[House Hearing, 119 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
OVERSIGHT OF THE GOVERNMENT
PUBLISHING OFFICE IN A DIGITAL-FIRST ERA
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON HOUSE
ADMINISTRATION
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED NINETEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
January 22, 2026
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on House Administration
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
www.govinfo.gov
www.cha.house.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
62-653 WASHINGTON : 2026
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COMMITTEE ON HOUSE ADMINISTRATION
BRYAN STEIL, Wisconsin, Chairman
LAUREL LEE, Florida, Vice Chair JOSEPH MORELLE, New York,
BARRY LOUDERMILK, Georgia Ranking Member
H. MORGAN GRIFFITH, Virginia TERRI A. SEWELL, Alabama
GREG MURPHY, North Carolina NORMA TORRES, California
STEPHANIE BICE, Oklahoma JULIE JOHNSON, Texas
MARY MILLER, Illinois
MIKE CAREY, Ohio
Mike Platt, Staff Director
Jamie Fleet, Minority Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Opening Statements
Chairman Bryan Steil, Representative from the State of Wisconsin. 1
Prepared statement of Chairman Bryan Steil................... 3
Ranking Member Joseph Morelle, Representative from the State of
New York....................................................... 3
Prepared statement of Ranking Member Joseph Morelle.......... 5
Witness
Hon. Hugh Halpern, director, Government Publishing Office........ 6
Prepared statement of Hon. Hugh Halpern...................... 9
Questions for the Record
Hon. Hugh Halpern answers to submitted questions................. 32
OVERSIGHT OF THE
GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
IN A DIGITAL-FIRST ERA
----------
January 22, 2026
Committee on House Administration,
House of Representatives,
Washington, D.C.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:06 p.m., in
room 1310, Longworth House Office Building, Hon. Bryan Steil
[Chairman of the Committee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Steil, Griffith, Bice, Carey,
Morelle, and Torres.
Staff present: Mike Platt, Staff Director; Abby Salter,
Deputy General Counsel; Dan Durak, Professional Staff; Jessica
Smith, Deputy Director of Oversight; Jordan Wilson, Director of
Member Services; Kristen Monterroso, Director of Operations;
Evan Van Orman, Professional Staff; Annemarie Cake,
Professional Staff and Deputy Clerk; Jamie Fleet, Minority
Staff Director; Khalil Abboud, Minority Deputy Staff Director;
Matthew Schlesinger, Minority Senior Counsel for Oversight and
Investigations; and Owen Reilly, Minority Senior Counsel.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. BRYAN STEIL, CHAIRMAN OF THE
COMMITTEE ON HOUSE ADMINISTRATION, A U.S. REPRESENTATIVE FROM
WISCONSIN
Chairman Steil. The Committee on House Administration will
come to order.
The title of today's hearing is ``Oversight of the
Government Publishing Office in the Digital-First Era.''
I note a quorum is present.
Without objection, the chair may declare a recess at any
time.
Also, without objection, the hearing record will remain
open for five legislative days so Members may submit any
materials they wish to be included therein.
Thank you, Ranking Member Morelle, Members of the
Committee, and our witness, for participating in today's
hearing.
This is the first full Committee oversight hearing for GPO
since 2020. Our purpose here today is twofold. First, to
examine the current work of GPO, including successful
initiatives and ongoing challenges; and second, to discuss how
the agency is adapting to the digital-first era and evaluate
what statutory reforms may be necessary.
Over its 165 years, the Government Publishing Office has
effectively delivered on its mission to provide trusted
information from the Federal Government to the American people.
Its vision is ``America Informed.''
When it first opened its doors--coincidentally, the same
day President Lincoln was inaugurated in 1861--GPO was directed
to carry out printing authorized by Congress, Federal agencies,
and the courts.
Today, their role is broader. Today, 1,600 employees at GPO
operate distribution centers nationwide to fulfill the
publishing needs of every branch of Government.
One great example is the passport book, which GPO has
produced for the State Department for a hundred years. It also
produces credentials for agencies and products used for
Presidential inaugurations and the State of the Union address.
As the agency develops plans to use the latest
technologies, we will explore how GPO is adapting its business
operations to meet customer needs.
Another example of GPO's expanded mission is the Federal
Depository Library Program. Formally established by Congress in
1962, this program provides nationwide public access to
Government information by sharing published resources with a
web of libraries across the country.
On top of that, in recent decades GPO has transformed its
digital operations to continue meeting the needs of people
where they are at.
One notable example is the website GovInfo which GPO
maintains to provide permanent public access to Government
information online.
At the start of the year, GPO announced it had surpassed 15
billion retrievals of Government information through
GovInfo.gov.
Finally, as a legislative branch agency, GPO also ensures
lawmakers can effectively do their job of representing the
American people.
Some of their services to Congress include printing and
publishing committee reports, reviewing and editing legislative
text prior to online publication, and daily publication of the
Congressional Record, which documents the proceedings and
debates of this body for history.
While GPO has effectively performed and adapted to needs
over its 165-year history, changes are undoubtedly necessary to
keep pace with the private sector, to ensure we meet the
evolving needs of our Government, and to continue serving the
American people.
In today's digital-first era, the work of the GPO has
become more critical than ever both for the institution and for
Government as a whole.
Thank you for being here today. And I look forward to
hearing your testimony, Director Halpern.
With that, I will yield to the Ranking Member, Mr. Morelle,
for his opening statement.
[The prepared statement of Chairman Steil follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN OF THE COMMITTEE ON HOUSE
ADMINISTRATION BRYAN STEIL
Thank you, Ranking Member Morelle, Members of the
Committee, and our witness for participating in today's
hearing. This is the first full committee oversight hearing for
GPO since 2020. Our purpose here today is twofold.
First, to examine the current work of GPO, including
successful initiatives and ongoing challenges. Second, to
discuss how the agency is adapting to the ``digital-first
era,'' and evaluate what statutory reforms may be necessary.
Over its 165-year history, the Government Publishing Office has
effectively delivered on its mission to provide trusted
information from the Federal Government to the American people.
Its vision is ``America Informed.'' When it first opened its
doors, coincidentally the same day President Lincoln was
inaugurated in 1861, GPO was directed to carry out printing
authorized by Congress, Federal agencies, and the courts.
Today, their role is broader. Today, the 1,600 employees at
GPO operate distribution centers nationwide to fulfill the
publishing needs of every branch of Government. One great
example is the passport book, which GPO has produced for the
State Department for 100 years. It also produces credentials
for agencies and products used for presidential inaugurations
and the State of the Union address.
As the agency develops plans to use the latest
technologies, we will explore how GPO is adapting its business
operations to meet customer needs. Another example of GPO's
expanded mission is the Federal Depository Library Program.
Formally established by Congress in 1962, this program provides
nationwide public access to Government information by sharing
published resources with a web of libraries across the country.
On top of that, in recent decades GPO has transformed its
digital operations to continue meeting the people where they
are. One notable example is the website GovInfo, which GPO
maintains to provide permanent public access to Government
information online.
At the start of this year, GPO announced they had surpassed
15 billion retrievals of Government information through
GovInfo.gov. Finally, as a Legislative Branch agency, GPO also
ensures lawmakers can effectively do their job of representing
the American people.
Some of their services to Congress include printing and
publishing committee reports, reviewing and editing legislative
text prior to online publication, and daily publication of the
Congressional Record, which documents the proceedings and
debates of this body for history. While GPO has effectively
performed and adapted to needs over its 165-year history,
changes are undoubtedly necessary to keep pace with the private
sector, to ensure we meet the evolving needs of our Government,
and to continue serving the American people.
In today's digital-first era, the work of GPO has become
more critical than ever, both for this institution, and for
Government as a whole. Thank you for being here today and I
look forward to hearing your testimony, Director Halpern.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOSEPH MORELLE, RANKING MEMBER OF THE
COMMITTEE ON HOUSE ADMINISTRATION, A U.S. REPRESENTATIVE FROM
NEW YORK
Mr. Morelle. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for your
opening comments, and thanks for calling this hearing together.
Again, welcome back to your old stomping grounds, Director
Halpern. It is nice to see you once again.
Under the heading--we used to say this in Albany all the
time--under the heading of ``everything has been said but not
by everybody,'' let me make a few comments.
I was going to begin my remarks by talking about March 4,
1861, that consequential day, not only Abraham Lincoln's
inauguration, but I have been scooped on that, the beginning of
the Congressional Printing Office.
And so I appreciate that, the long history, and one of our
true institutional treasures. I think we believe that. And I
appreciate all the comments by the chair that I agree with
relative to the incredible work you do. We have relied for that
165 years on GPO to carry out our Article I responsibilities
and duties.
Ensuring over the decades that it has grown into the
world's largest and most celebrated information organization
takes the support and the partnership of Congress.
And I think, as you noted, the Government Publishing Office
now. I do not know why we still say Printing Office. I
apologize for that. I should get more with the 21st century.
It does recognize it is a modern digital-first publishing
service for all three branches, and it is also, remarkably, a
largely self-funded agency, which is something I think most
taxpayers would be happy to hear.
You continue to produce, as the chair mentioned, essential
printed materials like the Congressional Record, Federal
Register, and U.S. passports, and now provides ebooks, digital
publishing services, mobile access, and so much more--
indicative of the way that Americans get their information now.
You have kept with the times and continue to adapt to that.
And those innovations have lowered costs, increased
efficiency, and strengthened public access--still so vital,
public access to Government information--all saving taxpayers
money while enhancing that transparency and that
accountability.
And particularly, I think, in an era marked by
misinformation, by fractured media, coordinated efforts to
distort the public record, the role of trusted Government,
authoritative information is indispensable, which is why your
mission, keeping America informed, has never mattered more.
The chair mentioned the Federal Depository Library Program
and how important that is to the more than a thousand, I think,
depository libraries across the country that you serve, which
includes--I will just make a public service announcement for
the Rochester Public Library that I am privileged to represent,
as well as the Rush Rhees Library at the University of
Rochester.
Those are two of those libraries that provide the public in
my community with a vast and constantly evolving body of
information from the Government--newly issued and revised
documents to resources on health, careers, military, science,
and so much more.
In addition, the FDLP plays a critical continuity of
Government role by ensuring Federal information is preserved
and available in disperse locations, so it is distributed
information.
I am interested in hearing today about the challenges you
may face in administering the program as digital materials
become predominant, difficulties depository libraries may
encounter in managing tangible collections that have outgrown
their physical space--obviously something to be concerned
about--and recommendations to further modernize the programs
that you may have.
And I look forward to discussing, I think, some of the
broader challenges you may face. Workforce, I assume, is
skewing older, and I am interested in hearing about plans to
ensure critical skills and institutional knowledge are
successfully passed on and preserved to the next generation.
The Committee, particularly the Subcommittee on
Modernization and Innovation, which my good friend Mrs. Bice
leads, has spent time discussing how increasing the volume of
legislation introduced each Congress strains legislative
capacity. I am curious whether or not efforts to alleviate that
strain, such as allowing Members to waive GPO proofreading,
have been effective.
The Committee has also spent--and I will close with this--
has spent a significant time examining the impact of the Loper
Bright decision on institutional capacity.
And as Congress is required to draft legislation that is
more specific, more technical, more complex, more detailed,
needing more and more information, I would welcome your
perspective, Mr. Director, on the challenges that may pose for
the GPO as we go through and enter into that sort of new era.
Once again, thank you to you and your staff, thank you for
being here today, thanks for all that you do.
And certainly thank you to the Chairman for holding this
important hearing.
I yield back.
[The prepared statement of Ranking Member Morelle follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF RANKING MEMBER OF THE COMMITTEE ON HOUSE
ADMINISTRATION JOSEPH MORELLE
Under the heading--we used to say this in Albany all the
time--under the heading of ``everything has been said but not
by everybody,'' let me make a few comments.
I was going to begin my remarks by talking about March 4,
1861, that consequential day, not only Abraham Lincoln's
inauguration, but I have been scooped on that, the beginning of
the Congressional Printing Office. And so I appreciate that,
the long history, and one of our true institutional treasures.
I think we believe that. And I appreciate all the comments by
the chair that I agree with relative to the incredible work you
do. We have relied for that 165 years on GPO to carry out our
Article I responsibilities and duties.
Ensuring over the decades that it has grown into the
world's largest and most celebrated information organization
takes the support and the partnership of Congress. And I think,
as you noted, the Government Publishing Office now. I do not
know why we still say Printing Office. I apologize for that. I
should get more with the 21st century. It does recognize it is
a modern digital first publishing service for all three
branches, and it is also, remarkably, a largely self-funded
agency, which is something I think most taxpayers would be
happy to hear.
You continue to produce, as the chair mentioned, essential
printed materials like the Congressional Record, Federal
Register, and U.S. passports, and now provides ebooks, digital
publishing services, mobile access, and so much more--
indicative of the way that Americans get their information now.
You have kept with the times and continue to adapt to that. And
those innovations have lowered costs, increased efficiency, and
strengthened public access--still so vital, public access to
Government information--all saving taxpayers money while
enhancing that transparency and that accountability. And
particularly, I think, in an era marked by misinformation, by
fractured media, coordinated efforts to distort the public
record, the role of trusted Government, authoritative
information is indispensable, which is why your mission,
keeping America informed, has never mattered more.
The chair mentioned the Federal Depository Library Program
and how important that is to the more than a thousand, I think,
depository libraries across the country that you serve, which
includes--I will just make a public service announcement for
the Rochester Public Library that I am privileged to represent,
as well as the Rush Rhees Library at the University of
Rochester.
Those are two of those libraries that provide the public in
my community with a vast and constantly evolving body of
information from the Government--newly issued and revised
documents to resources on health, careers, military, science,
and so much more. In addition, the FDLP plays a critical
continuity of Government role by ensuring Federal information
is preserved and available in disperse locations, so it is
distributed information. I am interested in hearing today about
the challenges you may face in administering the program as
digital materials become predominant, difficulties depository
libraries may encounter in managing tangible collections that
have outgrown their physical space--obviously something to be
concerned about--and recommendations to further modernize the
programs that you may have.
And I look forward to discussing, I think, some of the
broader challenges you may face. Workforce, I assume, is
skewing older, and I am interested in hearing about plans to
ensure critical skills and institutional knowledge are
successfully passed on and preserved to the next generation.
The Committee, particularly the Subcommittee on
Modernization and Innovation, which my good friend Mrs. Bice
leads, has spent time discussing how increasing the volume of
legislation introduced each Congress strains legislative
capacity.
I am curious whether or not efforts to alleviate that
strain, such as allowing Members to waive GPO proofreading,
have been effective. The Committee has also spent--and I will
close with this--has spent a significant time examining the
impact of the Loper Bright decision on institutional capacity.
And as Congress is required to draft legislation that is more
specific, more technical, more complex, more detailed, needing
more and more information, I would welcome your perspective,
Mr. Director, on the challenges that may pose for the GPO as we
go through and enter into that sort of new era.
Chairman Steil. Always a Rochester plug, but a Rochester
library plug today. That was well done.
Thank you. The gentleman yields back.
Without objection, all Members' opening statements will be
made part of the hearing record if they are submitted to the
Committee clerk by 5 p.m. today.
As our witness today, we have Hugh Halpern, Director of
GPO. Director Halpern was nominated by President Trump and
confirmed by the Senate in December 2019. Prior to that role,
he was director of floor operations for then-Speaker Ryan and
served on half a dozen committees during his 30 years of
service to the House.
We are pleased to have you back with us today in the House.
Director Halpern, you are now recognized for 5 minutes to
provide your opening statement.
STATEMENT OF HON. HUGH HALPERN, DIRECTOR, GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING
OFFICE
Mr. Halpern. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman, Ranking
Member Morelle, all of the Members of the Committee. I am
pleased to appear back in my old stomping grounds here in the
House.
I am here on behalf of GPO's 1,625 craftspeople and
professionals, all of whom work to support Congress and our
vision of an ``America Informed.''
As the Chairman mentioned, this is a big year for GPO.
Along with the Nation's 250th birthday, GPO turns 165, and we
celebrate a century of producing the U.S. passport.
As you know, GPO runs like a business and we charge our
customers for the work we do. I am pleased to announce that we
have just successfully completed our annual financial statement
audit, and that shows that we ended Fiscal Year 2025 with total
revenue of just over $1.3 billion.
While we have a diverse portfolio product supporting all
three branches of Government, I am focusing my remarks today on
the work we do for Congress.
When people think of GPO, they often picture us as a
building filled with printing and binding equipment. While we
are, most of the work we do for Congress is essentially
document conversion. We receive paper documents, typically with
a basic electronic file, and we need to convert them into
easily accessible structured data files that can be distributed
both digitally and in print. That is where our work is. It is
not in the printed output.
Unfortunately, GPO's software stack, which Congress also
uses to produce its own official documents, has not kept pace.
Replacing our legacy composition engine with our new XPub
product will allow us to round trip electronic files in the
legislative branch's native XML format. We are making progress
with this transition.
Now, when I worked in the House, I was always told that
XPub was 2 years away. That was more than 8 years ago. At the
risk of being my own punchline, I am pleased to report that we
are in the user testing phase of our release for bills,
resolutions, and amendments, and we hope to move to production
by the end of the calendar year.
It is a very complicated project with multiple House and
Senate dependencies, but everybody is working together to bring
it in for a landing.
One area where I am pleased to report that we have a new
product available today is our Model Context Protocol server
for GovInfo, our trusted digital repository for Government
information.
Our MCP server, which is today in public preview, will
allow LLMs and other AI models to access GovInfo without having
to separately train on it. That means when it is integrated
with these services, you can ask Copilot, ChatGPT, Claude, or
Gemini your question and it can respond with up-to-date,
accurate Government information.
We believe that this is a far better approach than building
our own chat interface for GovInfo. We are really excited to
see what the community can do with these new capabilities.
GPO's single biggest challenge is the age of its workforce.
Our median age is 54. The Federal average is 47. When I started
at GPO at the end of 2019, almost half of the agency was
eligible to retire in 2027.
The good news is we have already pushed that cliff back to
2030 through targeted recruiting, apprenticeships, on-the-job
training, and a recent graduate program.
We are going to continue investing in our next generation
to ensure that we have the people we need to deliver for our
customers. That also means we have got to work smarter with the
people we have.
Let me give you one example related to our chronic backlog
in processing bills.
With the support of the Modernization and Innovation
Subcommittee, under the leadership of Chair Bice and Ranking
Member Torres, we created a partnership with the Clerk and
provided Members with the option to opt out of having their
bills proofread by GPO.
While I still believe that our proofreading process yields
a higher-quality product, we have seen that we can produce
these bills much more quickly if a Member is willing to accept
that risk.
Only about 9 percent of our bills are processed using this
option, but among those that are, we can generally batch
process them in as little as 20 minutes and quickly move them
into production, often making them available on the next day.
Last, just a brief note. The GPO's statutes need to be
updated. They were written for the world of print, not our
digital present, and I look forward to working with the
Committee to ensure that our statutes facilitate and do not
impede our work.
Since I last appeared here, a great deal has changed. In
that time, we have seen nearly a 400-percent increase in
monthly GovInfo retrievals and our annual passport production
has nearly doubled. Our gross revenue is up over $392 million
in that same period. None of that would have been possible
without the support of this Committee.
Chairman Steil, Ranking Member Morelle, and Members of the
Committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify today. I am
open to whatever questions you may have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Halpern follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. HUGH HALPERN
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Steil. Thank you very much, Director.
I will begin our questions, followed by the Ranking Member.
I recognize myself for 5 minutes.
I want to start off with GPO's role for a hundred years in
the passport operation. As we look back a handful of years ago,
there were significant delays as it relates to passports.
Obviously, there is a role of the State Department, GPO.
Was part of that delay the result of GPO technology? Could
you provide a little bit of color as to what that delay was and
how some of that has already been solved in ways that GPO is
analyzing a potential future increase in the demand for
passports?
Mr. Halpern. Absolutely.
It is important to remember GPO produces the blank
passports. The State Department then adjudicates and
personalizes. During my tenure, supply has never been a real
issue in backlogs.
That said, the State Department keeps increasing their
orders. This year it is a record 27 million. We are on track to
provide that number of passports this year to the State
Department.
We have boosted our capabilities to deliver passports to
the processing centers in a timely fashion. For instance, we
just opened up a new distribution facility adjacent to our
Pueblo distribution facility where we can ensure that West
Coast processing facilities will be within 1 day's delivery
time for passports, much like East Coast and southern
processing centers.
We continue to work with our State Department customer to
make sure that we deliver the supplies they need.
Chairman Steil. I am going to bring you all the way down.
You think, from the supply side of GPO, you think you can meet
the demand that is there.
Mr. Halpern. We believe we can.
Chairman Steil. OK.
Mr. Halpern. We are continuing to hire folks. We need to
make sure that we have----
Chairman Steil. Understood. Only cognizant of the time. We
could go for 5 hours talking about it. That is helpful to know
as I think making sure that these are processed quickly is
really important.
Mr. Halpern. Absolutely.
Chairman Steil. Let me shift gears a little bit into the
business model.
Uniquely, GPO is largely self-funded, about a 90/10 ratio,
10 percent appropriated by Congress, 90 percent billing your
customers, if you will.
As you look out at the change in the business model from
printing into more of a digital framework, do you think you can
maintain that balance? Can you improve upon that balance? How
do you look out in the future?
Mr. Halpern. Absolutely.
The short answer is that our pricing structure is focused
on what it takes for us to produce the entire item. Let me give
you an example. The Congressional Record is a good example.
We bill that at several hundred dollars per page, and that
includes everything from doing the document conversion to
laying it out to ultimately producing it online and in its
tangible format. One price covers everything. That has worked
really, really well for us. We adjust those prices as we need
to.
We realize that both Congress and some of our executive
branch customers are increasingly price conscious. We are
looking for new investments in technology and other things to
drive those costs down.
Chairman Steil. With my 90 seconds remaining, I want to
touch base on that technology. Some of what you talked about
earlier I think was quite interesting about how you are
converting hard text into digital format.
Obviously, AI has a huge opportunity and just broadly
technology writ large. When we think about that conversion
process, what it looked like even five or 10 years ago, we are
light years ahead of where we were.
Do you utilize AI? Do you think you have the technology
needed? How do you think that will transform GPO?
Mr. Halpern. We use machine learning and associated
technologies in a variety of different places. We are looking
very closely at solutions.
One thing that we have deployed recently is a technology
called Schematron which can figure out if our structured data
files are internally consistent and flag problems before they
become bigger problems.
We still have not found a good substitute for a GPO
proofreader. They have been doing this work for years. They
know how you talk and they know what that is supposed to look
like. Their job is to make sure that they are faithfully
presenting your remarks in the Congressional Record or in your
bill or whatever, and we have not found a machine that can do
that as well as our well-trained folks yet.
I think we are open to looking at a mix of technologies
that can really let our people do the work they do best and try
and clear out some of that more routine scut work.
Chairman Steil. Very good. Thank you very much, Director.
Thanks for being here. Welcome back to the House.
Mr. Halpern. Thank you.
Chairman Steil. I yield back.
I now recognize the Ranking Member, Mr. Morelle, for
questions.
Mr. Morelle. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Chairman.
In your testimony, you talk about Title 44, which governs
much of GPO's activity, which I think, as you said, was written
for the age of print and no longer reflects how GPO operates
today.
With much of our publications needing to move to digital
formats, are there statutory printing obligations that you
currently have which you think no longer serve your mission or
customers that we should be thinking about?
Mr. Halpern. The way GPO is structured and the way Title 44
is structured is GPO is governed by the Joint Committee on
Printing, which this year is chaired by the Senate, but in the
past it alternates between the House and the Senate.
The JCP, working with GPO, has found ways to sort of, as I
like to put it, operate in the liminal spaces of our statute,
so that we can usually find ways to get around some of the more
rigid parts of Title 44.
A good example is the number of printed copies we are
supposed to make is written in statute. That does not make any
sense anymore. Addressing what we call the usual number to
reflect the current practice where we work closely with JCP and
the Clerk and the Secretary of the Senate to make sure that we
are not overproducing things that people do not need.
We have submitted to this Committee and to the Senate a
series of legislative proposals, some big, some very small, and
we are happy to talk with you all about what the right package
there looks like.
Mr. Morelle. Well, and I would certainly defer to the
Subcommittee chair on Modernization and the Ranking Member,
Mrs. Torres, to take those up.
I think it is interesting, not only here in Washington, but
my prior life in the State legislature in New York, how many
things get written into statute that make no sense. I mean,
when you think about it over time, it is like every time we
have to change a number, we have to go back and rewrite or
change the law and it does become outmoded. There are probably
better ways to do it.
I would certainly, Mr. Chair, look forward to working with
you and the Subcommittee chair and Ranking Member to make that
easier.
If you were asked what is one legislative change for the
Committee to prioritize as it relates to GPO, are there any
thoughts that you have about ways we can continue to serve the
mission but make it easier, more effective, more efficient, or
things that you just think, ``OK, why do we have to do it this
way?''
Mr. Halpern. There are a number of changes, one of which--a
good example is----
Mr. Morelle. I would like a good example. Do not give me a
bad example.
Mr. Halpern. I have got plenty of bad ones.
Mr. Morelle. Give me a good one.
Mr. Halpern. A good example would be the fact that our
statutes do not spell out the fact that we can provide
publishing services in addition to printing services for a lot
of our customers.
The addition of just that one word vastly expands what we
can provide our personnel, whether it is our congressional
customers or our executive branch customers, because we are not
doing as much printing anymore.
Really what we are doing is helping folks prepare these
documents. At the end of the day, if you need a set number of
printed copies, we have got the machinery to do that.
That is not the No. 1 thing we do anymore.
Mr. Morelle. Got it. OK. That is very helpful.
I think, again, I would defer to my colleagues, but I think
we are all looking for ways to continue the mission and make
sure that at the end of the day the most important thing is
that the information is made available to taxpayers and the
citizens so that they can continue to feel like they have
transparency and access to the Government.
It is no--there is no secret that when Abe Lincoln was
inaugurated 165 years ago today, and the--or not today, this
next month, March--and the Government Printing Office, it was
just different, done differently, and you could not foresee the
world as it is today. We want to make sure we keep present and
keep active.
I have other questions that related to your comments to
``bolt on'' to digital capabilities in the absence of formed
law, but I think I will defer. We can have further
conversations.
In the interest of time and the fact that I have 6 seconds
left, let me just conclude by thanking you again for being
here, for your leadership, your team.
Thank you, Mr. Chair, for the opportunity to ask some
questions. I yield back.
Chairman Steil. Thank you. The gentleman yields back.
The gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Griffith, is recognized
for his 5 minutes.
Mr. Griffith. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I greatly
appreciate it.
Mr. Halpern, good to see you.
Mr. Halpern. You too, sir.
Mr. Griffith. Hope you are doing well.
Mr. Halpern. Thank you.
Mr. Griffith. Earlier this Congress, I introduced H.R.
6028, the Legislative Branch Agencies Clarification Act. One of
the things that the bill does is it transfers the power to
appoint the Director of the GPO from the President to a
congressional commission consisting of House and Senate
leadership as well as the chairs of the House Administration
Committee and the Senate Rules Committee.
Do you agree with me that these changes would help
strengthen transparency, continuity, and accountability at GPO
compared to the current appointment process?
Mr. Halpern. Absolutely.
The GPO provisions in your bill actually do three things,
and they are all very important.
First is, as you mentioned, it addresses the constitutional
issues surrounding the appointment of the Director.
There are two other constitutional issues where we have
been sort of operating in that liminal space between the
executive and legislative.
One is what we call the print mandate, the requirement that
people use GPO. The executive branch has said that is
unconstitutional since the mid-1980's. We have sort of skirted
around that and we kind of ignore it these days, but it is
still on the books.
The last place, which in my opinion is just as important as
the appointment of the Director, is our personnel system.
Through sort of a fluke from President Harding--I believe it
was President Harding, maybe it was President Cleveland--but by
executive order they placed GPO's personnel system under what
today is OPM. I think that provides the same kinds of
constitutional conflicts that we get from the print mandate and
others.
I believe that the series of reforms you have got in your
bill would serve GPO well into the future, both with respect to
our obligations to the legislative branch but to all of the
other work we do as well.
Mr. Griffith. I appreciate that. We are going to blame it
on Harding because Coolidge's secretary, which would now be the
chief of staff, was a former Congressman from the Ninth
Congressional District of Virginia.
Mr. Halpern. There you go.
Mr. Griffith. It is going to be Harding's fault, not
Coolidge's. I am just saying.
That said, let me show my ignorance on something, because I
am always trying to learn stuff.
I heard and was interested in your testimony where you said
that the processing bills without proofreading. Is that before
it comes to me for me to file?
Mr. Halpern. No, sir.
Mr. Griffith. It is after that.
Mr. Halpern. What happens today for a bill that goes
through the normal process is we receive from the Clerk the----
Mr. Griffith. After passage.
Mr. Halpern. After introduction.
Mr. Griffith. After introduction. OK.
Mr. Halpern. We receive the paper version, the manuscript,
from the Clerk. We also usually, but not always, get an
electronic file that goes with it. If you went to Leg Counsel,
that is great for us, because we get a really good electronic
file. Sometimes we only get a Word file. It does not help us
all that much.
My team's job is to make sure that that paper, because that
is the official document of record, matches that electronic
file.
Mr. Griffith. OK.
Mr. Halpern. We often have questions. Sometimes there is a
discrepancy between the two, or sometimes, because my folks
look at literally thousands of bills a week, they are pretty
good at going, ``Did you actually mean to leave off three zeros
in this figure?''
Mr. Griffith. If we use the AI concept, is there some way
that if there is a glitch--because every now and then there
will be--that we can catch that?
Mr. Halpern. We hope so. I have got high faith in my team
that we are going to catch stuff.
There is a lot of stuff like capitalization or how you
structure some of these typographic styles. That stuff we can
probably get through some sort of automated system.
It is that more refined view where the guys who proofread--
guys and gals who proofread bills--they are kind of like well-
trained paralegals. They know what they are looking at. Free
them up to see if they can spot the bigger mistakes.
Mr. Griffith. My time is running out.
Would you go back and double-check AI every so often?
Mr. Halpern. Yes. I think we would----
Mr. Griffith. Samples? Core samples?
Mr. Halpern [continuing]. we would have first cut on low-
level stuff and then have our people----
Mr. Griffith. I am sure Mrs. Bice is much better versed on
this, but I think it is a good plan. I just wanted to make sure
that I understood exactly what it was, because if it is before
it is introduced, I am proofreading it.
Mr. Halpern. Right. Absolutely.
Mr. Griffith. I yield back.
Chairman Steil. The gentleman yields back.
The gentlewoman from California, whose home district will
be about a hundred degrees warmer than mine this weekend,
Representative Torres is recognized.
Mrs. Torres. Come to my district. Always invited.
Chairman, I think this is one of the best meetings that we
have had where there is, like, you have already asked all my
questions, and it is really great.
I want to follow up on the passport question that the
Chairman asked. If we have a surge, all of us are encouraging
our constituents to apply for their American passport. If we
have a surge, are you prepared to deal with that?
Mr. Halpern. We believe we are.
Mrs. Torres. OK.
Mr. Halpern. We manufacture passports in two locations, one
here in D.C., right on the other side of Union Station, and the
other in Stennis in Mississippi.
Both of those facilities run most of the week. Stennis runs
basically all day, every day. We found it is more efficient to
run four 10-hour days with our folks. We run two of those
shifts a day. Then in Stennis we also run a weekend shift, a
Friday, Saturday, Sunday shift.
Mrs. Torres. OK. That could be scaled up if needed.
Mr. Halpern. Right. Right.
Mrs. Torres. OK.
Mr. Halpern. We can hire more people to do that.
At some point we will just run into a--our machines will
have a top-level capacity. We are in the process of replacing
some of those machines with more modern equipment that will
have better uptime, better processing speeds, all in
preparation for the next version of the passport when State is
ready to move forward with that.
Mrs. Torres. OK. As you know, Modernization Chair Bice and
I are working on how to best modernize the legislative branch
systems, including GPO.
I am concerned that Congress is asking you to serve the
public with a budget that has not kept pace with how people
access information anymore. The Fiscal Year 2026 funding level
for GPO is $800 million.
Can you talk a little bit about your budgetary needs and
what is it that you need?
Mr. Halpern. Sure.
As I mentioned, we are largely self-funded. For Congress,
you give us about $80 million a year for those programs.
Mrs. Torres. The price for the passports went up.
Mr. Halpern. Price for passports went up. Just to give you
an idea of the cost structure, it depends on the year and
depends on quantity. We charge the State Department someplace
between $23 and $25 dollars per book.
Sometimes they will give us a supplemental order, an extra
million at the end of a year. We will have already recouped all
of our overhead costs. We can drive that individual piece down
to basically the cost of materials and a little bit of labor.
In terms of the work we do for Congress, we are within the
budget that you all have given us. It is a difficult estimating
process for us. Based on historical data, we estimate what your
volume will be in a particular year and try and match that with
the appropriate level we get for that.
Where we actually run into a much tighter budgetary
situation is with the Federal Depository Library Program. That
is a purely appropriated program.
The good news is we have driven down the costs of that
program, because it is now largely digital. It is just feeding
off of the files we are creating every day.
With that said, we still have librarians and other really
highly skilled professionals in that unit, and those personnel
costs continue to increase.
In terms of----
Mrs. Torres. I am going to stop you there, because we are
running out of time, and I really want you to tell our
Members--or at least to say it out loud once more--how many
amendments Members of Congress file.
Mr. Halpern. I apologize, I actually do not have up-to-date
numbers. In terms of bills, we are well up over 7,000. Last
Congress it was almost 23,000 measures between the House and
the Senate. Each one of those my team needs to read--it is a
little different this year--and make sure that we are accurate.
It is difficult work. I can give you a small recent
example, less with a bill, but with the work we do on
legislation.
There was a large insert into the Congressional Record just
a couple of weeks ago and we did not get the underlying Word
document. All we got was a scanned version. We actually had to
do that--we had to read that document twice.
Mrs. Torres. Wow.
Mr. Halpern. Once was convert that scanned document into a
text file and make sure that that translation was accurate; and
then engross all of the handwritten changes and things like
that with that scanned document.
If we are getting good files on the front end, that can
help us speed up that process, but----
Mrs. Torres. Thank you.
Thank you, Chairman, for your generosity in time.
Chairman Steil. Thank you very much. The gentlewoman yields
back.
The gentlewoman from Oklahoma, who is the chair of the
Subcommittee on Modernization, who has been ingratiated into
this issue, is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mrs. Bice. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Director Halpern, it is great to see you again.
Mr. Halpern. Always.
Mrs. Bice. Glad to have you with us.
I want to also thank you for your work with the
Modernization Subcommittee and the Clerk's Office to pilot the
waiving proofreading option for bill introductions.
I was able to have a little sidebar with my colleague from
Virginia to explain sort of the reasons for the waiving of
proofreading. I think it has been, I would say, successful in
trying to help reduce the number of bills that you are having
to proofread, but also getting things through the pipeline a
bit quicker.
Thank you for your work on that issue.
Last year, I also introduced legislation to remove the
printing requirement for the Constitution Annotated, CONAN, and
replace it with a digital-only version. According to the CBO,
replacing the print version of CONAN with the digital version,
which is already publicly available and out there, would reduce
the Library of Congress' operating costs by $4 million over the
next several years.
The Library has actually hosted CONAN on their website
since 2019. It is easily searchable, accessible, and provides
links to Supreme Court decisions, and it is being updated real
time by CRS, which is incredibly important.
Despite this, we are still spending a tremendous amount of
money on producing hard copies of it, because it is required by
statute. You addressed previously there are many of these areas
that have been codified in statute that you are required to
print, and I would love the opportunity to work with you to
find some ways to reduce that burden.
My assumption would--and this is the first question--be
that many of the printed documents or books that you are
currently producing are available online. Is that correct?
Mr. Halpern. Absolutely. Almost everything is available
online, either through GovInfo or some other fashion. Yes.
Mrs. Bice. Great. I think there is an opportunity for us to
be able to scale that back, still providing transparency for
the American people if they want to read these documents, but
saving taxpayer money because they are available digitally, and
when the original statutes were written, that was not an
option.
Mr. Halpern. Absolutely. If I can just sort of fill in
there just a hair.
One of the changes--and I cannot take credit for this, this
was happening as I arrived at GPO--but one of the changes we
made was shifting from traditional offset printing to digital
inkjet technology for a lot of our more routine documents.
Offset printing requires large quantities to be economical.
That first copy that comes off of the press costs you thousands
of dollars and everything else is just pennies, whereas digital
inkjet, it is a per copy cost. You are paying for ink and
materials and that machine.
As a result, a digital inkjet press does not care whether
we are printing 10 copies of something or 10,000 copies of
something.
That allows our process to be a lot more economical, a lot
more automated, and really help drive down those costs, and we
are always looking for technologies that will enable us to do
things like that.
Mrs. Bice. What would you say is the percentage of
documents that are now being printed using digital rather than
offset?
Mr. Halpern. I can get you that exact number. It is most of
our daily publications, so the Congressional Record, Federal
Register, CFRs.
We are getting ready to retire one of our big offset
presses that we purchased about 10 years ago, because we can
supplement all of the work that we were doing.
That machine gets used for hearings, big reports, that kind
of thing. We can do all of that through digital inkjet and the
cost is a lot lower.
Mrs. Bice. I like saving taxpayer money, so it is great to
hear that.
Let me pivot, if I may, to your website talks about ten
different use cases for AI that are being utilized, piloted, or
currently under review, and as the Subcommittee on
Modernization, that is something that we are looking at. How do
we properly and responsibly bring AI into the legislative
discussion here and be able to utilize it?
Our offices are actually adopting Microsoft Copilot to be
able to allow for speedy access to information through email or
calendar review and utilizing AI.
Talk a little bit about what you are doing on the AI front.
Mr. Halpern. Sure.
It is probably not a lot different than what the House is
doing sort of on the administrative side. For instance, we are
using Copilot to help draft contract terms for our acquisitions
professionals. Again, need a human being on the other side of
that to make sure you are doing it right. I got a lot of
lawyers who need to make sure that we are----
Mrs. Bice. Do not want to lose their job?
Mr. Halpern. Exactly. They also need to make sure we are
getting this right, because the cost on the other side if we do
not get it right can be big.
Things like that. Using it for internal administrative
stuff. I will fully tell you, when it comes time for annual
reviews and I get pages and pages and pages of stuff, I am
like, ``Hey, Copilot, can you put this into a couple of
paragraphs for me to stick in the form so that we capture
this,'' and it does a pretty good job of that.
We are also looking to use AI tools to help with our
cataloguing activities with the Federal Depository Library
Program.
We still need good, experienced librarians and catalogers
to get that work done. If we can--just like I was talking about
with bills--if we can get the machine to do the more
rudimentary, the sort of initial tasks, and then free up our
people to do the work that they need to do, that is really the
best use of this technology.
Mrs. Bice. Thank you so much for being with us this
afternoon, Dr. Halpern.
With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Chairman Steil. The gentlewoman yields back.
We believe one more Member is literally outside the door,
so we are going to pause for 30 seconds with the blessing of
the Ranking Member. If he is here, we will continue. If he is
not, we will wrap up. We will just hold for just a moment.
[Pause.]
Mr. Halpern. I am used to this from my days running the
floor.
Chairman Steil. As director of House operations, this would
be called a regular Thursday in your book.
Mr. Halpern. I have heard more than one time people yelling
``one more'' from the back of the chamber.
Mr. Morelle. I apologize, I do have to leave. I do want to
thank you again.
Mr. Halpern. Absolutely.
Mr. Morelle. I look forward to staying in touch.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Chairman Steil. Thank you, Ranking Member.
Not that any of us have too many things to do on a day
where they have moved votes up from yesterday due to the
weather, so everybody is getting a little bit double booked
this afternoon. We appreciate everybody bearing with.
We will now recognize the gentleman who is probably out of
breath from a short jog across campus, Mr. Carey, for 5
minutes.
Mr. Carey. Mr. Chairman, I do appreciate your indulgence.
There is a little bit of a line outside the Ways and Means
Committee, as you can imagine.
It has been truly my honor to support our Chairwoman Bice
in her initiatives to modernize the House through the efforts
of the Modernization Committee, and a significant aspect of our
work is the implementation of the AI technologies for
congressional offices and administrative staff.
Breathe.
In this regard, Chairwoman Bice and I are constantly
looking to understand how other Government offices are
incorporating AI and machine learning systems into their daily
operations.
Which brings me to the GPO's Model Context Protocol, or the
MCP.
The Model Context Protocol is an open-source standard that
allows connecting artificial intelligence applications to
external systems.
In short, the public can use this protocol to examine the
troves of data and better understand Government information.
Can you share a little bit more about this development, and
as you share that, maybe explain kind of in layman's terms so
people can understand exactly what that--as you are describing
what you are doing, describe what it means.
Mr. Halpern. Sure.
The Model Context Protocol--and I will preface this with I
am not an expert in constructing APIs and these similar kinds
of things, but I will do my best.
The Model Context Protocol is an avenue in for these other
kinds of LLMs and other kinds of AI models so that they can
utilize our depository of data and use it without having to
constantly train on it ahead of time.
It is a lot more efficient, particularly for a dataset that
changes literally every day, multiple times a day. Every time
we upload a new addition of the Congressional Record or a new
group of bills that have been introduced the day before, that
dataset changes.
This enables your AI tool, whether it is Claude or Gemini
or ChatGPT or whatever, it gives those tools a root into our
dataset so that it can effectively query that dataset, find the
answers it is looking for, and then present that back.
Everybody was talking about at the beginning of sort of
this AI revolution, like, what chatbot are we going to adopt
for GovInfo, and that is not the best use of our resources,
because folks on the outside are going to be a lot smarter
about this than we can be.
Mr. Carey. I appreciate that.
I know we only have a minute 44, and, obviously, your role
in the processing and publishing of bill texts that are online
and I think--and, obviously, you worked on the Hill, as many of
us have over the years, whether in this capacity or at the
staff level.
One of the things that I have found, that it is very easy
to get the bill text, but to upload--and I am sure this is
complicated--what exactly are kind of the synopsis of the bill.
Then I was finding just the other night trying to put
together some remarks as related to blockchain and bitcoin and
the complexities therein, even when you have a breakdown, it
gets to be more complicated.
One of the things that I have discussed with our team is
the possibility of somehow--and I know most of these are all
verbal--but somehow a visual application as it relates to the
structure and the contents of a particular piece of legislation
and vis-a-vis also the synopsis of that legislation.
In going through some of the things that you have done--and
I know I am cutting into your time--but it is something that I
want to continue to work on, my team will be working with you
on that.
I appreciate you coming back to your old stomping grounds
and look forward to working with you in the future.
Again, Mr. Chairman, thank you for indulging me to be in
two places at once. With that, I yield back.
Chairman Steil. The gentleman yields back. It is the only
thing no one can do, be in two places at one time, although
sometimes we wish we could.
Appreciate everyone's participation.
I want to thank you, Director, for coming before us today.
The Members of the Committee may have some additional questions
for you, and we ask that you please respond to those questions
in writing.
Without objection, each Member will have five legislative
days to insert additional material into the record to revise
and extend their remarks.
There being no further business, I thank the Members for
their participation.
Without objection, the Committee stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 2:58 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
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