[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 103 (Tuesday, July 26, 2005)]
[House]
[Page H6463]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




       APPOINTMENT OF CONFEREES ON H.R. 2985, LEGISLATIVE BRANCH 
                        APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2006

  Mr. TAYLOR of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to 
take from the Speaker's table the bill (H.R. 2985) making 
appropriations for the Legislative Branch for the fiscal year ending 
September 30, 2006, and for other purposes, with Senate amendments 
thereto, disagree to the Senate amendments, and agree to the conference 
asked by the Senate.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from North Carolina?
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the right to object.
  Mr. Speaker, I express this reservation in order to take a couple of 
moments to again express my disquiet about this legislative 
appropriation bill. I had originally intended to offer a motion to 
instruct conferees, but in the interest of time and comity, I will not 
do that. But I, under my reservation, want to make a number of points 
about funding contained in this bill.
  This bill contains another large amount of taxpayers' dollars to pay 
for what is euphemistically referred to as the Capitol Visitors Center 
now being constructed on this end of the Capitol. In my view, that 
project has become a story of spectacular mismanagement and colossal 
government waste, and I feel obligated, as often as I have the 
opportunity, to object to the way this project has been handled and to 
object to what it is going to produce.
  The cost of the Capitol Visitors Center, which was first estimated at 
$95 million, has now ballooned to well over $500 million, and there is 
no end in sight to the escalation in cost.
  My second objection is that, for this money, we are getting a pitiful 
allocation of space to the major needs of the Congress and an 
outrageous, wasteful allocation of space to areas that I think 
represent far lower-grade needs. The current design of that Capitol 
Visitors Center, the House space under that project, provides for 
approximately 87,000 square feet of space, of which only 3,200 square 
feet is for hearing rooms where public business can be conducted. The 
major need of this Congress, if we are going to expand the size of this 
building, is to have rooms that are sufficiently large so that we can 
have conferences with the Senate and do our legislative business. 
Instead, the primary usable space in the House portion of this project 
is for, in essence, a media center or a propaganda center. It is to 
make the Congress comfortable with television. So we are going to have 
this elaborate, two-floor, ornate, state-of-the-art media center, 
communication center, propaganda center, whatever you want to call it, 
but we will have tiny rooms for conference committees and very little 
additional usable space. In short, what I think we will have in the end 
is an opulent Taj Mahal, abundance of show space, but we will have a 
shortage of usable working space. I think that is regrettable given 
what the taxpayer is going to be asked to spend.
  I would also say again that I find it incredible to hear the changing 
justifications for the new theater which is going to be in the visitors 
center. There is a huge 450-seat theater which is being built at a cost 
of many millions of dollars. When I asked why we need another room of 
that size, I was told, well, because it is a place where Members of 
Congress can bring large constituency groups. I do not know how many 
Members of Congress bring 450 people into a room in the Capitol, but if 
there is a Member who has ever tried to do that, I have never met him.
  Secondly, we were then told, well, actually this will be good space 
for the House of Representatives to meet in when its existing House 
Chamber, the room that we are in now, is refurbished and reengineered 
and redecorated. The only problem with that, Mr. Speaker, is that we 
already have a room, the Ways and Means Committee room in the Longworth 
Building, which was built for that purpose, to serve as a backup House 
Chamber, and which was just redecorated at a cost of many, many 
dollars. It is beautiful. It ought to be sufficient. In addition to 
that, there is yet another Chamber being built for the House off-
campus, which I cannot talk about because it is classified. So we are 
going to have two backup Chambers at a cost of an enormous amount.

                              {time}  1300

  And when we really dig into what this room is really supposed to be 
for, we discover that in the original budget justifications, what it 
was designated as, is being an additional theater for the Library of 
Congress.
  So those are some of my objections to this bill, and I believe that 
this is the last chance that we have to get the leadership of this 
House and the Architect of the Capitol to at least change the way the 
space is being designed so that it is more usable, more efficient, and 
more useful to produce legislative products rather than propaganda 
press releases out of a media center.
  Mr. Speaker, I withdraw my reservation of objection.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Linder). Is there objection the request 
of the gentleman from North Carolina?
  There was no objection.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Without objection, the Chair appoints the 
following conferees: Mr. Lewis of California, Mr. Kingston, Ms. 
Granger, and Messrs. Doolittle, LaHood, Obey, Hoyer, and Moran of 
Virginia.
  There was no objection.

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