and welcome to today's hearing entitled yes a construction and leasing stimulus spending energy goals and making a down market work for taxpayers on the general services administration capital investment leasing program school year two thousand and ten this is the two thousand and the f word two thousand and ten program represents an important variety of real estate projects that should also benefit the economy as a taxpayer if managed well there are nine construction projects five alteration projects and four this is for a total of eighteen but spec this is before the subcommittee with additional leases to come at a later date for g s a f y twenty ten capital investment and leasing for gram is national in scope including right here projects across the united states the s also includes the submission and also includes reports known as fact on the status of ongoing authorized projects  the food and drug administration at white oak maryland site with mediation at lakewood colorado as well as almost fifty acres of construction development act of two major projects include two alteration projects for the eisenhower executive office building and infrastructure and infrastructure systems replacement go forward with these construction projects without notifying the subcommittee although these projects technically fall below the perspective level that requires congressional approval g s a would be ill advised to proceed on any such project in the future without notifying this subcommittee especially given our consistent and active oversight of the federal courthouse program we're working on statutory changes to restore fiscal and management professionalism to this very troubled and wasteful program g s a on notice that this subcommittee expects us to report consistently and with regularity on all on the line all aspects of its construction program failure to disclose information on construction projects going forward  not be tolerated the administration says school year two thousand and ten budget request includes one hundred million dollars for the g s a to exercise its purchase option for the columbia plaza building located at twenty four o street northwest washington d c because i represent the city had understand that any loss of the east space even for a single building is a loss for the local tax rolls however the administration has simply adopted the consistent policy of the federal government and the committee in favor of ownership where possible particularly considering that the vital that all building fund depends buildings in the federal inventory however recent trends had tipped so that the government now he says more that it owns the alarming  funds has severely reduced the federal government's ability to maintain that valuable inventory of buildings and facilities facilities as well as to generate funds for federal construction and rehabilitation this the columbia plaza building dates back to nineteen ninety two moreover because of the building critical location the government does not have the alternative of vacating and moving on considering the millions of dollars poured into this space that the government does not own for upgrade rehabilitation as well as lease payments the government has more than paid the equivalent cost of the six g s a appraised the columbia plaza building at one hundred and ninety million dollars the administration would not easily propose a lump sum one hundred million dollars payment for real today as here there was an opportunity lots of poor would be difficult to explain to taxpayers in light of the nearly two do want to return on the initial federal investment and a substantial return to the federal buildings that were related to the f y two thousand and ten budget request is the american committee today must be viewed in light of the largest single in funding for construction were payware and alteration in many years all of which was appropriated by the  was authorized excuse me by the american recovery and reinvestment act according to latest activity reported is obligated over two million ten million ten million dollars of this stimulus funding in the past few weeks these awards include funding for federal buildings and courthouses land entry and high performance green building modernizations the stimulus projects range from energy and water studies and land acquisitions to the design energy efficient construction project an age that optimization and improvement projects the projects are being paranoid carried out any least a dozen states g s a had and i should add the projects are authorized and all fifty states and all the territories and in the district of columbia g s a has also indicated that it plans to award several larger contracts in excess of one hundred million dollars for july thirty first two thousand and these projects include the washington herbert hoover building because of a bad date this subcommittee will have to find a way to pace the level of  obligation by t s a of the five this subcommittee has unique oversight responsibility for the stimulus funding because the g s a funding is administered by the federal government was planning another hearing for the end of this month today i look forward to hearing from g s a about the execution of several of the projects expected to be awarded this summer find each of you will testify today for your its capital investment and leasing program for fiscal year two thousand and ten thank you for bringing us together on this important issue last month the general services administration submitted prospectuses for twenty one projects and that included seven alteration projects ten construction projects and four lease projects now the program includes modernization projects for the east and west wing of the white house as you stated and construction of land ports of entry and court houses the program also includes the consolidation of the f b i operations in miami dade county and in the area south florida those those district offices right now those operations and this would drive you  so that's obviously a good project now while a number of the proposals like the f b i consolidation appear to meet important space needs i am also troubled by some of the projects you just mentioned a a priority by providing g s a with four point five billion for quote measures necessary to convert g s a facilities to high performance green buildings which we all know is a meritorious thing to do but obviously job creation was with that money was supposed to be for now despite that significant investment in greening which again has merit in that in the stimulus the fiscal year two thousand program proposes an additional forty million dollars for conservation measures and high performance energy projects so i'm just not clear as to why we don't additional forty million on top of already the four point five million dollars already appropriated that's one issue  two thousand and ten g s a program also includes various projects related to the new executive office building the eisenhower executive office building and the east and west wings of the white house as i said a little while ago now as an example g s a proposes the construction of a new structure for the secret service now here's a rub because obviously everybody knows that the essential service that they provide but the cost to the taxpayer will be about a thousand dollars per square foot that's pretty significant by any stretch of imagination so obviously i understand and have the most respect for the circuit service and there may be some really good reasons why a thousand dollars per square foot is necessary but i think this committee need to see that need to see an explanation for that and what other less costly alternatives were looked at if they were if they were i want to i would like to see why those were not accepted and if they weren't obviously modernization of the west wing of the white house at that time and g s a explain the high cost as including the infrastructure and various systems that would be shared with other buildings related to the white house obviously we understand that this year g s a is proposing renovations of the east wing now again i am obviously supportive of importing in port and renovations to the white house given the importance of the national importance of that building the historical importance of the building the fact i mean there's so many reasons obviously that i'm supportive but but i'm concerned that there is doesn't seem to be a comprehensive plan for the white house complex renovations because we get we keep getting this piecemeal so i will see i think that a comprehensive review and evaluation of all of the capital improvements needs is warranted and so i think it's very essential because i keep seeing this piecemeal approach another concern chairman that i have is it relates to courthouses proposing a program i believe the ones that you were talking about and again there's no there's no clear statement made for these new courthouses and in fact neither of them is included in the five year courthouse plan again there are clearly some worthwhile projects proposed but there are others that appear either are necessary or frankly clearly need for further exploration which i think this committee deserves to have and finally i want to express my concern about the timing of g s a submission of the prospect this is to this committee the authorizing committee for the g s a our actions here are important in forming the appropriations process receiving the capital investment and leasing programs in june provide us with frankly very little time almost no time to review and act on those prospectuses before the appropriations process begins so now in the past this committee has received those prospectus chairwoman and again thank you mr cox it's good to see you again and i hope that you will today i know we've been over this territory before but really focus on the activities of the agency to implement the green buildings and infrastructure program as has been authorized in appropriated in both in your upcoming open lease arrangements as well as with efficiency improvements as well as with new construction programs and i'm just interested in an ongoing update of how that those programs are being implemented and again as as you know and we will discuss this now and forevermore my ongoing concerns about lease opportunities in the maryland suburban metropolitan area and how we're proceeding on that and what we might need and your and perhaps even recommendations from the g s a about ways that we may even need to strengthen the authorizing legislation that gets us to a goal that it seems from the record that you've submitted to us in the past that we have not quite achieved in terms of parity of distribution of these  leases and new construction activities in the metropolitan area and so i look forward to our continuing dialogue on that more importantly i look forward to achieving some measure of success that we can point to more specifically and again i thank you for being here and for the the outreach that your agency heads made and connection with my office because i do service of the u s general services administration thank you for fighting me here to discuss just say his fiscal year two thousand and ten capital investment and leasing program just a public building service is one of the largest and most diverse public real estate organizations in the world our inventory consists of over eighty five hundred assets with almost three hundred fifty four million square feet of space across all fifty states six u s territories and the district of columbia our portfolio includes office buildings courthouses land ports of entry and warehouses it is a p b s mission to provide superior workplaces for federal customer agencies at an economical cost to the american taxpayer i'm pleased to be here today to request your authorization and support of the individual projects that make up our fiscal year two thousand and ten capital program these projects will best meet our customer agency's housing needs and have them thoroughly analyzed so that they are consistent with our overall portfolio objectives we try to optimize the value of our own assets we try to direct capital resources toward performing assets and develop workout or disposal strategies for under and non performing assets we have to maintain the continuing funds continued functionality of our buildings and safeguard the health and safety of their occupants and provide quality work space that supports the varied missions of our tenants we now have to achieve energy efficiency and environmental goals of the energy independence and security act of two thousand and seven and of course we have to fill our responsibilities under the national historic preservation act to proudly protect and preserve our store significant public buildings just save the steward of fifteen hundred federal buildings which have replacement value of over forty billion dollars we are requesting repair and alterations program of four hundred ninety six million dollars to maintain and improve pretty in our inventory because we receive significant recovery act funding for our buildings are repairs and alterations requested slightly below that of recent years but continuing to reduce our backlog is still our top priority the highlights of g s a fiscal year two thousand and ten were apparel theresa's program include two hundred sixty million dollars for the basic program one hundred seventy six million dollars for major limited scope programs twenty million dollars for fire and life safety programs twenty million dollars for energy water conservation measures and twenty million dollars for federal high performance green buildings the energy and high performance green buildings programs are a small but crucial part of our repair and alteration requests through these programs will make improvements similar to those included in our recovery act spending plan but in a different set of buildings the energy independence and security act of two thousand and seven sets challenging goals beginning  year two thousand and ten requires t s a to reduce consumption of fossil fuel generated energy in new buildings major renovations and lease construction and by two thousand and thirty it requires t s a to totally eliminate fossil fuel consumption in our new buildings major renovations and these construction projects isa also accelerates the rate at which we must must reduce energy consumption our inventory as a whole to see three percent per year and specifically requires more energy and water or retrofit retrofits in our existing buildings we're requesting forty million dollars for the implementation of energy and water for retrofit projects in government owned buildings to  are also requesting a construction acquisition of solti's program of six hundred fifty eight million dollars our request includes funding for sites acquisition design infrastructure construction and the management inspection costs of ten federal facilities additionally pursue construction ownership solution for special purpose and unique the syllabus that are not readily available in the real estate market in addition we recommend new construction where there's a long term medium in a given locality basically year two thousand and ten new construction program is focused on urgent customer priorities ranging from laboratories for protecting the public health to land ports of entry for securing our borders it includes one hundred thirty eight million dollars for the food and drug administer consolidation of white oak maryland one hundred million dollars for the purchase of the columbia plaza building in washington d c twenty five million dollars for mediation activities at the denver federal center in the southeast settles on washington d one hundred ninety million dollars for a new at the i saw the in miami florida one hundred fifty one million dollars for the design and or construction of three land ports of entry and fifty three million dollars for two u s court houses in yuma arizona and lackluster pennsylvania several of these projects were originally planned as lease construction but will now be built and owned by the federal government saving the taxpayers millions of dollars over the long term in addition to our owned inventory g s a is entered into more than eighty five hundred private sector leases and seven thousand locations nationwide at one hundred seventy million seventy eight million square feet lease base comprises more than half of our total portfolio square footage we're pleased at the vacant space in our lease least inventory has been at or below one and a half percent for the last six years well below the national industry average we strive to keep leasing cost out or below market levels and of developing strategies to do so including the standard use of industry benchmarks market surveys to comparison shop for the best value for our customers due to the volume the complexity of our customers lease requirements we will submit at least one more s lease prospectus is for your consideration just a continues to work with our customer agency to meet their mission requirements within their financial constraints by consolidating requirements reducing underutilized space in minimizing ten improvement costs and expiring decide at the same time we continue to work with stakeholders such as this subcommittee to continue to recognize our capital requirements as in our inventory ages and as customers needs change madam chair ranking statement as i have very often in the past the ranking member has full committee and its ranking members have noted we are in dire straits because no matter e and what have you done to secure the taxpayers money in short explain yourself when was this agreement banned when was this agreement struck over a decade ago and when it became clear that they had no intention of proceeding  what the public building service do over the last five years we've been working closely with in the administration to ensure that the u s d a doing what by working with the office manager on budget and u previous year well you know twenty million from the zero four for a particular building but but they had been painted i think the figure was over two hundred million dollars to run just a total so i don't two facilities in the washington d c area they continue to do that what has happened is we basically put them on a plan to step up and begin to pay for rent when did you put them on that plan fiscal year two thousand and nine they are paying twenty million more dollars than they had paid the previous year and that's what had they been pain in previous years two hundred million dollars total but that's not what they had been paying two hundred million dollars they had had and yes the twenty million dollars is represent what fraction of how much they should be paying my understanding is that it's  against when i can't understand why and why and back indeed i would have expected you to come to the subcommittee and ask for some assistance since the notion of federal building fun is mentioned virtually every time we have a hearing do you need assistance from the subcommittee i ask you directly well as we work within the administration developing the fiscal year two thousand and eleven budget what is the two thousand what is the u s d a supposed to be doing every year from here on in if anything should be including the full run for the u s d a headquarters in their overall budget request for money in fact a preparation language was included in the two thousand and eight procreation allow them to move money to pay us back around before that time they actually could not move money to pay that back don't know whether it made it into your appropriation bill amount i personally don't know that for fiscal two thousand with somebody and go out right now and call the fire whether or not somebody in this room from g s a and find out what is in the two thousand and ten budget that was passed last night we can do that we need to know that you know i am on i chair the  screaming about the federal building fund we said that we needed to keep us in touch with your construction program even more so on the federal building fund could i ask you are there any other tenants who are  drafting assistance which we have provided to you to do with us year round issue well when there's an exchange of letters of that kind this is really falls in the category of issues i brought up in my statement and that includes the the white house complex and in the executive office building it appears as a work starts with already approved projects yet more projects identified so  a required thought about requiring a master plan for the white house complex so there was a more orderly assessment of all the work that is needed well there are a number of organizations that are responsible for facilities on the white house complex  national park service g s a the white house military office a number of years ago there was a master planning effort that went on but i don't think that came to a conclusion especially as it relates to a capital plan which is essentially i think what we're talking about what's happened over the last few years we've had a lot of success with the subcommittees support both authorize and help support funding for the renovation of the eisenhower executive office building which needed repair pretty desperately as we worked on that building frankly like any other renovation we found things additional things wrong on the complex that were associated with our executive office building and that's frankly where that where where where our discussion started with her parents about the west wing and the east wing infrastructure issues it all started when we when we looked at the eisenhower executive office building and how it served those portions of the white house complex and we discovered frankly pretty dramatic problems which is led over the last three years to our number of requests from general services administration to do work for both the work westway and were but that would not would not actually then make make the case for a new master plan even more logical i think it's a great idea and we will go back to our customers and the organizations we work with on the complex to make that happen magic is it just seems that again the more i hear about the more some so makes i think i guess you agree with that now for example last year this committee approved a prospectus for the west wing of the white house and i believe that we were told that part of the cost the reason the cost was so high was because of shared infrastructure now however  the improvements in these ways seem to be just as costly why if if the cost before was associated with with with with the sharing of the infrastructure and i guess those costs are no longer there why is this now almost the same price or about the same same type of cost what we didn't know when we proposed the west wing infrastructure improvements we understood pretty clearly the connection between the eisenhower executive office building and the west wing after we proposed the project we began a pretty extensive study to look at the east wing and realized the conditions in the east wing were just as bad unfortunately it's almost  impossible to do preventive maintenance on a complex like the white house obviously runs twenty four seven and no one allows us to shut down the power for a weekend and so frankly that had happened it was my wrong to when i say that that part of what we were told last year that about the costs was the shared infrastructure if that was not the case and then i never heard back saying that that was not the case my wrong when i  say that we were basically told that part of the high cost was because of the shared infrastructure it would seem to me that we don't have the same issue and we have other issues but we have the same issue now with also shared infrastructure with with the as well i think i think i'm sorry it's t so long to get to that issue you know actually the end of the shared infrastructure was between the eisenhower executive office building and the west wing ok now that we've learned that the east wing isn't just in as  be redundancy not only with the b but with the west wing and across the east wing so there's even more redundancy it's a really complex complex project and we'd love to offer a detailed a number of questions but i just want to focus really quickly and it's a bit of a tangential issue from where we are today but there have been several critics including my own and from other members of the committee about how the agency determines where federally fit should be located and so i just want you to just outline for me and articulate the process that happens on a staff level after you receive the requirements from an agency what they're looking for in a project and what's the role of the staff in taking the recommendations applying them to a specific project and then making the lease and does the agency then is the agency then able to revoke or go back on their decision and ask for new requirements once the staff of actually made a determination according to the first set of requirements set before them and then lastly how much of a consideration is it to consider if if we make a conclusion that the regulatory the regulations process isn't working for applying those kind of criteria essentially we first rely on the on the customer agency to define the do a good enough job frankly working with customers applying our ability to ask ask customers detailed questions about their requirements that would then would then to food with the requirement piece but also from the standpoint of the market we need to do a better job of aggressively pushing for maximum competition that brought us to the bars competitive area that we can we have been doing a better job in the last couple of years and frankly much of it has come from direction from the subcommittee in the past we have had problems with changing to any areas after authorization for product for projects we no longer we no longer have that problem both both that there used to be both in requirements in general and in to any areas so we made a pretty dramatic turn over the last couple of years to again put a fair amount of structure in those deliberations times when mission needs to change during the process but none of us like to get into that kind of situation because it is frank it isn't fair to the market for the government to change requirements of us are some real need what we called our releasing clauses we're issuing new clauses this fall to require energy star buildings but we have talked about i think it's a terrific idea is to start to add some structure around the issue of sustainability commuting patterns to locational decisions now our current regulations suggest that we need to include those things but i don't think we've done a good enough job of actually both giving direction to agencies as to how to consider those things we just say you're required to do it we're going to we're going to provide a deeper structure and analytic analytic approach to that so that we can do a perhaps more guidance with your suggestions and those in that area so that you can actually better apply what your goals are i think it would be great to have that kind of discussion i think it's i think it's our obligation to put forth a framework to all to consider madam chairwoman i'll conclude here but i look forward to working with you to make sure that that in fact happens thank you thank you very much i said with this very  understand it that amendment which said that the cylinder he had to be near the this thing also rented a facility that it had been near churches in violation of church and remain and montgomery county there was no way to avoid that implication it bordered on corruption frankly but it may have had a lot to do with simply doing whatever the agency said so let me ask you what's the status when you and of course of course i said madam chairwoman i would just say one thank you for raising that question that does go to the heart of the questions that i raised and it is that you know once those requirements are set down and g deflected based on a whole set of new requirements that were not in place at first when g s a was looking at the project and so that is i mean my my question is how do we move forward on enabling g s a to move forward in implementing agency requirements without interference and in a process that involves a little bit of fairness and equity to all jurisdictions so that people just understand what the rules are what the process is and there is a sense that that there was a bit of even handedness and even arm's length distance in that implementation and then we learned or at least i did in preparation for this hearing is that this new offer that we authorized this was in the first energy bill the office of high performance green buildings ability you're waiting for her to appoint the person but you have somebody to recommend to her well the process already started for the job we did interviews i'm sorry we're in the scheduling interviews and we'll be ready for a new personnel but not on the specialized personnel authorized by bill therefore i need to know whether or not when he is confirmed she can be presented with your list  process that that's so important that there be somebody with that specialize experience there are all sorts of people know how to do all kinds of things but we are looking for how qualified person and this complaining well that's essentially things that are either harming productivity of our customers in a building give us an example of what those things are when you're not in a failing groups air conditioning that doesn't work if it doesn't work  things like that we also rely on customer priorities so when we're choosing for instance court houses we rely on the courts five year plan plans with a five year construction plan both yuma and lackluster were projects that had been blessed by the judicial council or the judicial conference i'm sorry but but were deemed to be leased construction projects  when we continue to evaluate the market go ahead both actually both human and lancaster were small enough projects they would not have required a prospectus we understand that but both were going to be leased construction why why do these we knew that those projects would require we decided it made more sense in light of subcommittee direction and geo guidance to change direction and proposed the construction of those courthouses because of the cost so there's no money in the appropriation for these courthouses but you're going to do it anyway made me understand what you know when we were put when we proposed these projects as least construction projects frankly the only money that was required is for the courts to get money to pay us rent so from that perspective all that was required was for the courts to budget for rent when we started to approach the market in yuma and started to look at the market in lancaster it was pretty clear to us that the rent range associated with these constructed court houses would be extremely high and didn't make sense for tax payers so we did change direction president's request yes let's see if they fall for it now would you have their sixty million dollars for energy and water retrofit  their high performance green projects fire protection projects could you that's in your ongoing budget for two thousand and ten how does that there are two requests one for twenty and one for twenty adding up to forty the first twenty dollars for really are for the same kinds of things were funny to recovery money it's just a different set of buildings we had not been able to do these ongoing needs as you would at sunday anyway we have requested and received funding for the last number of years for this type of work and so it's the same kind of thing lighting repairs stage back systems things like that but in a different set of buildings than we have been able to do work and recovering funding the second request for twenty million dollars is actually to look at buildings that are these are in the final stages of design we're actually where we've begun construction to look at alternative energy sources that we had not proposed in the design of those projects for instance there's a land port of entry now is number a bad day where we're looking at geothermal applications that we had not proposed in the probably why why would you i thought we thought when we build anything today given what we now know about payback we will always seek to get that no matter what we do know that's that is what we have done but because of the economics of the payback we're much more aggressive about adding that kind of work and that's what that second twenty million dollars will allow us to do that can you assure us that we will not build a fresh new unless there is a significant energy component in the future whatever we do i can assure you that we are changing our standards to ensure that our basic standards to ensure that happens for all projects mr yeah before i proceed further i should ask you if you have any questions or any statement you'd like to me thank you madam chair and as i just have a very quick question  dollars by the end of july we will obligate we'll have obligated one billion dollars by the end of this calendar year we will obligated to billion dollars by the end of march our total obligation will be four why such a slow process or pace or we feel like the pace is pretty quick we just submitted a list of projects in march and so we try to do is take advantage of projects that were phase projects and fund future phases now and that's the bulk of the work that is going on at this point we have we are using accelerated contracting methods  this pace of obligation is beyond anything we've done before and i know that it might seem slow but it is i can assure you is well beyond anything we've done in the past the the twenty ten program this year was submitted in june which gave us a little or no time to review the proposed projects prior to the appropriation cycle why was the programme submitted so late and did you commit to an earlier submission next year i can't commit to that i think this year was difficult because congressional action didn't occur on our two thousand nine hundred until well into the budget year and with the recovery act we had to submit a fairly extensive list of projects so we had to both see what congress would end up and acting in two thousand and nine put together a pretty significant project less for recovery and produce a fiscal year two thousand and ten project plus so it was a little bit of a perfect storm when it comes to project planning i can assure you that we will do better next year we have to do better next year because we do understand the i'm sure you've been very vocal about our ability in our initiatives related to the market and it makes perfect sense we're looking at every major lease across the country  looking at terms and leases to understand better where we might have the ability to extend those leases and take advantage of market conditions to extend those leases at better rates we are also looking at the possibility of another building acquisition program which we haven't had for a decade and we're looking at those possibilities for fiscal year two thousand and eleven so we're doing we're doing both both and we think they make  very good sense and so in light of our request and i was recently at a four forty five response on early leasing and lease holdovers where are what is the advantage of it because we don't want to linger everybody i can think of except a big developer and real estate operator like the g s a now i recognize the president probably doesn't have a hundred million  he may get an offer he cannot possibly he doesn't want to lose he doesn't want to be hauled over and we would be dismayed at the for that because again hundred million patooties may not be what the public what the what the budget was wow this is ongoing this is all the agency that it seems to me has to be scrutinized very very carefully to see what is appropriate that but there are some things worth bringing in people to help you do and taking advantage of this market i would place it so i'm very pleased that you are going to have that report report back to us on time now would you describe what's well with already is why the agency has not used this is starting this cried or twelve authority as you understand it as authorized and approved by this now have any of those any disposals where probably where where or funds that gone to the federal building yes they have two hundred million dollars what were those what were those just the disposal or normal disposal kinds of the federal government there had been there there have been and continue to be continued discussions about what that authority looks like these are ongoing discussion though and we are looking at a couple of specific proposals stand because if if the subcommittee and the appropriations committee to clarify what we're talking about that's why i have you to describe your committee rectified well the clarity that would be that would be most useful because many of the arguments are so she would budge scorekeeping not with the authority again but budget scorekeeping  frankly the same issues that we're dealing with across the board section for twelve provides authorities but using those authorities there scored and they all have it mostly has to do with who is accepting the risk of these real estate transactions  i mean if c b l had a different view it would be important to know that that his health care bill only covered sixteen million of at least fifty million people who would need to be covered are in no position to offer a final opinion on what scores we at the very least we should be trying it and if we are pushed back by the c b r we will understand but it is of failure to use it to deal with a non objective source so we are very concerned that after don't want to a whole lot to get appropriated to understand what we meant and in order to get it done  up to this point we have not had direct and comprehensive discussions with the o m b leadership about budget scorekeeping or real estate now i'm going to have to ask you to do this within thirty days and report back to this committee you will be handicapped as i pose this this question to you by the back that i want to be is handicapped by having almost no staff that understands real estate remember we had we had to overcome the notion that the o scored even though it was rap placated on the terror building and they told you all it is it scored so we you know only b has no credibility on the scoring matter with us but your testimony indicates that you not gone before this own him be the savior of we have this is a story i might have to call the poor the appropriations sorry the authorizing committee they felt strongly about it so strongly that a way to get the authorizes and this is how it stays the government money you have to take on the damn school you have to say ok follow me is it your view that it would in fact be to the benefit of the government and cost savings or any other respect to in fact use for twelve authority is that your view or not i think we can start if it did not score we will begin to have that opportunity was on the leadership starting tomorrow because we have a federal role probably council leadership meeting who is that it's a it's a executive branch  basically committee of federal property holders how come these things don't score for the v a don't score for d o d don't score for d l here but everything scores for g s a to some extent has been unclear to us  why that you've got to put that to o m b g s a has got to say you got to get somebody knows how to advocate for the agency i believe that this administration is trying to bring some franchise to all of this and i will do my best to help but you are people with the grounded expertise and the notion of going to this all m b a s and this is how we can save some money let's try a project don't understand internal discussions but we could be having discussions too for example our staff director susan good or had to take it  now you know we do depend upon the video to be objective but she had to take c b l to the cleaners keep them there for a long time before she was able to convince them that the old post office did not score it was very very troubling so i guess we should say that real estate is not of much concern at c host an urban land institute forum to talk to the private sector about the current capital markets and the ability to finance a project for the old post office so that can help that is what we've lost not and agency like other agencies over here you are classified as far as o m b and it looks as if even c p o will classify you as an agency that is not in the market the way most agencies are now and you were in the market you are a big player in the market and they have to play and by rules that nobody in the market worldwide plays by g s a has never had a leadership that has this happened to democratic or republican ministrations who could take the case and keep pressing the case in writing if necessary showing them  that you're going to be can you apologize i wasn't here for that could you kind of pass or repeal what you talked about that madam chair suggested the g s a should take advantage of the market both from the standpoint of potential acquisitions and looking at our leases also not just acquisitions and we fully we are going to look both at all of our major leases to understand both in terms of the market conditions to prioritize frankly where to aggressively push and maybe least engines and other kinds of things but in addition we are going to look at the market for building purchase opportunities we have a fairly ambitious building purchase program probably god and that that was very effective our issue of course will be finding money to do that all summer so we think it's worth looking at and possibly requesting funding to do that but from our perspective obviously we're not going to be able to fund too many potential acquisitions but we can at least look for targeted acquisitions to take advantage of markets good i'm glad to hear that because obviously now we've we've been talking about and as much as it can be done makes a lot of sense to do it right now agencies sure this is not taxable time bailed out of that consolidation and we found a lease locations for them we had been working with the f b i to look at a consolidation or field office function in a lease but for the same reasons frankly that we had talked about the small courthouses when we looked at the cost of that it made it made a lot more sense to propose the construction of a new building we're using the same to any area that we're using for the lease project to look for sites and that's exactly what we started right now more in the process over the next basically two and a half months to choose a site for the new for the new field office and that would be construction it will be construction and that's khamenei is the third busiest port knowing one of facilities just aren't adequate for for the mission it's the total cost of the project will be close to seventy million dollars including design the unit costs for land ports of entry are really really difficult to both describe and calculate because a lot of the costs of land ports of entry are really the infrastructure the roadways basis are more expensive but it's really difficult to compare them to general purpose office space because it's just not general purpose office space you just don't get the efficiencies and the infrastructure surrounding pursuing the billy purchase program but but it is anything i mean i hope that you get encouragement from the subcommittee that's something that again i don't know what can be done that has better bang for the buck for the taxpayer  those activities and report on those activities we learned of them a couple of weeks ago i met with the director of the federal protective service last week to both expressed our concerns and understand better how the federal protective service was going to respond to what g a o found in their review i do know the total protective services issued guidance both to their folks and  customer agencies related to the contractor card program then since since these tests were performed by g a o my understanding is that the f t s did get briefed early on because of because of the  concerned clearly we've worked extensively with the federal protective service to protect and secure our facilities and the people in them but they have a ton of work to do and we have a ton of work to do with them issue i'm very concerned of course this is a national capital region we don't know where these work we do but the public doesn't and that's better kept that way  because there's not a lot of alternatives to people entering these buildings got do better but nobody in this is not one hundred percent and nothing is one hundred percent since nine eleven now people understand there's some risk my concern is that the risk analysis is not a part of the way that a protective service operates risk consequences but i'm willing concern because we're all amateurs security we've never had to do the kind of security we now do until after nine eleven well yes from after oklahoma city but now the evidence was a wake up call and so people who are not security experts basically very good police officers are called upon to make decisions that they clearly have been trained to make if anything the older compensate more often than not without them without being able to shoulder the overcompensation results and better security we're going to have a hearing but we're not going to have  aviation i'm far more concerned mr custer about how we how to each building does security and the huge disparities without regard to the security risk and i put in a particular facility for example today in the department transportation my staff on the congress your staff since we know for sure of buildings that are higher security where this is not the case could you explain  disparity in security without regard to risk and consequences could result across the various agencies of the federal who is responsible for news and i agree with you fully that the system isn't working the bad news is that right now when you look at federal facilities across the board not just g s a buildings but building such a committee customer agencies the act the tenets of the building with the thought is there a role for the role is actually to take in information from the federal protective service security assessments ultimately make decisions with the federal protect with federal protective service and put as to ultimately the both the physical and operational security measures that will be implemented in the buildings i'm very concerned about security after nine eleven i'm very concerned what is supposed to happen at the agency the designated agency official every building as a designated agency official and does that person with any security expertise know it's a relatively high high high level management person with responsibility for the building occupants of the building but not necessarily a security expertise where he or she is supposed to do is help guide the formation of a building security maybe which would somebody has to come down and get you and let me go further if you are a taxpayer visiting the district of columbia and you have a kid who needs to go to the excuse me laboratory says mommy has got to go can i get into that building you pay for who is responsible in this because the ten agencies ultimately with federal protective service and put describe the countermeasures both operating and physical that are agency security committee has has developed draft revisions to how those security committees will work i have been i've been very concerned about the fact that there are people without  often here's another committee tell me about that committee and that's that committee is a committee that's run by the department of homeland security and it's supposed to rationalize security issues across all federal agencies what is the point of having look i'm accustomed to people who have expertise not knowing what they're doing namely i know there is no body in the security business in these to make me understand i can understand the difference with complain about this you know i can get and all these people can get and make me understand why non expert should be sitting at the table with f c s supposedly expert in deciding what the security arrangements in a building would be at p s bring technical expertise to the committee they responsible for doing building security assessments on a periodic basis and they don't have the technical expertise that the federal protective service what is the bowl of somebody who doesn't have any expertise when it comes to the security active service but the ultimate bill for that security is paid by those customer agencies it certainly isn't me it's certainly not paid by the federal employees who have no expertise are you saying because they  you to leave the buildings they get to decide security in federal buildings rather than g s a and the f p s ultimately the federal protective service provides tec parties designated agency official as ultimately responsible for making decisions about things like post orders with with information and expertise provided by the top type of service because ultimately those agencies are paying overregulation let's just place down kind of approach of your security officials after nine eleven and there are other nervous very nervous people who is that who isn't always going to be on one of these committees but what committees what bothers me most of all is that they would have anything but the kind of role that it seems to me they should have tell me what your concerns are tell me what those concerns are based on we will take those into account when we decide what security is appropriate for this building is that not the way to proceed just just to be clear from just says perspective we have asked the federal protective service to take on that leadership can you give us any assurance that those guidelines will in fact not only customer agency person now expert in agency matters  decision makers for the security of federal assets i can assure you that as a member of the interagency security committee first of all we're bringing those issues to light i can also provide specific information on how the d h has on the schedule for the i see promulgating the draft guidelines and we'd be happy to both attend facilitate and help get this  these people who as you say pay the bill which they are required to do as a matter of law and if they had any alternative unless they happen to be the u s d a the notion particularly after this hearing that much too little unless you talk to the people who live there but they will have to be overridden some time and if they are at the table back from being very hard to do i'm sure i'm not giving this i'm not doing a very good job security so here we have the people who were over the federal protective service who had to fund them add to their funding every year because it wasn't enough funds from the agencies saying well you know we  saying i'm just saying that if it's unfair for me to talk in detail and represent i don't mind trying to find out who the decider is and you say trying to protect a service that reports presumably to you on us doesn't report to us but on the design and day to day operations of buildings it certainly does just sets out to do not report to us the day to day operations of buildings for instance contract guard contract the contract guard program contract guards around our buildings but we are not responsible for those contracts or those programs who are now federal protective service does that mean contracts straightened out i must say it's highly satisfactory although they were located on homeland security when contracts were being paid were performed it just through a series of hearings th jurisdiction over you what are we doing in that if you don't have anything to do with the federal protective service we have a role to work with them to protect and secure our facilities ultimately security has been moved to the department of homeland security table who had no expertise deciding for the and it almost entirely explains why the difference is that they are you know the same differences miska apply when you say you know what you can you can live in prince expect you to have it is very very disturbing to us we understand some of this may come from the bifurcation that we would want able to do a great deal about but the fact is that these committees have been in operation long before that bifurcation that true that is to say you were operating with the same kind of customer a committee for a long time and i had you know we have been and we have been talking with  uard to take people apparently regardless of what their potential show i think the escorting services as relates to this particular project are aren't  knowing all the people in and i would be have security there and what will they do but our intention would be to have folks who are doing on the work all also escort construction and they still have to be escorted can you get clearance for these people for the limited kind of work they do and if so when is the earliest you can do that we do that now for for a lot of our projects we have temporary not originally contemplated for the new executive office building but the issue is is that when when we thought the renovation project was much more limited and we started doing the renovation work realize it was much more on secure yet could you have thought security clearance with these workers even belatedly why didn't anybody buy things to save the government money because it's not your money yes what i want to say ok we'll do this until we see if these people can get security and i'm sure we have a continuing issue really finding people to do work with clearances it is a huge issue nationally that's difficult to get for beagle workers in this country you know yes yes you know if you're a lunchbox it is it's it's it's difficult and takes a long time and so often we're we're we're in a bind because work needs to be done and so part of the escorting that we sometimes pay for associate with the fact that we can't get clearances for workers the secret service is it's costing one hundred thousand dollars per square foot what are we trying to protect and why am the world t put it this is a storage room no no it's not i'm sorry if it's information we provided was not clear it's office space meeting room meeting rooms locker rooms i t security requirements for the secret service on the white house house itself explained to us a thousand dollars per square foot to make what the secret service but looks to be the most secure secure space within the white house  that's not even for major meetings to make us understand that this cost issue is not really related to security and the project this cause and really related to our proposal to build a modular structure in the courtyard of the eisenhower executive office building we did not contemplate putting a modular structure in the courtyard we built extensive structures within the courtyard below the surface of the courtyard below the surface no we did a lot of renovation work at a building systems underneath the surface of the courtyard part of the cost is to actually go back now put a modular structure in the inexpensive because some of the alternatives were just this is competitively no we haven't gone to bed at all we're actually we're requesting authorization funding some of the alternatives that we looked at to house the secret service on the white house that would not  others would have been another were you telling me i'll be happy to get that down to a thousand pounds bit square foot i'm not sure i'm assured for happiness but this is less costly the construction itself because it's in a courtyard will require cranes so the complexity of material going over the wing the v o b will add costs frankly we have to do work on off hours also because the operation of the white house complex so assurances that this is about this one thousand dollars per square foot has how to judge it except i certainly hope you try to get it after there is the appropriate competition we will appreciate it now before i have one more question i have a ranking member i just thought both of us would like to hear an update on the recovery projects where we are whether the obligation will be for that new da was in two thousand and ten they all must be obligated not bill but obligated how will you know let's say today for that matter that you're on pace to obligate everything and won't have to get back to the treasury  a five point five billion and what it would mean for example to you know how much you have to obligate every three might have a quarter yes we have month by month obligation plans for the next eighteen months our basic plan is to probably get a billion dollars by the end of july a second billion dollars by the end of december two million additional dollars by the end projects we are on track to obligate at least a billion dollars by the end of july we actually think we will be obligating more than a billion dollars that in addition some of the birds are coming in lower so we're actually doing more work difficulty of course with the housing they were able to get some help with that and that may be proceeding but i'd like to know where they are on the housing where they are on  i asked them to go look because the appropriation came out last night so i also asked that they look at the budget for federal protective service two hundred twenty four which is fourteen close to fourteen million dollars less and i'm getting information that the senate told me that is far below that less than one hundred seventy million dollars  so it's not good well first of all i'm going to have to personally find the serrano to meet you at two thirty eight they gave you twenty four yes and that to thirty eight represent what   plus the gap you know it looks like it looks like it's based on the gap the forty million dollars gap is not the know part of the forty million dollars gap and it does not look like that's the case below what was necessary just a key event twenty four yes you the ongoing issue with shopper park what you've been very supportive of is actually going very well the draft what's called a four hour determination has been issued and we've been assured by federal highways  to what we're doing right now is working continuing on the environmental impact work the district of course looking at campus both of those planning activities include transportation impact analysis and now the district hopes to yet what would amount to a federal facility several what the district which had moved on anything frankly  is hoping that the federal facility that would face martin luther king would give it a jump start so i don't see how this makes this the district and they go on i know what they going to say yes they're going to say both sides are well it looks like based on the information i have in front of me both an index card which is placed in front of my nose in my notebook we are actually looking at acquisitions while widening of an locations for the ever they are now so we need transportation it's first on the radar because we trust your work your experience with respect to the building and the construction that will be office that the job will be advertised on mine that is going to be very important is that we are actually contractors to advertise jobs online yes ok to regular process because when we didn't know what we might do before the appropriations committee and the like people go to the appropriators to get responses thank you for the continued support thank you just kept hearing is it