[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 14 (Monday, February 1, 2010)]
[Senate]
[Pages S364-S365]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    NOMINATION OF MARTHA N. JOHNSON

  Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, later this afternoon, the Senate will 
vote on a cloture motion on the nomination of Patricia Smith to be 
Solicitor of the Department of Labor. Last Friday, I believe, Senator 
Reid also filed a cloture motion on another nomination, and it is that 
nomination I would like to talk about because it comes out of the 
Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which I am 
privileged to chair. That is the nomination of Martha Johnson to be 
Administrator of the General Services Administration.
  It has become unfortunate practice, I believe, that Members have been 
holding up Executive nominations, in some cases, and I am confident it 
is the case with regard to Martha Johnson, for reasons unrelated to her 
qualifications. She is extremely well qualified and very much needed at 
the General Services Administration, as I will note in a moment.
  As I understand the process we will follow this week--presuming, as I 
hope will be the case, that cloture is granted later this afternoon, 
when we vote on the nominee for Solicitor of the Department of Labor, 
whenever the vote on that nomination occurs--hopefully, sooner than 
later this week--immediately thereafter, we will go to a vote on 
cloture on this nomination of Martha Johnson. In anticipation of that, 
I wished to speak to my colleagues about what is coming.
  She is an extraordinary nominee, in my opinion, for a job that is 
critically important to the efficient operation of the Federal 
Government, about which a lot of us have been speaking with intensity 
in recent times. She is a former Chief of Staff at the General Services 
Administration, so she comes with some background that will give her 
the opportunity to hit the ground running, and that is important in an 
agency that has not had a permanent leader since April of 2008. Here we 
are in February of 2010. GSA has not had a permanent leader since April 
2008, when the former Director was asked to resign by the previous 
administration. Since then, the agency has had five Acting 
Administrators. It is obviously time for stable leadership.
  The Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee unanimously 
endorsed her nomination last June, more than a half year ago. Since 
that time, GSA has undergone several changes in top management, 
including the departure of the Chief of Staff and the retirement of the 
Deputy Administrator. So it has been very frustrating for the members 
of our committee to see such a qualified nominee being held up in the 
Senate for more than a half year because of a hold that had nothing to 
do with the nominee's qualifications.
  I wish to speak for a moment to my colleagues about the full scope of 
GSA's responsibilities. It is a critically important agency of our 
Government that mostly works out of the spotlight. GSA is often called 
the Federal Government's landlord because it provides workspace and 
office services for almost every Federal office and agency across our 
country, from court houses to ports of entry. With 8,600 buildings and 
$500 billion in assets under its control, GSA must be either the 
largest property management organization in the world or certainly one 
of the top and largest property management organizations in the world. 
But GSA actually is far more than just the Federal Government's 
landlord. It has 12,000 employees spread across the country in 11 
districts. They help guide Federal spending on everything from basic 
office equipment to the Federal fleet of

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more than 200,000 vehicles owned and leased by the U.S. Government. 
GSA's purchasing divisions have broad effect on the rest of the economy 
since, as an early acquirer of new technologies, including green 
technologies, the agency has helped and will continue to help spur 
production that brings down costs and makes these technologies 
available and affordable to the broader consumer market. GSA is that 
important, that it can help build a market for an innovative 
transformational technology.
  In fact, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, commonly known 
as the Stimulus Act, which we adopted last year, gave GSA specific 
responsibility to help green the Federal Government by providing $5 
billion to make Federal buildings more energy efficient and $300 
million to buy more fuel-efficient vehicles for the Federal fleet.
  GSA also has wide responsibilities for providing information 
technology and telecommunications services for Federal agencies. With 
its leadership, GSA can ensure that the Federal Government is using 
cutting-edge technology to lower costs, better engage with citizens and 
detect and defend against cyber threats. In other words, GSA spends so 
much money every year acquiring information technology systems that if 
it requires the providers to put together systems that are resistant 
and defensive to the kinds of cyber attacks that, unfortunately, public 
and private information networks are under today, it can drive that 
technology development, which then will be more broadly available to 
the private sector as it acquires information technology equipment.
  A lot of big and important responsibilities are there, meaning the 
agency is in need of strong leadership. If confirmed, Ms. Johnson will 
face many challenges, and I wish to take a moment to lay out for my 
colleagues a few which have come to the attention of our committee, 
which has oversight of GSA. In the area of procurement, contracts 
negotiated by GSA must leverage the vast buying power of the Federal 
Government so agencies get more value for the taxpayers' dollar. Last 
year, Federal agencies bought approximately $53 billion of goods and 
services right off GSA schedules and other GSA contracts, which offer 
everything from office supplies to human resource services, to security 
equipment, to energy management services and through other contracts 
negotiated by GSA. Having GSA negotiate these procurement agreements 
lets these customer agencies stay focused on their core missions. In 
other words, the agencies do not have to get into all the back-and-
forth details on negotiating these contracts. The experts at GSA do it 
for them. The agencies can focus on what they are supposed to be doing.
  Some agencies, if I may speak directly, have lost confidence of the 
ability of GSA to provide the best products at the best prices and have 
begun to negotiate their own contracts or interagency contracts. This 
duplicates services offered by GSA. It is effectively a waste of 
Federal money and effectively also defeats the purpose of GSA, which 
was created by President Harry S. Truman, in 1949, with the specific 
intent of streamlining the Federal Government's purchasing process so 
every agency of the Federal Government did not have its own 
separate purchasing division that may have done well or not so well but 
certainly not as efficiently as one for the whole Federal Government.

  The second problem, similar to this one, exists in GSA's property 
management activities, with agencies sometimes questioning whether GSA 
has now met their needs in the most cost-effective manner.
  Another problem a new administrator must address is the amount of 
excess or underutilized property owned by the Federal Government. The 
Office of Management and Budget has reported--these are stunning 
numbers--that the Federal Government owns 21,000 buildings, worth about 
$18 billion, that are underused or no longer needed, but they are 
sitting there. In effect, the GAO, the Government Accountability 
Office, has put the management of Federal property on their high-risk 
list for this reason. Not all those properties are under GSA's control, 
but one of its jobs is to help other agencies dispose of excess 
property. That is another reason why we need a full-time administrator 
there.
  Think about it, $18 billion. The freeze the President has announced--
which I support--doesn't come to much more than that, when you think 
about the potential for selling some of this property and bringing more 
revenue to the government.
  Let me come back to Martha Johnson. This is a job with big 
challenges, as I have described, in part. She brings a tremendous 
wealth of experience in the private, nonprofit, and government sectors. 
She has a B.A. in economics and history from Oberlin College and a 
masters in business from Yale Business School. After graduating from 
Yale, Ms. Johnson began her career in the private sector at Cummins 
Engines Company. She had a series of other management positions in the 
private sector and then was called on by the Clinton administration to 
be the Associate Deputy Secretary of Commerce and then, as I mentioned 
earlier, Chief of Staff of GSA from 1996 to 2001--very relevant and 
indispensable experience.
  After leaving government, Ms. Johnson was a vice president for the 
Council for Excellence in Government, which is a nonpartisan, nonprofit 
organization dedicated to increasing the effectiveness of government at 
all levels, and most recently she has served as vice president at 
Computer Sciences Corporation. She is extremely well qualified, has 
broad qualifications, including extensive experience at GSA.
  All these varied experiences make Martha Johnson a perfect fit for 
the responsibilities and challenges she will face as GSA Administrator. 
The fact is, she, Martha Johnson, has had broad bipartisan support. I 
urge my colleagues to vote yes on cloture. I even preserve the hope 
that there may be a decision to vitiate the cloture vote, that we go 
right to a final vote, and we confirm this excellent nominee so she can 
go to work for the American people.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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