public Access to CRS Reports................................. 155
Use of CRS................................................... 157
Copyright Office:
Copyright Budget Request..................................... 165
Copyright Fees............................................... 167
Copyright Information Technology............................. 164
Copyright IT Systems......................................... 167
Copyright Modernization...................................... 163
Copyright Office in the Digital Age.......................... 163
Copyright Stakeholders....................................... 166
Searchable Copyright Registration System..................... 164
Searchable Historic Copyright Records........................ 165
Dedicated Staff.................................................. 162
Employee Feedback................................................ 161
Employee Morale.................................................. 161
Foreign Expertise--Intra-Library Partnerships.................... 160
House Democracy Partnership Committee............................ 160
Mass Deacidification Program..................................... 153
Opening Statements:
Acting Librarian of Congress................................. 127
Chairman Graves.............................................. 125
Ms. Wasserman Schultz........................................ 125
Preservation--Mass Deacidification............................... 153
Primary Computing Facility....................................... 158
Questions for the Record from the Chairman:
Copyright Office............................................. 179
Information Technology....................................... 170
Mass Deacidification......................................... 169
National Library Service..................................... 178
Primary Computing Facility................................... 177
Questions for the Record from Mr. Farr:
Mass Deacidification Program................................. 183
Supporting Congress with Foreign Affairs..................... 183
Spoken Languages................................................. 159
Use of Private Donations......................................... 157
Veterans History Project......................................... 159
Written Statements:
Acting Librarian of Congress................................. 130
Director, Congressional Research Service..................... 138
Register and Director of Copyrights.......................... 148