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56–587 PDF 2010

TOO MUCH FOR TOO LITTLE: FINDING 

THE COST-RISK BALANCE FOR 

PROTECTING FEDERAL EMPLOYEES IN 

LEASED FACILITIES 

(111–114) 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON 

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, PUBLIC BUILDINGS, AND 

EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON 

TRANSPORTATION AND 

INFRASTRUCTURE 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

May 20, 2010 

Printed for the use of the 

Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure 

( 

COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE 

JAMES L. OBERSTAR, Minnesota, Chairman 

NICK J. RAHALL, II, West Virginia, Vice 

Chair 

PETER A. DEFAZIO, Oregon 

JERRY F. COSTELLO, Illinois 

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of 

Columbia 

JERROLD NADLER, New York 

CORRINE BROWN, Florida 

BOB FILNER, California 

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas 

GENE TAYLOR, Mississippi 

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland 

LEONARD L. BOSWELL, Iowa 

TIM HOLDEN, Pennsylvania 

BRIAN BAIRD, Washington 

RICK LARSEN, Washington 

MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts 

TIMOTHY H. BISHOP, New York 

MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine 

RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri 

GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California 

DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois 

MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii 

JASON ALTMIRE, Pennsylvania 

TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota 

HEATH SHULER, North Carolina 

MICHAEL A. ARCURI, New York 

HARRY E. MITCHELL, Arizona 

CHRISTOPHER P. CARNEY, Pennsylvania 

JOHN J. HALL, New York 

STEVE KAGEN, Wisconsin 

STEVE COHEN, Tennessee 

LAURA A. RICHARDSON, California 

ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey 

DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland 

SOLOMON P. ORTIZ, Texas 

PHIL HARE, Illinois 

JOHN A. BOCCIERI, Ohio 

MARK H. SCHAUER, Michigan 

BETSY MARKEY, Colorado 

MICHAEL E. MCMAHON, New York 

THOMAS S. P. PERRIELLO, Virginia 

DINA TITUS, Nevada 

HARRY TEAGUE, New Mexico 

JOHN GARAMENDI, California 

HANK JOHNSON, Georgia 

JOHN L. MICA, Florida 

DON YOUNG, Alaska 

THOMAS E. PETRI, Wisconsin 

HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina 

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee 

VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan 

FRANK A. LOBIONDO, New Jersey 

JERRY MORAN, Kansas 

GARY G. MILLER, California 

HENRY E. BROWN, JR., South Carolina 

TIMOTHY V. JOHNSON, Illinois 

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania 

SAM GRAVES, Missouri 

BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania 

JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas 

SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West Virginia 

JIM GERLACH, Pennsylvania 

MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida 

CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania 

CONNIE MACK, Florida 

LYNN A WESTMORELAND, Georgia 

JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio 

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan 

MARY FALLIN, Oklahoma 

VERN BUCHANAN, Florida 

BRETT GUTHRIE, Kentucky 

ANH ‘‘JOSEPH’’ CAO, Louisiana 

AARON SCHOCK, Illinois 

PETE OLSON, Texas 

VACANCY 

(II) 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, PUBLIC BUILDINGS, AND EMERGENCY

MANAGEMENT

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of Columbia, Chair 

BETSY MARKEY, Colorado 

MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine 

HEATH SHULER, North Carolina 

RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri 

TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota 

MICHAEL A. ARCURI, New York 

CHRISTOPHER P. CARNEY, Pennsylvania 

DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland 

THOMAS S. P. PERRIELLO, Virginia, Vice 

Chair 

HANK JOHNSON, Georgia 

JAMES L. OBERSTAR, Minnesota 

(Ex Officio) 

MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida 

TIMOTHY V. JOHNSON, Illinois 

SAM GRAVES, Missouri 

SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West Virginia 

MARY FALLIN, Oklahoma 

BRETT GUTHRIE, Kentucky 

ANH ‘‘JOSEPH’’ CAO, Louisiana 

PETE OLSON, Texas 

(III) 

(V) 

CONTENTS Page 

Summary of Subject Matter .................................................................................... vi 

TESTIMONY 

Armstrong, Sue, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Infrastructure Protection, 

Department of Homeland Security ..................................................................... 18 

Hinman, Eve, President, Hinman Consulting ....................................................... 72 

McAndrew, Michael, Director, Facility Investment & Management, Office of 

the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense, Installations and Environment, 

Department of Defense ........................................................................................ 18 

McAvey, Maureen, Senior Vice President, Urban Land Institute ....................... 72 

Moran, Hon. Jim, a Representative in Congress from the State of Virginia ...... 5 

Morris, Samuel (Chip), Public Buildings Service Assistant Commissioner, 

General Services Administration ........................................................................ 18 

Nadel, Barbara, Principal, Barbara Nadel Architect ............................................ 72 

PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS 

Edwards, Hon. Donna F., of Maryland .................................................................. 83 

Norton, Hon. Eleanor Holmes, of the District of Columbia ................................. 85 

Oberstar, Hon. James L., of Minnesota ................................................................. 88 

PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY WITNESSES 

Armstrong, Sue ........................................................................................................ 90 

Hinman, Eve ............................................................................................................ 98 

McAvey, Maureen .................................................................................................... 105 

Moran, Hon. Jim ...................................................................................................... 110 

Morris, Samuel (Chip) ............................................................................................. 112 

Nadel, Barbara ......................................................................................................... 120 

SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD 

Armstrong, Sue, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Infrastructure Protection, 

Department of Homeland Security, response to request for information 

from the Subcommittee ........................................................................................ 94 

Edwards, Hon. Donna F., a Representative in Congress from the State of 

Maryland, ‘‘GSA Leasing in the Greater Washington Metropolitan Region,’’ 

a report by the National Center for Smart Growth Research and Education 

and the Master’s of Real Estate Development Program at the University 

of Maryland .......................................................................................................... 40 

McAndrew, Michael, Director, Facility Investment & Management, Office of 

the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense, Installations and Environment, 

Department of Defense, response to request for information from the Subcommittee .............................................................................................................. 101 

Morris, Samuel (Chip), Public Buildings Service Assistant Commissioner, 

General Services Administration, response to request for information from 

the Subcommittee ................................................................................................. 116 

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(1) 

TOO MUCH FOR TOO LITTLE: FINDING THE 

COST–RISK BALANCE FOR PROTECTING 

FEDERAL EMPLOYEES IN LEASED FACILITIES 

Thursday, May 20, 2010 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, PUBLIC

BUILDINGS AND EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT, 

COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE, 

Washington, DC. 

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 2:42 p.m., in room 

2167, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Eleanor Holmes Norton 

[Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding. 

Ms. NORTON. The hearing will be in order. 

Good afternoon, and welcome to today’s hearing on the cost and 

other implications of applying the Department of Defense’s 

antiterrorism force protection standards to the General Services 

Administration’s leased space procurements. 

There are only three security standards for federally owned and 

leased buildings: one, the State Department’s Bureau of Overseas 

Building Operations, or UBO, standard, which applies to all buildings at U.S. diplomatic and consular posts; two, the Interagency 

Security Criteria, or ISC, standard, which applies to all buildings 

in the United States occupied by non-military Federal employees; 

and, three, the DOD’s Unified Facilities Criteria standard, which 

applies to all buildings on both foreign and U.S. soil occupied by 

DOD employees, including civilian employees, regardless of the nature of the work performed or security threats. 

The GSA is the Federal Government’s central domestic building 

management agency and owns or leases over 350 million square 

feet of general purpose space throughout the country used by various Federal agencies, including the DOD. 

The GSA generally follows the ISC standards for lease procurements. However, for DOD leases, the GSA is required, it believes, 

to adhere to DOD’s UFC standards, apparently imposed by the 

DOD on its own, unrelated to a specific authorization statute. 

DOD’s UFC standard is considerably more stringent than the 

ISC standard for all other Federal employees and is significantly 

more costly to taxpayers. 

For example, the ISC standard, until recently, required uniform 

setbacks of 50 feet, but now it permits factors such as a building’s 

resiliency to be taken into account when determining setbacks. In 

2 

contrast, the DOD’s UFC standard still requires a minimum setback of 148 feet, almost three times as much. 

Further, while the ISC standard allows for parking beneath federally occupied space, DOD’s UFC standards eliminates parking beneath occupied structures, and whatever parking is permitted must 

be set back at least 82 feet from the building. 

To take a current example to amplify these points, GSA currently 

has requested that the Subcommittee authorize a lease prospectus 

for the colocation of DOD medical headquarters command in northern Virginia for 751,000 square feet of space. These are important 

personnel, but may have no more need for secure facilities that 

meet DOD’s UFC standards than other Federal civilian personnel. 

However, the GSA’s prospectus makes clear that it intends to lease 

space which complies with the DOD’s UFC standard. 

Accordingly, today this Subcommittee will examine the implications not merely for the particular case of the Medical Command, 

but more generally for whether there is sufficient justification for 

requiring GSA to follow two different sets of securities standards, 

one for general purpose office lease space for DOD civilian employees and another for all other Federal civilian employees, without 

taking into account risks, threats, and cost-benefit analysis. 

There are significant financial, land use, and societal implications that must be explored if GSA continues to use the DOD’s 

UFC standards in future procurements. 

The Subcommittee is concerned that the application of two disparate security standards will give rise to two distinctly different 

classes of civilian Federal employees who do similar work: DOD 

employees and all others. 

As a policy matter, we will require justification for why not merely some, but all, each and every DOD employee, including those engaged in purely administrative or back-office functions, need a 

higher level of protection than, for example, the U.S. District Court 

judges or the Nation’s U.S. attorneys who may work on cases involving terrorism, drug syndicates, organized crime, and criminal 

gang activity, all at the same time, under the same roof. 

The Subcommittee also notes that DOD’s UFC setback standard 

of 148 feet is even greater than the 100-foot setback standard used 

by the Department of State’s OBO standard for U.S. embassies 

where terrorist threats have, in fact, occurred or been well-documented. The DOD’s UFC standards may be appropriate for military installations, but it is not clear that they are appropriate for 

all DOD functions, particularly those for which commercial space 

is considered by DOD as suitable for occupation purposes. 

The cost to taxpayers of the level of protection sought by DOD’s 

UFC standard is significant. For the colocation of DOD medical 

headquarters command, the annual leasing cost may quadruple, 

from approximately $7 million per year to over $30 million per 

year. The additional cost to taxpayers over the 15-year term of the 

proposed lease amounts to $57 million in today’s dollars. The cost 

is directly attributable to the DOD’s UFC standards inasmuch as 

noncompliance at the present location with these standards is a 

key driver for the new lease location in the first place. 

These extra costs, particularly given the economic conditions 

posed by a severe recession and an unacceptable Federal deficit, 

3 

appear inconsistent with military cost controls sought not only by 

Members of Congress but also by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, 

who, at this moment, is seeking to convert as much as 2 to 3 percent of military spending from tail to tooth—military speak for converting support services to combat forces. 

In a speech delivered May 8th, Secretary Gates said—and I am 

quoting him now—‘‘Military spending on things large and small 

can and should expect closer, harsher scrutiny,’’ end quote. This 

Subcommittee agrees. And, through this hearing and in our future 

work, we intend to bring scrutiny to bear on the application of 

DOD’s UFC standards to DOD’s civilian occupancies. 

We are particularly concerned that the DOD’s UFC standard, if 

left unchallenged, will lead to a series of urban fortresses for Federal occupancies, an idea that is inimicable to an open, democratic 

society, even with appropriate security. 

I am a Member of the Homeland Security Committee, and I fully 

appreciate the necessity that all government facilities be secure. I 

appreciate it all the more because I represent the Nation’s capital. 

But security features and procedures must be calibrated to threat 

and risk analyses that also account for their effect on ordinary access. 

Importantly, security standards cannot be promulgated without 

regard to cost. Under both the ISC standard and the DOD’s UFC 

standard, there has been essentially no assessment of the probability of threats so that threats, on a risk-adjusted basis, can be 

compared to the cost of the countermeasures designed to deter 

them. In the absence of methodological rigor, there is little to contain spending or to enhance security, for that matter. 

The continued uniform application of DOD’s UFC standards to 

all DOD office facilities in the United States poses the risk of redlining most urban and suburban settings in close proximity to public transportation, where most space for Federal employees is located today. Moreover, if DOD’s UFC standard forces DOD civilian 

employees to abandon public transportation, the standard will have 

the unintended consequence of forcing more commuters onto already-strained roads, with all of the consequences to air pollution, 

climate change, and all the rest that is familiar to us all. This, too, 

is antithetical to the longstanding, bipartisan mass-transit goals of 

Congress. 

The regulations also appear at odds with President Obama’s 

March 4th, 2009, Presidential Memorandum published in the Federal Register urging the in-sourcing of Federal employees who will 

be returning from their present status as contract employees performing inherently governmental work to government service. This 

Committee will be tasked with finding facilities for these employees 

now housed by contractors. Many of them will be DOD civilian employees. 

We are pleased to welcome witnesses from DOD and the Department of Homeland Security to testify concerning their respective 

building standards and a witness from GSA to discuss how it procures space in light of these standards. We also welcome our private-sector witnesses, who are not only expert in the field of physical security but also in engineering, architecture, and land use economics. 

4 

The Subcommittee looks forward to the testimony from all of 

these witnesses. 

I am very pleased now to welcome comments from our Ranking 

Member for the day. Mr. Diaz-Balart is ill in Florida and has not 

been able to be in session with the Congress this week. But we are 

pleased to be joined by a Member of the Subcommittee, Mr. Cao, 

for opening remarks as Ranking Member. 

Mr. CAO. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. And I want to 

thank you for holding this important hearing today on building security. 

In a previous hearing, we had focused on oversight of the Federal 

Protective Service and its contract guard program. Today we are 

examining physical security and, more specifically, the standards 

used for leased facilities. 

As we all know, Federal buildings are a proven target for terrorists and others who wish to do us harm. In fact, the Interagency 

Security Committee, which provides guidance for security for Federal buildings, was established by Executive order in the wake of 

the Oklahoma City bombing. 

To ensure we adequately protect Federal workers and visitors to 

our Federal facilities, we must set security standards that are riskbased and effective. Often, this means that we should not have 

cookie-cutter approaches to physical security, because not every 

building is the same. Applying a one-size-fits-all standard may do 

little to address actual risk and, at the same time, may significantly increase cost to the taxpayer. 

For example, earlier this month, it was reported that GSA placed 

a 127,000-square-foot building in Bethesda up for sale because it 

did not meet security setback requirements. As we know, this is 

not the best time to sell real estate. And this location sits in a 

prime location for Federal workers, close to a Metro. It is unclear 

how an appropriate security assessment was completed for the specific risk to this building without knowing who the likely Federal 

tenant would have been and what other measures could have been 

taken to address any risk. 

In most metropolitan areas, Federal agencies, whether in owned 

or leased space, often must make assessments that take into account the limitations on space. And we have seen tailored alternatives to setbacks in many urban areas around the country. As 

the new ISC standard suggests, each building should be assessed 

to determine its risk, and various solutions should be considered to 

address these specific risks. Doing this will improve security and 

ensure tax dollars are used effectively. 

Finally, today, it will be important for us to understand the 

standards used by the DOD. This Committee has received a lease 

prospectus for DOD medical headquarters command in northern 

Virginia, which requires 751,000 square feet of space. Concerns 

have been raised as to whether separate standards for DOD facilities unnecessarily limits the sites and locations available to accommodate DOD needs and increases the costs of the project. 

Being able to evaluate the ISC standards and DOD standards 

will assist this Committee in better evaluating proposals and costs 

for new space. I hope today we can hear from the witnesses on 

these and other issues. 

5 

Thank you. And I yield back. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much, Mr. Cao. 

We are pleased to be joined by a Member of Congress from this 

region who knows these issues, among many others, because Jim 

Moran not only serves on three Subcommittees of the Appropriations Committee, he serves on the Defense Subcommittee in particular. 

Mr. Moran, we are pleased to receive any testimony you may 

choose to offer. 

STATEMENT OF THE HON. JIM MORAN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN 

CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF VIRGINIA 

Mr. MORAN. Well, Madam Chairwoman, thank you. 

Although your complete statement said everything that I want to 

say too, I will proceed nevertheless and say it, as well. But I appreciate your opening comments, as I do of Mr. Cao’s. Clearly, you understand the importance of this issue. And I want to welcome Ms. 

Edwards and Mr. Johnson, as well. And I thank your excellent 

staff. 

As I say, you expressed this issue better than I can, Madam 

Chairwoman, but now we need to address it. And I will identify the 

same reasons. 

My congressional district is a large urban area that not only 

leases office space to some of this Nation’s largest corporations, but 

it also leases millions of square feet to the Federal Government, at 

least those that remain after you get first dibs, Madam Chairwoman. 

That wasn’t in my prepared statement. 

Ms. NORTON. It is all competitive, Mr. Moran. 

Mr. MORAN. But with that in mind, I would like to express my 

very serious concern over the Department of Defense’s 

antiterrorism and force protection standards. 

First, I am much concerned that DOD has, thus far, been permitted to establish separate security standards from all other Federal agencies. It is the responsibility and the authority of the General Services Administration to establish security standards for 

buildings housing Federal employees. 

DOD’s standards usurp GSA’s authority, which not only creates 

uncertainty in Federal contracting with property owners, but it is 

implementing a policy that suggests that DOD employees deserve 

a higher level of protection than other Federal workers. As the 

Chairwoman articulated, there are so many other Federal workers 

that deserve at least as much comparable protection. 

For some iconic DOD facilities, there is probably sufficient rationale to implement these standards. The Pentagon would be such 

an example. But for many lesser-known defense agencies and components that are housed in private buildings, these stringent security standards above and beyond those established by GSA simply 

don’t make sense. I don’t think that terrorists are harboring any 

particular hatred toward TRADOC or toward any one of the other 

dozens of inscrutable acronyms that identify the multiple DOD 

agencies that are housed in these Federal buildings. 

Secondly, the DOD standards raise the costs that the Federal 

Government must pay for DOD leases. One particularly onerous reVerDate Aug 31 2005 13:38 Sep 20, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00015 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\56587.0 KAYLA
6 

quirement of such standards is a minimum standoff distance of 82 

feet from either a parking lot or a roadway. In an urban area, this 

minimum standoff distance simply disqualifies a vast number of 

buildings from housing DOD employees. And it makes it almost 

economically impossible to afford to purchase this kind of setback 

space at a public transit hub that is zoned for high density, because 

that land is simply too valuable to devote to this substantial setback from the sidewalk or from the transit station or whatever. 

And, yet, that means that it runs counter to any sensible smartgrowth urban planning. 

As a result, competition is limited, which ultimately forces the 

government to pay a much higher rate to house DOD employees in 

privately owned buildings. As the title of this hearing states, it is 

unclear what net benefit the government receives from DOD standards versus the additional costs that the government must pay. 

I think it is important to note that the Defense Department often 

circumvents its own rules through a loophole that waives its standards if less than 25 percent of the building’s occupants are DOD 

employees. The 25 percent rule prevents DOD components and 

agencies, though, from expanding within a given building. And it 

actually forces the Department to rent more leased space at higher 

rates across multiple buildings instead of consolidating its employees in fewer buildings, which was the intent of the BRAC move in 

the first place. It is irrational and expensively counterproductive. 

So, Madam Chairwoman, surely abiding by GSA’s security standards makes much more sense. 

And the third reason is that DOD’s security standards prevent 

local governments in Washington, D.C., and northern Virginia and 

in other metropolitan urban areas from implementing mixed-use 

development. In our districts, mixed-use development has proven to 

have ecological, environmental, and transportation-related benefits 

that translate into greater economic activity and a higher quality 

of life for residents as well as workers. By prohibiting mixed-use 

development, which these security standards do, it stifles innovation and public planning, which ultimately costs localities lost economic output. 

So, in summation, DOD’s security standards undermine GSA’s 

authority; they cost the Federal Government in much higher additional lease payments without delivering sufficient benefit; and 

they run counter to smart-growth urban planning and development. 

I think those are compelling reasons. And, as a result, I want to 

thank you again for having this hearing and for so fully understanding how important it is. And thank you for your leadership 

and that of the Subcommittee. 

Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you, Mr. Moran. 

Before I begin to ask you just a few questions, I neglected to ask 

the other Members if perhaps they had any opening remarks. 

First, Ms. Edwards? 

Ms. EDWARDS. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. I will try to 

slide a little closer here. 

Mr. MORAN. She has a bad leg there. So, those in the audience 

don’t realize the physical problem she has. 

7 

Ms. NORTON. And I didn’t even realize it. Of all people to be in 

a wheelchair, even temporarily, Donna Edwards. 

Ms. EDWARDS. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. And this is 

what happens when you meet a marble stairwell and a wall and 

the wall wins. 

I want to thank you, Madam Chairwoman, for holding this hearing. 

And, Mr. Moran, thanks so much for your testimony. 

I hope the Committee understands that the issue of GSA leasing 

and consistent and clear standards that are applied across the 

board is a really important issue that is very personal for the constituents, the people of the Fourth Congressional District. 

I represent Prince George’s and Montgomery Counties, located 

here right outside of Washington, D.C., in the national capital region. Unfortunately, these counties receive far less consideration 

from Federal leases than any other surrounding areas. And point 

in fact, that both of these counties in the State of Maryland really 

do employ some of the highest opportunities for transit-oriented development that is ecologically friendly, environmentally friendly, 

and makes sense in an urban area. And so, what we are considering here today is the consistency of those standards across the 

board so that all of our jurisdictions, and particularly Prince 

George’s and Montgomery County, are as competitive. 

I want to note—and the Committee has heard this testimony before—but Prince George’s County receives, actually, the fewest 

number of higher-class lease space compared to any other jurisdiction in the region when it comes to GSA property leasing. A couple 

of years ago, the University of Maryland did a study that actually 

showed that only 10.1 percent of GSA’s leases are within Prince 

George’s County, in this county’s borders, in this region. Moreover, 

those leases represent only 7.6 percent of the square feet leased 

through GSA in the region and only 4.1 percent of the total rent. 

What does this mean? Well, it is striking because it means that 

only 3.9 percent of the office space leased by GSA in this region is 

in Prince George’s County. 

The University of Maryland study goes on to say that, ‘‘However,’’ and I quote, ‘‘in Prince George’s County, warehouses make 

up 49.4 percent of the GSA’s leases.’’ 

And so I appreciate the study and refer to it often, but Prince 

George’s County didn’t need a study to confirm that it is being 

overlooked. And so this question of balancing out what the standards are and applying them across the board and making sure that 

they are uniform is really about making sure that, in this region 

and other regions, that economic development can take place 

throughout the region—positive economic development. 

And I have spent the last 2 years only since I have been in office 

trying to understand why this disparity could be the case. Prince 

George’s County has a multiple of Metro stops. In fact, the county 

has the highest number, the greatest number of Metro stops in the 

region, but has the fewest amount of leased space by GSA. And so, 

one has to wonder why this is. It is also the home, our county is, 

in Prince George’s County, to 25.7 percent of the region’s Federal 

workforce, but again, a disparity in lease space. 

8 

And when it comes to looking at these leases and looking at the 

changes in prospectus, particularly when it comes to things like 

safety considerations, even things like ceiling heights, one has to 

ask, what is going on here, and why is this disparity true? And I 

have tried to get these answers from GSA, and, to date, they have 

simply not been satisfactory. 

I hope I am wrong, and I would love for GSA to convince me otherwise, but the only answer that seems to make sense to me and 

to the people in our congressional district is that Prince George’s 

County is being overlooked on purpose. Every time a new situation 

comes up and GSA has a reason to not lease in Prince George’s 

County or a reason to put out a prospectus in such a way that it 

seems to favor one jurisdiction over another, it means that Prince 

George’s County is left out. And this is really unacceptable in the 

capital region. 

And so one of the issues that we are going to hear about today 

is setback standards. The setback standard is really important because it is important to considering the protection of not just part 

of our workforce, not just the DOD part of our workforce, but all 

of our workforce. And the reason that it is important to have a consistent standard that is applied across the board and that GSA applies is because, if every agency were allowed to create their own 

standard, then what would be the point? And the Federal Government, the taxpayer would, in fact, be spending so much more 

money than we need to on this leased space. 

And so, if it is a safety issue on a level 4 building, and that that 

can be waived, then what does that say about the safety and protection of our entire workforce? Why should only new buildings 

have that standard? 

So I look forward to hearing from the representatives of GSA and 

DHS on not just the setback standard requirements but the reasons for other changes that occur once a prospectus is sent out. 

And it has to be a good explanation. And, at long last, if this explanation can’t be made in policy and in practice, then I think it has 

to be changed in law. 

And so I want to thank you, Chairwoman Norton. I know we 

have had numerous conversations about this. And I think the time 

for talk is over. Prince George’s County, Montgomery County, this 

part of the region has waited way too long for an explanation that 

makes sense. 

Thank you very much. 

Ms. NORTON. Well, thank you, Ms. Edwards. 

And before I ask Mr. Johnson, a new Member of our Subcommittee, if he has any remarks before asking Mr. Moran just a 

few questions, I do want to say that Ms. Edwards is talking 

about—she doesn’t call it that; I will call it for her, because we 

have done some investigations—she is talking about documented 

discrimination. 

Ms. Edwards, we found some of that discrimination right here in 

the District of Columbia, not against parts of the District of Columbia that are poor or off-center, but against parts of the District of 

Columbia close to the Capitol, simply because they are not downtown on K Street. 

9 

The reason for this discrimination, we have found, is GSA caving 

into agency preferences. That is inimicable to the mission of GSA, 

and we have been at pains to correct it, including a standard that 

required GSA to come back to the Committee before changing the 

terms of the prospectus, only to find that, in the case of one Prince 

George’s County facility that was in fact competing, GSA did not 

come back because they interpreted it to mean that somehow they 

had to change the face prospectus. They simply amended the prospectus at the aegis of the agency so as to essentially make it impossible for Prince George’s County to compete. 

Anti-competitiveness is one thing this Subcommittee will not 

stand, even with respect to my own district, where many agencies 

prefer to be because it is the Nation’s capital. We sanction only 

competitiveness, and Members cannot get into the competitive 

process. But in the investigation of the particular Prince George’s 

County matter, we found discrimination so bad that they had to 

withdraw the RFP, the request for proposal. 

So Ms. Edwards is not just whistling Dixie, as they say. And it 

is important to understand how important it is that these matters 

be rationally explained. If you can’t explain it in our system, you 

are already in trouble. 

I am going to ask Mr. Johnson whether he has any opening comments. And I am pleased to welcome him to this Subcommittee. He 

is not a new Member of Congress, but he is new to this Subcommittee, and we are very pleased to have him as a Member. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. And thank you 

for hosting this important issue in this Committee. 

Today I drank a lot of hot tea and iced tea, getting ready for this 

hearing. This is my first Subcommittee hearing in Transportation 

and Infrastructure, and, quite frankly, I thought I might have a 

tough time keeping my head from banging the desk here, nodding 

off and everything. So I am wired up. 

And when I got here, I started listening to issues regarding 

smart growth and transit-oriented development and mixed-use 

urban planning. And these are all issues that, during my previous 

career as a county commissioner down in DeKalb County, Georgia, 

were frequently under discussion. 

And so I feel that, with my service on Armed Services Committee, where yesterday we had an authorization bill markup 

where we discussed issues of outsourcing versus insourcing and 

where it is clear that our Defense Department is insourcing—at 

substantial savings to taxpayers, I might add—and then I come to 

this meeting today and I hear that all of these conscientious and 

progressive land use plans that present a great quality of life for 

the people who live in urban and suburban environments and I 

hear how that interfaces with how our Federal Government handles the actual leasing of real estate and how that can hamper the 

savings that the taxpayers would enjoy from the insourcing of 

these functions and how that also has a detrimental impact on the 

land use policies that are so enlightened, I am now awakened to 

the importance of this Committee and what it is doing and what 

it is exploring today. 

And having heard from my colleague from Maryland, as she 

spoke about competition policy issues, well, I just happen to Chair 

10 

the Subcommittee on Courts and Competition Policy in the Judiciary Committee. And this is, indeed, competition policy that we 

have spoken of. And so I am pumped up and ready to go. 

And I will yield the balance of my time. Thank you. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much, Mr. Johnson. 

Mr. Moran, you are a senior Member of the Defense Appropriations Committee, is that not the case? 

Mr. MORAN. Yes, ma’am. 

Ms. NORTON. What are you in seniority on that Committee, sir? 

Mr. MORAN. I am third. 

Ms. NORTON. Third in seniority. 

Mr. MORAN. There is Mr. Dicks, Mr. Visclosky, and myself. 

Ms. NORTON. Well, then I think you could be considered something of an expert witness when I ask you this question. 

Occasionally, the appropriators will authorize something, almost 

always after talking to the authorizing Committee. And are you 

aware of any language from the Defense Appropriations Committee 

that authorizes a separate set of standards for all DOD facilities 

regardless of the mission and function of those facilities? 

Mr. MORAN. No. No, I am not. Well, I know we did not put anything in the Defense Appropriations bill that enabled DOD to carry 

out a separate set of standards. I think there is something in the 

authorization bill. I am not—— 

Ms. NORTON. Do you believe that what the DOD, the separate 

standards regardless of mission, is perhaps authorized in the D.C. 

authorization committee? 

Mr. MORAN. Well—— 

Ms. NORTON. By the defense authorization—defense—sorry—— 

Mr. MORAN. The Armed Services Committee. 

Ms. NORTON. Yes. 

Mr. MORAN. I know we didn’t put anything in the Defense Appropriations bill. But there is language that they intend to implement 

by 2014 that requires all buildings to be in compliance with the security standards. And that is one of the reasons that makes this 

hearing so urgent. 

I will hold on. 

There are standards that DOD intends to implement by 2014, 

and that is what makes this so urgent. Because when they do that, 

it is basically another BRAC process. Many DOD employees are 

going to have to move out of buildings that they are currently in, 

because those buildings don’t meet these standards. 

Basically, any building that is in an urban area, in D.C. or in 

Virginia, at least inside the Beltway, in D.C., Maryland, or Virginia, that is near a Metro station doesn’t meet these standards. 

The only way that you can get around it is to have less than 25 

percent of the building as DOD employees. So some of them, they 

are moving into other buildings. So they use that loophole, which, 

of course, is totally counterproductive to what they say they are 

trying to accomplish. 

Ms. NORTON. Sorry, what loophole is it again, Mr. Moran? 

Mr. MORAN. That the standards don’t apply if less than 25 percent of the occupants are DOD employees. So, you know, if the 

building, for example, is housing—half are DOD employees, they 

11 

will take half of that half, put it in another building someplace, so 

they can comply by using this loophole. 

Ms. NORTON. So they would then need another facility for people 

doing the same kind of work, spreading them out at yet another 

facility. 

Mr. MORAN. Absolutely, with less efficiency and greater expense. 

But there is no building, there is no commercial office building 

near a Metro station that can afford to be 82 feet away from an 

sidewalk, can afford not to allow public access, whether for retail 

activity, you know, a coffee shop, whatever it be, or a parking garage that some parts of the public don’t have access to. 

So, Ms. Edwards talked about Metro stations. And you have 

Metro stations, and I have Metro stations. That is where they 

should be, and yet they can’t be because of these DOD standards. 

And, by 2014, it is going to be as bad as BRAC was, in terms of 

moving all these DOD employees around just to meet these standards. 

Ms. NORTON. Now, let’s just follow up on that. BRAC employees, 

many of them are DOD employees. 

Mr. MORAN. Yeah. Well, all of them are. 

Ms. NORTON. The ones that are moving now to Fort Belvoir? 

Mr. MORAN. All of them are DOD employees. They took 20,000 

people out of this area, the urban area, where virtually all of them 

were in buildings that had access to Metro. So many of them were 

relying upon Metro or were living in walking distance. 

Ms. NORTON. So they are going to be—— 

Mr. MORAN. Now they have to get in an automobile and drive 

down to Fort Belvoir. 

Ms. NORTON. Now, they were in buildings that did not have— 

since this has been in effect since 2004—— 

Mr. MORAN. Yeah. They still are in those buildings, most of 

them. 

Ms. NORTON. They are still in those buildings. 

Mr. MORAN. Oh, yeah. But they have to move by—— 

Ms. NORTON. And they are in those buildings because the DOD 

didn’t have these setbacks at that time. 

Mr. MORAN. That is correct. 

Ms. NORTON. So it would be interesting to know why in the 

world these setbacks came after 2004. Similar employees of DOD 

today, such as those now being insourced to the government, could 

not occupy the same office space that the DOD employees going to 

Fort Belvoir, for other reasons, will occupy. 

Mr. MORAN. That is correct. 

And, of course, we would maintain that this kind of requirement 

falls under GSA’s authority. That is where the jurisdiction is. And 

it should be this Subcommittee that makes that determination, 

what level of standards are necessary within a building. 

And GSA does this all over the world. In New York City, for example, you have these iconic activities, but you can’t possibly have 

that kind of a setback, so GSA deals with it. 

Ms. NORTON. Well, I wonder if there are any Department of Defense facilities in New York City. You are right. I wonder if DOD 

has any facilities in New York and Philadelphia and L.A. And its 

environs, given these setbacks, or if it could even contemplate it. 

12 

Let me ask you another question based on your expertise, Mr. 

Moran, as a senior Member of the Defense Appropriations Committee. 

Do you believe that defense agencies, such as Defense Accounting, Defense Advanced Research Projects, and Defense Information 

Systems Agency, are sufficiently targeted or otherwise face threats 

that should require the taxpayers to put them in more secure facilities than they would occupy today in northern Virginia, the District 

of Columbia, and throughout the United States? 

Mr. MORAN. Madam Chairwoman, I think that it is important to 

have some security. The kind of security that GSA is providing, I 

think, is an appropriate level of security. 

In this area, it seems to me there are certain high-value targets 

for a terrorist: the White House, obviously; the Capitol; the Pentagon; the CIA. There are monuments that would be high-value 

targets. But to suggest to these agencies that—— 

Ms. NORTON. One of the things we are going to have to find out 

is if those agencies come under this. Does the CIA come under this? 

Mr. MORAN. No. No. 

Ms. NORTON. There is a target for you. 

Mr. MORAN. Well, yeah. And the Drug Enforcement Administration, it seems to me that could be a target. I mean, we are not just 

talking about terrorists that come from, you know, al Qaeda or 

whatever. There are terrorists involved with drug gangs. And DEA 

does some very sensitive, difficult work. Seems to me they could be 

targets. But they don’t have these same standards applied to them. 

And the agencies you mentioned—and, of course, there are other 

agencies—the Joint Military Medical Command that we are consolidating, the training and so on, I mentioned TRADOC—any 

number of these, most people have no idea what the acronym 

means; they don’t know where they are located. They conduct the 

same type of work that our other Federal employees do. It is supportive; it may be somewhat ancillary to warfighting, but it is important. But are they likely to be a target? I don’t think so. 

This was a unilateral decision made during the Rumsfeld administration without considering the ramifications, the consequences, 

and the costs. 

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Moran, let’s take your district as an example. 

Do you know whether there is space in northern Virginia that is 

reasonably enough priced to be competitive in a competition for 

Federal employees, DOD or otherwise? 

Mr. MORAN. The only way that you could find the kind of space 

that DOD is requiring—— 

Ms. NORTON. I am saying—I am sorry. I meant to say in existing 

space, not space with the setbacks, since you have testified that 

that kind of space doesn’t exist. 

Mr. MORAN. Right. 

Ms. NORTON. If DOD came under the ISC or regular government 

employee regulations, would there be reasonably priced lease space 

in northern Virginia that could be competed out if DOD didn’t have 

to comply with these standards? 

Mr. MORAN. Oh, if they didn’t have to comply, absolutely. If they 

have to comply with the standards, there is no space anywhere 

near Metro access. In other words—— 

13 

Ms. NORTON. In other words, they might have to build—if they 

wanted somebody to be near the Pentagon, then they might have 

to build something somewhere. And, of course, I am not sure where 

you do that. 

Mr. MORAN. They have to go way outside the Beltway, Madam 

Chairwoman. 

Ms. NORTON. They couldn’t build here very easily, because this 

is a built-up part of the region. 

Mr. MORAN. No. No owner or developer can afford to build a 

building 82 feet away from the road and the sidewalk and not have 

any retail space available to the public, not have any public parking, not have any of it. That is just so counter—it goes so counter 

to smart-growth planning, which all of our jurisdictions are trying 

to engage in. 

Ms. NORTON. I indicate that we are not here talking about all 

DOD space. We are saying, if you put ‘‘defense’’ in your title, that 

you can spend any amount of money, and we are certainly open— 

as I indicated, I am on the Homeland Security Committee—to a 

case for any function, even one that does seem to be, forgive the 

expression, a paper-pusher function. We are certainly open to the 

notion that, in fact, secure space may be required. We believe in 

the middle of a recession to leave space unfilled without explanation, to ask the government to pony up more money for space at 

a time when the Secretary is trying to take money down from arguably defense—real defense-related support services, we think that 

is a heavy burden, and we will be open to having that burden met, 

and certainly your testimony has been important to our understanding. 

I am going to ask Mr. Cao if he has questions at this time. 

Mr. CAO. Representative, I just have a couple of questions. 

Do you know how much security would be improved if we go 

from GSA standard to DOD standard? 

Mr. MORAN. I don’t think you measurably improve security. 

What GSA does, as you know, and as the Chairwoman has been 

very deeply involved, they apply more flexibility, more judgment, if 

you will. I know in some buildings in New York that would be clear 

targets, what they do is they have a setback, but it is enclosed 

within the building, so they will have a lobby, for example, that the 

developer is still able to charge for, but they don’t have actual offices there. The offices in the core of the building are more secure 

on the first two floors, and then the upper floors, which would not 

be vulnerable to, you know, a street—a car bomb or whatever— 

then they are glass-enclosed and so on, and you make full use of 

the space. 

But GSA takes the land that they are given, and then they figure 

out how best to secure these employees. Some of it is the parking, 

whether you can allow stationary, you know, standing parking or 

whatever in front of the building and so on. It is a matter of applying judgment to the building at hand. 

DOD takes, as you used the expression, a cookie-cutter approach. 

The same thing applies to every building without applying the kind 

of judgment that GSA has applied for years. What we are maintaining is that there is a lot of technology, that there is a lot of 

logistical planning. 

14 

For example, we have been developing glass mitigation technology so that the glass is diffused, and you don’t get the shattered 

glass and so on, and there is even glass technology where glass is 

not as likely to blow up into shards. 

All of those things, we think, should be taken into account, as 

GSA does and as developers want to. Unfortunately, DOD really 

doesn’t need to because they just simply say, you don’t give public 

access to the building. You need to have this enormous setback. 

You can’t have it next to a Metro stop. You can’t have public parking near it. You can’t have any retail activity, and you certainly 

can’t have any residential near it. So the good judgment that GSA 

normally applies doesn’t have to be applied by DOD and normally 

isn’t. No offense to the DOD folks here, but that is just the reality. 

So that is why we want these judgments to be under your Subcommittee, Madam Chairwoman and Members of the Subcommittee. 

Mr. CAO. Do you know of—I know that it is very hard to put a 

value on a human life, but do you know if any cost-versus-benefit 

analysis has been done? 

Mr. MORAN. There may be. I don’t know. Maybe organizations 

like Urban Land Institute or something have done some cost-benefit analyses. I don’t know, Mr. Cao. 

Now, the real cost is going to occur when the security standards 

are forced into implementation, and that is what the building owners are trying to figure out now, how they are going to move these 

DOD employees around to get under the loophole, and how they 

are going to extend leases or cancel other leases. Of course, then 

they turn to GSA to figure out how to fill the building, which they 

have vacated for these reasons, but I don’t know what the cost-benefit analysis might be. 

Mr. CAO. Thank you. I yield back. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you, Mr. Cao. 

Ms. Edwards. 

Ms. EDWARDS. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Moran. 

I just wanted to go back to something that you mentioned, and 

it has to do with the relative security value or not of a whole range 

of different government functions, and so I wonder—I mean, if you 

think about it, there have been instances in the recent past where 

we have seen assaults/attacks on military recruiting facilities, instances where the targets have been the Internal Revenue Service, 

instances where there have been DOD facilities. 

Depending on where a threat or other might come from, wouldn’t 

you agree that any number of government functions, depending on, 

you know, who is doing the threatening, could be a target, and so 

it makes much more sense then, much more common sense, for 

GSA to simply apply the standard in its regular protocol rather 

than having individual agencies create their own standards, and 

then have GSA in the position of having to figure that out among 

the various agencies? 

Mr. MORAN. Yes. 

Ms. NORTON. Ms. Edwards, I have been called to vote across the 

hall. You don’t have to take the chair to be in the Chair. Would 

you take the Chair until I return? 

15 

Ms. EDWARDS. Yes, Madam Chairwoman. 

Mr. MORAN. Madam Chairwoman, as you leave, thank you again 

for holding this hearing. 

The answer is yes. I would remind the Committee, I think you 

are aware, that the first real terrorism attack we experienced was 

against the CIA, for which these standards don’t apply. Who was 

it? I forget his name right now. ‘‘Ramzi’’ or something. He was a 

Pakistani individual who killed employees trying to come into the 

CIA building. You would think that CIA is still a target, and yet 

these standards don’t apply. Now, granted, the Agency has—there 

is a substantial setback off Route 123, but it would seem to make 

sense that you have a consistent standard across the board. 

As for the Department of Homeland Security, you would think 

some of those functions would be equally vulnerable to terrorist attack, and we have a number of intelligence agencies that are not 

actually part of the defense establishment, but would seem to be 

equally vulnerable. 

So I think the point that you make in your question is a very 

important one. 

Ms. EDWARDS. [Presiding.] Then, lastly, would you also agree 

that, within Armed Services—I mean, one of the things that you 

have been trying to do is to ensure that DOD, among agencies, also 

begins to operate with more environmental efficiency, and so balancing those interests, which, you know, various of our Committees 

have set as priorities and the administration has said is a priority, 

really compete against this notion of not being able to make the 

full utility of things like public transportation and 21st century 

urban planning techniques that really encourage that kind of transit-oriented development/smart growth principles that you spoke 

about. 

Mr. MORAN. Well, thank you, Ms. Edwards. You are absolutely 

right, and I am glad you raised that issue. 

As you know, everyone in the Washington metropolitan area subsidizes our transit system. We do it through property taxes, 

through other sources of revenue. We do it directly with Metro 

fares. We do it indirectly. Yet of these 20,000 employees who are 

moving because of BRAC and because of the security standards— 

both reasons—and because they are moving to a place that really 

doesn’t have public transit access, you are taking them out of the 

Metro system, which means other Metro users are going to have 

to pay higher fees to make up for that loss of Metro travelers. You 

are forcing them into their automobiles. 

The Army Corps of Engineers is here. When we requested a 

study a few years ago as to the impact that this would have on 395 

and on Route 1 in Fairfax County, they said you could have as 

much as a 3- to 4-hour backup. 

Now, some of the places have been rearranged, but nevertheless, 

it is going to be what will seem to be an interminable backup, 

which means all this exhaust is going into the atmosphere. It is delaying other employees trying to get to work. So all of that—the exhaust from their engines is going into the atmosphere. It is not taking good advantage of Metro; it is raising the cost for all other 

users of Metro, and a region that is already the second worst in 

congestion will probably now become the worst in congestion beVerDate Aug 31 2005 13:38 Sep 20, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00025 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\56587.0 KAYLA
16 

cause of this decision to move people out of Metro-accessible office 

buildings to a base that is already at a transportation condition 

that is failing on Route 1 and 395. 

Ms. EDWARDS. Thank you. 

So, again, going back to my earlier statement, just a reminder 

that with a quarter of the Federal employees in my district driving 

around the Beltway, we will, by policy, if we allow this really to 

take effect, exacerbate what you have described. 

I notice the Chairwoman is back and has assumed the Chair, and 

I think we are ready for Mr. Johnson. 

Ms. NORTON. [presiding.] Thank you very much, Ms. Edwards. 

Mr. Johnson, have you any questions? 

Mr. JOHNSON OF GEORGIA. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. 

I would ask Mr. Moran: Do you know when the first DOD minimum antiterrorism standards for buildings was first promulgated? 

Mr. MORAN. It was promulgated at the time of the 2005 BRAC 

decision, so there were two things. 

Secretary Rumsfeld decided he wanted to move people out of 

metropolitan areas onto military bases, and he wanted these additional standards to apply. My recollection is it was almost simultaneous, and it had two different implementation dates, 2011 being 

the implementation date for BRAC. I think the security standard 

was extended somewhat, but that will also take place shortly thereafter, and it has been a few years, but we are not ready to accommodate it. When it is implemented, it will be at the 11th hour because the requirement for the building plus the transportation infrastructure that was supposed to be in place is not in place. 

Mr. JOHNSON OF GEORGIA. Yes. 

The changes that were issued in 2007, January of 2007, were 

they less or more restrictive in terms of land use policies and those 

types of things? 

Mr. MORAN. I don’t think there was—I don’t think there was 

much practical change. There was an extension of time, but I 

think, for the most part, we still have the setbacks. We had wanted—and I tried to put some language in and couldn’t get the agreement of the House and Senate together—but to put some language 

in that would have left this for GSA to decide, but we have been 

unsuccessful in doing so. This is as far as we have gotten, frankly, 

because this is the Subcommittee of jurisdiction. 

Mr. JOHNSON OF GEORGIA. So these DOD requirements have not 

yet gone into effect? 

Mr. MORAN. No, but all are aware of it. They go into effect in 

terms of new leasing. So when DOD has to secure new leasing, 

they apply these standards; but for existing leases, they are waiting until the lease expires to move people, but they all have to be 

done no matter what, and I believe the date is sometime by 2014. 

I think it is like the drop dead date. 

Mr. JOHNSON OF GEORGIA. So there still exists some time to, perhaps, streamline—well, I won’t say ‘‘streamline’’—but amend the 

DOD standards as well as the GSA standards to, perhaps, provide 

for different levels of security, if you will, depending on the building in question? 

Mr. MORAN. That is a good point. 

17 

There is an interagency security standards group, and they have 

been working with GSA, and they determine different security 

standards for buildings, but they are not—DOD has its own. 

What we would hope is that that interagency security group 

would determine the necessary building security standards for all 

agencies just across the board. So it would be consistent, and the 

judgment would be applied, and they would, you know, reflect that 

judgment in terms of the vulnerability of individual agencies and 

the building where it is located, and the efficiencies of where the 

personnel ought to be, and even the type of congestion within a 

metropolitan area that ought to be taken into account. 

Mr. JOHNSON OF GEORGIA. Well, thank you, Congressman Moran. 

I would say that I got a call last year from a property owner in 

my district—and a businessman in my district—who was leasing 

property to the Armed Forces for purposes of recruitment, a recruitment office basically, and his office building was threatened by 

the imminent departure of that agency, which made up one of his 

strongest tenants, and it was, of course, in the midst of this economic downturn. I don’t know what has happened to him as a result of this building being pulled out from by the armed services, 

but those are the kinds of real human problems that we are faced 

with. Quite frankly, if he has lost that building in bankruptcy, 

there is another empty building somewhere sitting vacant. There 

are a number of janitors and support staff people who are out of 

work, and certainly it seems like this should not be rocket science 

to get figured out and to put some reasonable procedures in place 

that would satisfy all needs. 

So I thank you again for holding this hearing, Madam Chairwoman, and I yield back. 

Ms. NORTON. I thank the gentleman for yielding. 

I think they are ready for another vote. 

I am going to ask the next witnesses to come forward, and excuse 

Mr. Moran not only because he has finished his very important and 

informative testimony, but to thank him, because we often have 

Members come to testify. 

You have played a dual role here, Mr. Moran, as a witness who 

has seen the operation of the very guidance that is under scrutiny 

here, and, of course, as an expert witness from the defense appropriations committee. We can’t thank you enough for being willing 

to come and to testify. 

Mr. MORAN. Well, as I said, Madam Chairwoman, our objective 

is to get this issue under the jurisdiction of your Subcommittee. 

That is where we have confidence that it will be resolved appropriately. 

Ms. NORTON. And that is unusual. Defense appropriators don’t 

want to usually get things anywhere else. 

There will be a 5-minute recess while I go to vote. I am going 

to vote in Committee, where I can vote. Unfortunately, I can’t yet 

accompany Mr. Moran to vote on the House floor even on what this 

Committee sends to the House floor. I will be back. 

A 5-minute recess. 

[Recess.] 

Ms. NORTON. The hearing will reconvene. 

18 

I am pleased to welcome panel 2: Sue Armstrong, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Infrastructure Protection, Department of Homeland Security; Michael McAndrew, Director, Facility Investment & 

Management, Office of the Deputy Under Secretary for Defense, Installations and Environment at the Department of Defense. 

May I thank the Deputy for Legislative Affairs, Lowell Exum, 

Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, House side, House affairs, 

legislative affairs, for working with my office to make sure that the 

Department of Defense is represented here today. 

Samuel Morris, III, Assistant Commissioner, Office of Real Estate Acquisition, U.S. General Services Administration. 

Let us begin with Ms. Armstrong. 

TESTIMONY OF SUE ARMSTRONG, DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR INFRASTRUCTURE PROTECTION, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY; MICHAEL McANDREW, DIRECTOR, FACILITY INVESTMENT & MANAGEMENT, OFFICE 

OF THE DEPUTY UNDER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE, INSTALLATIONS AND ENVIRONMENT, DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE; 

AND SAMUEL (CHIP) MORRIS, PUBLIC BUILDINGS SERVICE 

ASSISTANT COMMISSIONER, GENERAL SERVICES ADMINISTRATION 

Ms. ARMSTRONG. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, distinguished 

Members of the Committee and staff. It is a pleasure to appear before you today to discuss the work of the Interagency Security 

Committee, or ISC. 

Chaired by the Assistant Secretary for Infrastructure Protection, 

the ISC is mandated to develop standards, policies and best practices for enhancing the quality and effectiveness of physical security in, and the protection of, the over 300,000 nonmilitary Federal 

facilities located within the United States. 

The ISC was created as a direct result of the tragic April 19, 

1995, attack on the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, the deadliest attack on U.S. soil before September 11, 

2001, and the worst domestic terrorist attack in U.S. history. 

Since the transfer of the chair of the ISC to the Office of Infrastructure Protection in August 2, 0007, the ISC has published several new and innovative products to increase security at Federal facilities. For example, in March 2008, the ISC developed and published the Facility Security Level Determinations for Federal Facilities, which defines criteria and the processes the facilities 

should use to determine its facility security level, which helps to 

define the level of security appropriate for the facility based upon 

an assessment of various risks. 

In addition, in June 2009, in accordance with the recommendation from the Government Accountability Office, the ISC developed 

and published the use of physical security performance measures, 

the first Federal policy guidance published about performance 

measures for physical security programs and testing procedures. 

Finally, on April 12, 2010, the ISC moved to the final stage of 

a comprehensive, multiyear effort to compile lessons learned and 

countermeasures for threats to federally owned and leased facilities, published in the interim Physical Security Criteria for Federal 

Facilities and the accompanying Design-Basis Threat Report. These 

19 

documents are the most comprehensive standards for Federal facilities created to date, and they provide a consistent basis for establishing facilities’ physical security standards at civilian Federal 

facilities. The goal of these documents and the ISC’s continuing 

work is to strengthen the standards and processes used to keep 

visitors and employees safe while at Federal facilities. 

I look forward to discussing this work with you in greater detail 

and to answering any questions you may have. Thank you. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you, Ms. Armstrong. 

Mr. McAndrew. 

Mr. MCANDREW. Madam Chairwoman, distinguished Members 

and staff, I want to thank you for extending the invitation to the 

Department of Defense for being able to come here and discuss our 

minimum antiterrorism standards for buildings. 

In the late 1990’s, the Department of Defense developed common 

guidance criteria and minimum construction standards to mitigate 

vulnerabilities from terrorist attack. The development of the DOD 

antiterrorism standards has been a collaborative effort of our Security Engineering Working Group that is made up of members from 

the Office of Secretary of Defense, the Joint Staff, our military 

services, our Army Corps of Engineers, Naval Facilities Engineering Command, the Air Force Civil Engineer Support Agency, the 

Defense Threat Agency, and several other agencies, to include some 

outside agencies that are invited in periodically. 

The focus of the antiterrorism standards is to minimize the likelihood of mass casualties from terrorist attacks on buildings occupied by DOD personnel, primarily through standoff distance, prevention of progressive collapse and the production of fragmentation 

hazards. 

At the time the standards were developed, there was concern 

over the ridged requirements for a standoff distance and for the applicability of the standard to leased facilities. We eventually resolved these issues by defining the effective standoff distance requirement being incorporated into our guidance, and it was also decided that DOD personnel in leased facilities would be given the 

same protection as DOD employees on military installations. 

The effective standoff requirement enables the minimum standoff 

to be reduced if the building can be analyzed or hardened to give 

an equivalent level of protection through other measures. This can 

result in a much more expansive solution, but it does give an alternative in cases of restrictive land availability. 

This also encourages the development of new technologies for 

building hardening. Rather than itself being a policy, the DOD 

minimum antiterrorism standards for buildings is an engineering 

document that implements the overarching policy to minimize the 

likelihood of mass casualties from terrorist attacks on buildings occupied with DOD personnel. 

The DOD antiterrorism standards are objectively calculated in 

response to a specific spectrum of threats. These common criteria 

and minimum construction standards are calculated by engineers 

to mitigate injuries and the damage of predictable attacks. Building materials used to mitigate blast effects have been tested by 

DOD laboratories and by laboratories of some of our international 

20 

partners and universities. They are either tested in open arenas 

against real explosives or in blast simulators. 

Once materials have been tested, design guidance is developed so 

that the engineers can apply it in their designs. New technologies 

are continuously being evaluated, and standards are continuously 

being scrutinized to ensure that we have the right solutions and 

the right standards for protecting the people who live and work in 

the buildings we own, lease or otherwise occupy. 

As part of these valuations, the cost of materials in providing the 

appropriate levels of protection are evaluated to ensure that we are 

providing the most cost-effective solutions possible for protecting 

our people. 

As the Department developed the standards, it is understood 

that many existing leased properties, many of which are located in 

the Washington, D.C., area, would not meet the DOD antiterrorism 

standards. For this reason, the application of the standards to 

leased buildings was phased in to correspond to lease renewals 

after September 2009. 

In summary, the DOD antiterrorism standards for buildings represent an objective, empirical engineering analysis to save lives 

and mitigate the damage of specific threats as identified by the Intelligence Community. The sensitive nature of these threat assessments precludes discussing them in open forum, and as the threats 

to DOD buildings change, so do our standards. 

That concludes my remarks. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much, Mr. McAndrew. 

Mr. Morris. 

Mr. MORRIS. Good afternoon, Chairwoman Norton and Members 

of the Subcommittee. Thank you for inviting me to discuss the risk 

balance for protecting Federal employees and the implementation 

of DOD’s antiterrorism standard for GSA-leased facilities. 

GSA is responsible for safeguarding approximately 1 million Federal tenants housed in our facilities nationwide. Our buildings 

must be secure and, at the same time, inviting places for the occupants and the public visitors. After the bombing of the Murrah 

Building in Oklahoma City, our country recognized the need for 

better security and protection in buildings housing the Federal 

workforce. Consequently, increased security standards were developed and implemented to protect Federal employees in all federally 

occupied space, both owned and leased. 

Recognizing that there are security trade-offs in any designated 

space, GSA has actively participated in the development of these 

security standards promulgated by the Interagency Security Committee, also known as the ISC. Prior to the Oklahoma City bombing, the government’s building security standards focused on preventing theft and unauthorized entry into Federal facilities. The 

Department of Justice subsequently completed a security assessment that led to the establishment of security standards for all 

Federal facilities. 

In October 1995, Executive Order 12977 established the Interagency Security Committee. The Executive Order was issued to enhance the quality and effectiveness of security in and protection of 

buildings and facilities occupied by Federal employees for nonmilitary activities. 

21 

The ISC established the Lease Security Subcommittee in 2003 to 

develop a distinct set of standards of leased facilities. The Subcommittee issued the Security Standards for Leased Space in 2005. 

Last month, the ISC issued a new set of interim standards, entitled Physical Security Criteria for Federal Facilities. The new interim standards provide an integrated single source of physical security standards for all nonmilitary Federal facilities, including 

both owned and leased space. These interim standards recognize 

the security threats vary from one facility to another as such agencies can now customize security countermeasures to address identified risk at each facility. The interim standards supersede the previous standards set by the Department of Justice and the ISC. 

GSA will be developing leasing guidance to adhere to the new interim ISC standards as well as updating our solicitation of offers 

for lease procurements. The guidance will be finalized once the interim ISC standards are finalized. 

As the ISC standards apply to nonmilitary activities, DOD created its own security standards in October 2003 with the issuance 

of the Unified Facilities Criteria: DOD Minimum Antiterrorism 

Standards for Buildings. These standards apply to DOD facilities 

for new construction and leases executed after October 1, 2005. 

DOD security standards have historically been independent and 

separate from the standards set for other agencies governed by the 

ISC security criteria. GSA currently adheres to these standards for 

DOD lease procurements, and it will continue to work with DOD 

to refine their customer requirements. 

In implementing security standards, GSA works with each agency on a case-by-case basis to define their space and security requirements. GSA also relies on the Federal Protective Service to 

conduct security assessments for its leased facilities. For any agency customer, the security measures required can vary greatly depending on factors such as the tenant agency mission, the location 

and the size of the project. 

For example, setback requirements typically result in additional 

land acquisition cost, especially in urban areas, a point you have 

well made. If physical limitations prevent the setbacks that are required, other mitigating factors, including hardening the building 

shell, may be used, but that also comes at a price. Cost is an important consideration when implementing security recommendations and security countermeasures. Under the new ISC standards, 

any decision not to implement a recommended countermeasure is 

supposed to include a documented acceptance of risk by the customer agency. 

I think the burden of customer agency officials, assuming that 

risk, so to speak, versus following the security recommendations 

will prove to be a difficult thing to overcome. GSA considers all of 

these factors when working with our customer agencies to provide 

secure facilities for our tenants and a welcoming atmosphere for 

the public visitors who use those facilities. 

That concludes my testimony, Madam Chairwoman. Thank you 

again for inviting me to appear before you today, and I would be 

happy to answer any questions that you might have. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you, Mr. Morris. 

22 

I thank all of you for your testimony because it has made it possible for us to understand, even in advance of questions, some of 

what you have been trying to do. 

Now I am looking at the members who, under Executive Order, 

are representing 21 agencies, the agencies under Executive Order, 

which apparently had a role, Ms. Armstrong, in helping DHS to design the so-called ISC guidelines, one of them is the Department 

of Defense. 

Ms. ARMSTRONG. Yes, ma’am. DOD is a primary member of the 

Interagency Security Committee. 

Ms. NORTON. Even though the Department of Defense has exempted itself from the ISC regulations and guidance? 

Ms. ARMSTRONG. Well, the original Executive Order from 1995 

specified the primary membership of the ISC and included the Department of Defense. There are currently—— 

Ms. NORTON. That would seem to imply that the President of the 

United States at the time and his administration—President 

Bush—considered DOD a proper recipient of these guidelines. 

If the DOD is included in the agencies required to design the 

guidance, how at the same time can DOD have everything to say 

for every other agency, having had its licks on every other agency, 

saying, we are now exempt? Would you explain how DHS has allowed that to occur and whether it is rational as a way of treating 

DOD. You are ‘‘in’’ when it comes to every agency. You are ‘‘out’’ 

when it comes to any agency that is a DOD agency. 

Ms. ARMSTRONG. Well, ma’am, I was not around when this Executive Order was issued in October of 1995 by President Clinton, 

but it does, in the same document, specify membership of the ISC, 

but it is specific to nonmilitary Federal facilities for the ISC—— 

Ms. NORTON. Well, that is important. It says ‘‘nonmilitary.’’ You 

say ‘‘nonmilitary,’’ and you are, in fact, relating to the preface, the 

DHS preface, for the ISC guidelines. 

We would like to know how ‘‘nonmilitary’’ got translated into 

non-Department of Defense. The word ‘‘military’’ has a special 

meaning in our country. How does that come to mean—you or Mr. 

McAndrew would be helpful in having us understand this. 

We don’t in this country use ‘‘defense’’ and ‘‘military’’ interchangeably, Mr. McAndrew, for a very good reason, given our traditions. If the Executive Order required DHS to use the word ‘‘nonmilitary,’’ who gave the authority to DHS, to the 21 agencies or 

anybody else, to translate that to mean ‘‘non-Defense Department,’’ 

which is a much broader term than ‘‘nonmilitary’’? 

Mr. MCANDREW. I can take a shot at that, ma’am. 

It also responds to some of the questions that came up during 

Congressman Moran’s testimony. 

Our authority for doing our own standards, as it were, is rested 

in 10 U.S.C. 2859, where it directed the Secretary—— 

Ms. NORTON. Would you cite that again, please? 

Mr. MCANDREW. Section 2859 of 10 U.S.C., United States Code. 

It directed the Secretary of Defense to come up with our own criteria and guidance for doing force protection, antiterrorism force 

protection. 

Ms. NORTON. What was the Committee that directed you to do 

this? 

23 

Mr. MCANDREW. House Armed Services. 

Ms. NORTON. What was the date? 

Mr. MCANDREW. You know, I didn’t research that, but it had to 

be around the 1996–1997 time frame. I just didn’t research that 

time frame. 

Ms. NORTON. So you believe that you have statutory authority to 

translate the Executive Order to mean anything that is DOD? 

Mr. MCANDREW. I will go on to say that you are absolutely correct. The term ‘‘military,’’ in use, is something very specific. 

In 10 U.S.C. 2687, a document that we use a lot for basing decisions when we are not doing BRAC, has a definition of what a military installation is, and it specifically includes the use of the term 

‘‘leased space’’ that DOD occupies. So technically when we lease a 

space or lease a building, it becomes a military installation, according to that statute. So that is where our interpretation comes 

where people start using the terms ‘‘military’’ and ‘‘military installations.’’ 

Ms. NORTON. So we are dealing with a definitional problem here, 

and you believe that you are authorized to spend whatever is necessary through this translation. So, therefore, I am going to have 

to ask you whether or not you take threat or risk into account or 

whether or not the DOD has ever done any risk assessment of the 

Defense Accounting Agency or the Defense Information Systems 

Agency. Have you any risk assessment with respect to whether 

they could be targets or whether there are threats in any way? I 

would like to know as well whether any risk assessment, since 

there is now an ongoing procurement, has been done with respect 

to Medical Command. 

Mr. MCANDREW. I will have to probably take some of that for the 

record. I am fairly certain that we did do the risk assessments, but 

I would have to find out where those are. It is part of the procurement process that we go through. 

Ms. NORTON. So your testimony here today is that it is the practice of the Defense Department, regardless of the fact that they 

have a blanket authorization, you say, to use your own special regulations. Nevertheless, you say, you do a risk or a threat analysis 

for each and every one of these administrative agencies before deciding that they, in fact, come under this guidance. 

If you do it, I don’t know why you are doing it. You are wasting 

your time, Mr. McAndrew. I wouldn’t bother if I were you. If I believed that there was statutory authority to take anything that has 

‘‘defense’’ in its title and require 148-foot setbacks as opposed to 50- 

foot setbacks, or 148-foot setbacks here as opposed to 100-foot setbacks in Kenya, I wouldn’t bother with the threat analysis. What 

a waste of time. Just put in the word ‘‘defense,’’ since you think you 

have the authority to do so. I don’t know why you would do risk 

or threat analysis at all. 

Mr. MCANDREW. I am sorry? 

Ms. NORTON. Yes, sir. 

I would like to know whether you do it for each and every one 

of these agencies, these civilian defense agencies, and, if you do, 

why you do it since you believe you have blanket authority to use 

these setbacks and other requirements in your own regulations. 

24 

Mr. MCANDREW. We set out some very specific guidance on how 

we do our analysis and why we do our analysis, and those analyses, they actually drive whether or not we need 148-foot setbacks, 

82-foot setbacks or not. Those are minimum standards. They are 

not locked in concrete where people think they have to—— 

Ms. NORTON. So are there some DOD facilities where you have 

now or intend to use setbacks less than the setbacks in the force 

protection? 

Mr. MCANDREW. I am sure there are, ma’am. I am sure there 

are. 

Ms. NORTON. Would you name some that you intend—— 

Mr. MCANDREW. I would have to go back and look at the DARPA 

building that they are going to be constructing now. 

Ms. NORTON. Would you get to this Committee within 14 days 

the names of some which you think may not require the setbacks, 

and I would like to know if Medical Command would be one of 

them. 

Mr. McAndrew, you are really talking to a Member of the Homeland Security Committee, who sits right here in target number one 

except for New York City. That is why, when the Homeland Security Committee was only a select Committee, I was made a Member of that Committee. I spent a lot of my time on homeland security—I am sure not as much as you because you are Defense Department—but I have to tell you that it bothers the Homeland Security Committee when there is any trivialization of what ‘‘homeland security’’ means, because we think people are too quick to forget 9/11, and we understood, before 9/11, when we had not been attacked, that people had one sense of security. After 9/11, we found 

people going too far the other way. They tried to close down the 

streets of the District of Columbia. 

We recognize that we are all learning. As a Member of the Committee, I am still learning. 

I want to ask you the question I asked Homeland Security, the 

very chairmen of the 9/11 committee this week. They came before 

our Homeland Security Committee. They are Governor Kean— 

former Governor Kean of New Jersey—and Lee Hamilton, a former 

member of the Defense Authorization Committee. I simply asked 

them, since we have put into law virtually everything that they 

recommended, whether they believed—I didn’t talk about what we 

were going to discuss in this hearing. I simply asked them an open 

question. Given their experience, given what they had learned in 

closed hearings, I asked them whether or not they believed that 

cost was adequately considered in what we have done since 9/11 in 

relation to risk, and it was very interesting to hear these two most 

experienced Americans in that regard. 

The first thing Lee Hamilton said was, you know, we have never 

been asked that question, and it is time we were asked this question. They said they thought money was being wasted in securing 

the people of the United States, that they believed that cost was 

seldom taken into effect in relation to benefit. They did not have 

the Defense Department in mind, and I certainly didn’t ask them 

specifically, but I was very concerned at a time of unacceptable 

deficits, of the great call on the administration for funds, and an 

unemployment rate that remains stubbornly high that both memVerDate Aug 31 2005 13:38 Sep 20, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00034 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\56587.0 KAYLA
25 

bers—Mr. Kean and Mr. Hamilton—were quick to say that we are 

past the time when we need to look at, finally, doing some cost-benefit analysis. 

I wonder if you believe it would be appropriate for every agency, 

in doing their analyses of what to spend on facilities, to include a 

cost-benefit analysis among other factors that they consider. 

Mr. MCANDREW. Madam Chairwoman, absolutely. 

Any time we procure or any agency procures anything that uses 

taxpayer dollars, they should be doing the cost-benefit analysis, 

and we take that into consideration even when we do our own construction and leasing, you know, whether we require setbacks or 

whether we require more hardening of the building. Each one of 

those has different costs, but they also serve different purposes for 

solving different threat assessments and threat mitigation. 

So, yes, cost is a factor, but sometimes, you know, we have to 

balance the availability of that land versus the hardening of the facility itself, and how you harden a facility. So we do take that into 

consideration. We are very serious about it. We have a whole center dedicated for just doing that kind of analysis. 

Ms. NORTON. I notice that your standards say the costs associated with those levels of protection must be or are assumed to be 

less than the physical and intangible costs associated with incurring mass casualties. 

Would you say that that standard has been applied to Defense 

Accounting or to Medical Command? Do you truly believe that we 

could incur mass casualties there with any reasonable kind of costbenefit analysis compared to other DOD facilities? 

Mr. MCANDREW. The view of the Department is the threat to our 

people is the same wherever they are, whether they are in leased 

space—— 

Ms. NORTON. Because the word ‘‘defense’’ is in the title? 

Mr. MCANDREW. No, ma’am. The basis of our policy is that we 

treat all of our people the same regardless of where we house them, 

whether it is on a military installation or off. 

Ms. NORTON. Well then, what is the point of this threat? You see, 

time and time again, Mr. McAndrew, I don’t even understand why 

you need—you don’t need these guidelines. What is this, all window dressing? Associated with incurring mass casualties. Then 

your answer to me is, hey, whenever it is DOD, we apply the same 

to everybody. 

Mr. MCANDREW. We apply the same threat to everybody. 

Ms. NORTON. But is everyone under the same threat, Mr. 

McAndrew? Are the people who are in some of your very secure facilities—and you know the ones I mean. I am not going to call them 

out—are they under the same threat as the Medical Command, as 

the physicians who are in an administrative capacity for whom you 

are seeking space now? 

Mr. MCANDREW. In our view, they are. 

Ms. NORTON. What? The Contract Audit Agency, the Finance and 

Accounting Service, the Defense Imagery and Mapping Agency. All 

of those should be grouped together. 

If they should be grouped together, if that is your testimony, 

would you explain to me why you need bother with any regulations 

at all? Since you have one blanket standard for everybody, why 

26 

waste your time? You have not told me, Mr. McAndrew, why—if 

you apply it blanketly, why it is necessary to go any further than 

simply that blanket application? 

Mr. MCANDREW. Because the threat itself, ma’am, has got to be 

tempered with the risk involved to that agency. There are risks 

and threats. They are two different things. The ‘‘threat’’ is a threat. 

The risk—how you mitigate the risk and what—— 

Ms. NORTON. Is the risk to the National Imagery and Mapping 

Agency greater or less than the risk to the CIA, which comes under 

the standards that Ms. Armstrong has developed? 

Mr. MCANDREW. Depending on where they are sited and the type 

of building they are in, they are probably—— 

Ms. NORTON. I am talking about where they are sited now. 

Mr. MCANDREW. They are less risk because they have got the 

standoff. They have got the physical security things. 

Ms. NORTON. Who has it? The Medical Command doesn’t have it. 

Mr. MCANDREW. No, not the Medical Command. The CIA. 

Ms. NORTON. The what? 

Mr. MCANDREW. It is the high-end security folks you are talking 

about—NEMA. 

Ms. NORTON. Does the Defense Audit Agency have the 148-foot 

setback? 

Mr. MCANDREW. It depends on the facility they are in, ma’am. 

I don’t know what facility they are in. They may only have—— 

Ms. NORTON. If they don’t, will you be looking for more space for 

the Defense Audit Agency? 

Mr. MCANDREW. No, I wouldn’t. 

Ms. NORTON. If they don’t have the 148-foot setback, will you be 

looking for other space that does have 148? 

Mr. MCANDREW. That is only one factor. No, ma’am. That alone 

does not drive them to move. 

Ms. NORTON. Are you aware that you cannot find 148-foot setbacks in the District of Columbia, Northern Virginia and Montgomery County, among other places in the United States, New 

York City? I won’t go across. 

Do you understand that this standard cannot be applied for most 

leased buildings in the places where the Federal Government 

leases today? 

Mr. MCANDREW. The setback one, yes, ma’am, I am fully aware 

of it. 

Ms. NORTON. What do you intend to do about it? 

Mr. MCANDREW. We have policy in place within the Defense criteria. The UFC criteria allows you to reduce that footprint in order 

to augment—— 

Ms. NORTON. Have you reduced that footprint yet at all for any 

facility? 

Mr. MCANDREW. I am sure we have, and I will get you that information you asked for earlier. 

Ms. NORTON. I would appreciate it. 

It appears to me, Mr. McAndrew, that unless you are prepared 

for waiver after waiver, you will have to forgo your own guidelines 

unless you mean to spend taxpayers’ funds on building facilities in 

rural areas that are not in proximity to public transportation, and 

I ask you to simply take that under advisement. 

27 

I appreciate your being here. You knew that I had more questions for you than for others, but we have got to understand this, 

especially since GSA—Mr. Morris—says, you know, we just salute. 

That is one of my problems with GSA. We just salute. We do whatever they tell us to do. 

You do what HHS told you to do when you ignored the guidelines 

of this Committee and redlined Ms. Edwards’ district, and you do 

exactly what these folks tell you to do—and I must ask you—even 

though you know it will be difficult to find facilities reasonably 

priced without building them; isn’t that the case, Mr. Morris? 

If you were told by Mr. McAndrew, as you have now been told 

by his agency, to go out and find Medical Command, wouldn’t that 

put a great burden on you to find space at reasonable cost to the 

taxpayers in the usual places where the Medical Command, for example, now is located and would expect to be located? 

Mr. MORRIS. Well, it can definitely have an impact. I think the 

Medical Command procurement is a consolidation of a number of 

parts that are currently housed not only in leased space, but in 

some government-owned space. So with the setback requirements 

that DOD requires—— 

Ms. NORTON. Well, heaven help them in government-owned 

space, because if there are not setbacks in spaces that are more recently built, name me some government-owned space which has 

been built with 148-foot setbacks. 

Mr. MORRIS. Well, I think they are pulling those different components from locations around the country. Part of that is a BRAC 

consolidation. 

And yes, complying with the requirements does pose a burden on 

trying to find adequate space. I think that we have been able to 

do that with this particular procurement. I know it is under way 

now, and I believe the requirements in the prospectus that—or before the Committee now—calls for the use of existing space. So we 

won’t be building new construction. It will be—— 

Ms. NORTON. So you have been able to find a 148-foot setback, 

you believe, for Medical Command? 

Mr. MORRIS. I believe so, yes, ma’am. 

Ms. NORTON. And you believe you have been able to find it within this region? 

Mr. MORRIS. Yes, ma’am. 

Ms. NORTON. And close to public transportation? Because that 

also is a GSA requirement. 

Mr. MORRIS. Right. The proximity to public transportation had to 

be relaxed for that procurement from what we normally do. That 

is a problem. 

Ms. NORTON. Have you, Mr. McAndrew, or you, Mr. Morris, 

alerted proprietors or authorizers of potentially greater cost under 

the 2004 guidelines for DOD? Have you alerted your authorizers or 

appropriators of that possibility? 

Mr. MCANDREW. Ma’am, we have. In fact, it is inside the UFC, 

too, that it is very clear that come with the mitigation for the risks 

and the threats comes an additional cost, a premium on whatever 

we build. Even within our military construction, it has been—and 

it is highlighted on 1391—about a 3 to 7 percent premium over the 

traditional conventional construction we do. 

28 

Ms. NORTON. And you believe that that cost is justifiable across 

the board for DOD facilities? 

Mr. MCANDREW. Yes, ma’am. We have been justifying it since 

about 1999, yes, ma’am. 

Ms. NORTON. Well, I will tell you that Mr. Moran had not heard 

about it, and he felt strongly enough to come to this Committee, 

so you are going to have your opportunity to justify it before your 

own appropriators. 

I didn’t hear about it, Mr. Morris, from you, from GSA, but I certainly learned of it when the word got around from the RFP going 

out. 

Have you advised DOD on the delta in costs, that it is likely to 

occur since you are the agent, if not the designer, of their guidance? Do you feel you have any responsibility to point out the risks 

and costs and otherwise, or to in any way, as the government’s 

chief real estate agent, advise DOD, given your expertise, of alternatives to a blanket use regardless of mission, of these setbacks 

and other requirements? And the setbacks are only one of the requirements. Do you have any responsibility here? 

Mr. MORRIS. Oh, I think we do. And I think we—on any particular procurement, we engage in a cost analysis on, especially, inherently governmental security requirements. Even under our 

OMB guidelines, we have to estimate what those costs are going 

to be. 

Now, that may vary from one particular project to another. For 

instance, I have been familiarizing myself with the Medical Command prospectus requirements in anticipation of this hearing. And 

I note that the rental rate cap set forth in the prospectus is $40 

a square foot, which is up a dollar from what is normal in northern 

Virginia, at $39 a square foot. So I am sure a part of that cost increase is attributable to the DOD security requirements. 

But even in other Federal agency procurements, when we have 

to look at the cost for the A-11 government security requirements, 

we have to advise the agencies, because they typically have to fund 

those costs up front. And so, when we are, for instance, doing a 

procurement for an FBI field office, a law enforcement agency that 

has extensive security requirements, they have to look at those 

costs and have the money available in hand when we get ready to 

do one of those procurements to fund those security costs. 

And, quite frankly, we are seeing pressure from other agencies 

now when we go through this exercise trying to find alternative 

countermeasures to what they typically have been asking for, especially in terms of setback requirements, to see how we can accommodate that security risk level in other ways. So we are seeing 

more and more of that from our customer agencies. 

Ms. NORTON. Now, you say, oh, well, we have found some Medical Command; of course, we have to waive the distance from 

Metro. Are you saying that you believe that with ease you can find 

DOD facilities under these regulations in the future—— 

Mr. MORRIS. No, ma’am. 

Ms. NORTON. —in this or any other part of the United States, in 

urban or suburban areas? 

Mr. MORRIS. No, ma’am. I think it is especially difficult to find 

those kind of available sites in urban areas. It is difficult to do. It 

29 

is especially difficult in light of the administration’s directive under 

the greenhouse gas Executive order and the increased emphasis on 

locating facilities in urban areas and near public transportation. It 

is hard to do, and there is a cost. 

Ms. NORTON. So is this a realistic standard, Mr. Morris, if you 

are looking for space in this region or in the New York region or 

in the Chicago region, where many of our facilities are located? 

Mr. MORRIS. I think you have to really look at the particular 

agencies being housed—— 

Ms. NORTON. No, wait a minute. You are not going to get out of 

this this way. Because if your testimony is you have to look at the 

particular agency, I will give that to Mr. McAndrew right here and 

now. I am not here, as a Member of the Homeland Security Committee, saying that risk and threat—I am saying just the opposite. 

So if you are saying that your answer is you need to look at each 

building, I am saying to you, how can you do that, given the regulations that are required here? 

Mr. MORRIS. I think the best thing to be able to do is have the 

flexibility so that, if you can’t meet setback requirements that are 

normally required, that there are other alternatives that can mitigate the risk assessment for that and be as effective as—— 

Ms. NORTON. Well, do these regulations allow you to do that? Mr. 

McAndrew says yes. 

Mr. MORRIS. Yes, Mr. McAndrew has helped educate us in preparation for this hearing that there are flexibilities—— 

Ms. NORTON. Where in the standards is there—— 

Mr. MORRIS. Well, they are not as easily documented in the actual standards as we would like to see. A lot of this is left up to 

local commanders, according to our discussions with him, and it 

puts a lot of burden on people to try to make that assumption of 

risk—— 

Ms. NORTON. Are you aware there is no provision in the—you 

know, do words mean anything? Does the law mean anything? 

There is no provision in these standards for waivers. You may be 

quite ultra vires, both you and Mr. McAndrew or the Defense Department, in operating outside of these standards. And I see nothing saying you may waive under certain circumstances. I just asked 

staff, find me the waiver language. 

Who do you think you are, Mr. McAndrew? ‘‘If I like them, I will 

apply them. If not, I will waive them, whatever the standards say 

and whatever my authorizing statute.’’ Where is law and adherence 

to regulations? Where does any of that come into this? 

Mr. MCANDREW. Ma’am, I just want to make sure I understand, 

Madam Chairwoman, that—— 

Ms. NORTON. Who said you could waive? I don’t see any waiver 

language in—— 

Mr. MCANDREW. You are absolutely—there is no waiver language, ma’am. 

Ms. NORTON. Sir? 

Mr. MCANDREW. There is no waiver language in our guidance. 

Ms. NORTON. So how can you waive? 

Mr. MCANDREW. You don’t. You mitigate. You mitigate the risk. 

It doesn’t mean you eliminate the risk. 

Ms. NORTON. Is there mitigation language in your regulations? 

30 

Mr. MCANDREW. Absolutely. In mine, there are. 

Ms. NORTON. I am going to ask you to provide me that language. 

I am not going to ask staff, but I am going to ask you to provide 

me that language about mitigation. Because if there is language 

about mitigation, which is not the same as waiver—— 

Mr. MCANDREW. Exactly. 

Ms. NORTON. Your earlier testimony implies that it is being implemented as if it were a waiver. 

Mr. MCANDREW. People are interpreting them the same way, yes, 

ma’am. They are thinking that the mitigation is a waiver. And I 

have even seen documents where they use that word. But, actually, 

what they are doing is they are putting in place mitigation procedures—hardening the walls, using the right kind of window glazing. Those kind of things are mitigation measures to the setback. 

Ms. NORTON. That is a mitigation measure that can cost you 

more than 148-feet setback. 

Mr. MCANDREW. Exactly. Those are cost balances, whether you 

can—— 

Ms. NORTON. In other words, we don’t want you to spend the 

money on 148-foot setback. We want you to spend the money on 

tearing down your walls or, in fact, putting up additions to your 

walls. I am not sure what kind—I wouldn’t call that—Mr. 

McAndrew, I would not call that mitigation. I would simply call 

that cost transference and substitution. 

We are dealing here with, at best, unclear guidelines. 

And, Ms. Armstrong, I must ask you, I don’t understand how 

these folks are in it. Would you explain how they can list themselves to opine on the Department of Homeland Security when they 

don’t hold themselves, the Department of Defense, to the regulations on which they are having a say? How can you justify that? 

Ms. ARMSTRONG. Well, they are on the list that you are looking 

at, because they are—— 

Ms. NORTON. Do they come to your meetings? 

Ms. ARMSTRONG. Yes, ma’am. 

Ms. NORTON. What are they doing there? 

Ms. ARMSTRONG. They are—— 

Ms. NORTON. They do not put themselves under the guidance. By 

what right have they to be in these meetings at all? They think 

they are not a part of you. 

Ms. ARMSTRONG. Well, I don’t think they think they are not a 

part of our Interagency Security Committee, because they belong to 

it and sit on some of the working groups. 

Ms. NORTON. So all of this is definitional. If your name is on 

here, you belong, whether or not you abide by the very regulations 

that assume that those listed will, in fact, abide. 

Ms. ARMSTRONG. Right. I agree. And I think it is just a fact of 

where authorities lie. So we have an Executive order from 1995 

that establishes the ISC, its roles, and its membership. And then 

there is a statute in subsequent years that assigns DOD’s specific 

responsibilities. 

Ms. NORTON. Well, we are going to have to see that statutory authority, because we haven’t seen it yet. But I understand your testimony. 

31 

Given your expertise, Ms. Armstrong, is every DOD mission—because that is what is covered here, every mission of DOD—at 

greater risk than Federal judges who sit on terrorist cases and U.S. 

attorneys who sit and bring those cases, along with often equally 

dangerous matters involving criminal gangs and drug cartels and 

the rest? 

Why are those agencies, under your guidelines, subject to 50-foot 

setbacks or even, I would take it, less, according to how you do risk 

assessment, whereas DOD, regardless of mission, is subject to 148- 

foot setbacks or mitigation that may be as costly or more costly? 

What should the judges in district court proceedings now or U.S. 

attorneys think of the difference between themselves and the Defense Mapping Agency in terms of force protection provided at taxpayers’ cost? How could you justify that if a judge said, ‘‘I want the 

same thing because I sit on terrorist cases’’? How would you justify 

that? 

Ms. ARMSTRONG. Well, having never worked for the Department 

of Defense and being a security practitioner from the—— 

Ms. NORTON. How would you justify to the Department of Justice, who is a party to your guidelines but not to the Defense Department guidelines? 

Ms. ARMSTRONG. Right. Well, the ISC standards give due consideration to an agency’s mission, what its employees do, whether the 

public needs to come to its facilities to do business or not. And we 

use a sliding—I won’t say a sliding scale, but we set, after an assessment of a particular facility or an assessment of the plans for 

a facility—— 

Ms. NORTON. Is there any Federal court that you know of that 

is subject to 148-foot setback? 

Ms. ARMSTRONG. I can’t think of a particular court building off 

the top of my head. 

Ms. NORTON. Why, in your judgment, the judgment of any of you, 

should there be a greater setback for the Medical Command, 148 

or comparable if mitigated, than there is for the State Department, 

which has 100-foot setback even in parts of the world where there 

have been terrorist threats? 

Justify using a standard for civilian administrative employees 

that is greater setback than for, for that matter, Department of Defense employees who work in embassies where there have been actual threats and actual terrorism. 

Mr. MCANDREW. Madam Chairwoman, could I make a point of 

clarification, having just worked on one of our buildings going on 

to an embassy ground? 

The 148-foot setback that you are talking about is in an unconstrained, uncontrolled environment. That is the least we would 

have—without mitigation, by the way. That is constructing like 

anybody, without any kind of protective measures. 

The State Department is in a controlled environment. They have 

a fence line. It is within the fence line that they are 100 feet back. 

So that is in a controlled environment. Even within our controlled 

environment, we only have an 82-foot setback. It is much less. In 

fact, we are still studying whether it needs to be 82 or not. We are 

trying to do—— 

Ms. NORTON. What is the setback for the CIA? 

32 

Mr. MCANDREW. I am not sure. I defer to—— 

Ms. NORTON. I ask it only because, obviously, the building was 

built a long time ago. 

You do notice, Mr. McAndrew, that the District of Columbia has 

not gone out of business after 9/11? 

Mr. MCANDREW. Yes, ma’am. 

Ms. NORTON. That is largely because Ms. Armstrong and the 

agencies involved in her effort and Mr. Morris had to sit down and 

do risk and threat analysis, and they have decided that some of our 

buildings that—maybe the Department of Justice—those people are 

still on, is it Constitution or Pennsylvania Ave, everybody? 

Mr. MCANDREW. Constitution. 

Ms. NORTON. Those people are still on Constitution Avenue. You 

want a hated Federal agency? The IRS is still right there in your 

face. What is that, Constitution or Pennsylvania Avenue? 

Mr. MCANDREW. Both. 

Ms. NORTON. Both Constitution and Pennsylvania Avenue. And 

they would have had to go, given the threats, particularly after 9/ 

11, unless some serious analysis had been done by all of those involved. Because nobody wants to put IRS and Department of Justice employees at any greater risk than DOD employees. 

And all I am asking is whether or not you have gone through 

anything like that kind of risk analysis for all of the agencies for 

which you will be seeking what amount to overseas-type setbacks 

because you think that the environment is not as controlled. 

I am asking you if you are systematically doing this kind of analysis that has left us able to have our agencies on the sidewalk here, 

albeit with some reinforcements. Are you doing that kind of analysis, for that matter, for your own agencies—— 

Mr. MCANDREW. Yes, we are. 

Ms. NORTON. —that do not have setbacks? 

Mr. MCANDREW. We do. We do it on every installation, for every 

military construction project that comes forward. 

Ms. NORTON. Don’t use the word ‘‘military’’ before this Committee interchangeably with ‘‘defense,’’ please. We really object to— 

we regard military as something—I wouldn’t be having this hearing if we were talking about military. We are talking about Department of Defense civilian agencies, Mr. McAndrew. 

Mr. MCANDREW. Well, they fall under the same guidelines as any 

other location we are at. So they will follow it, and they will follow 

the same analysis that goes on by an installation commander who 

has jurisdiction over them. And they will conduct the same vulnerability assessments and the same threat assessments and risk assessments. And they will try to do their best to work out the mitigation with engineers to make sure that they are applying the 

money in the most cost-effective, reasonable way. That is a requirement under these guidelines. 

Ms. NORTON. Well, I think we have established, Mr. McAndrew, 

that mitigation means—mitigation may come to mean waiver, if 

cost is taken into effect. 

Could I ask you, Mr. Morris—you are well aware of how difficult 

it is to get funds for bricks and mortar, because we are building 

the Department of Homeland Security now. It took me at least 5 

years to get the funds for this building. 

33 

We already have the figures on the elevated costs—I cited them 

in my opening testimony—when it comes to Medical Command. 

Has GSA been able to quantify how much more DOD leases will 

cost in this region if the present so-called ISC standard, force protection standard, is to be observed by GSA in leasing? 

Mr. MORRIS. Could you clarify that again? 

Ms. NORTON. We know about Medical Command because I cited 

the true escalation in costs, $57 million over the 15-year period. 

Have you quantified how much more DOD, on the average, will 

cost the government if you are required to apply these standards 

in finding other space for DOD? 

Mr. MORRIS. We have not. 

I went back, in preparation for the hearing, to try and take a 

look to see how many lease procurements we have actually done for 

DOD since the standards were put in place. And we have done a 

number of procurements. When I tried to figure out from the database what percentage of those leases were in buildings that fell underneath that 25 percent threshold, I was getting bad data. 

So, you know, out of the number of leases that we have done, 

when I looked through them—they are across the country in all our 

regions—and I spotted a couple that we have done, for instance in 

the national capital region, the DARPA procurement, but it looked 

like a lot of those leases that we have been handling were smaller 

square footage. So it is likely that they were in buildings that their 

occupancy fell below that 25 percent level. 

Once we are getting into a prospectus-level procurement, you 

know, there is a lot more focus on that, as you have well identified, 

with the Medical Command. So we don’t have a comprehensive projection on those costs. 

Ms. NORTON. I am just trying to make—it is a little forehanded 

here, so we don’t come up to a lease and find ourselves up against 

a brick wall, if you will excuse the expression. 

Mr. MORRIS. One of the things that has come out of the interim 

nature of the ISC standards is that the government needs to be 

monitoring these new standards and the cost-risk analysis over the 

next 2 years and report back to OMB before the standards are finalized and issued on a permanent basis. 

Ms. NORTON. This is very important because OMB is now deeply 

implicated. By virtue of this hearing, there is no question that we 

have implicated OMB’s Circular A-11, Appendix B. And you recognize that, if the asset to be leased is built to the unique requirements of the government, then the lease for that asset is a capital 

lease rather than an operating lease. 

Do you view DOD’s so-called UFC security standards, its own security standards, to be uniquely governmental? 

Mr. MORRIS. Well, there are definitely—the security requirements, that not only for DOD but for any Federal procurement that 

we are looking at now, have those kinds of inherent governmental 

requirements attached to that procurement. And that is part of the 

reason why we are required, when we do a procurement, that agencies pay for those security requirements up front. 

As to whether or not that throws the entire project into a capital 

lease versus an operating lease, I couldn’t tell you for sure. I would 

have to look at what the total cost ratios are. 

34 

And what we typically look for is what the use of that facility— 

whether that, in and of itself, can be used for other private-sector 

commercial operations. So that is usually the predominant factor in 

making a judgment call on whether that is a unique government 

facility or not. 

Although, I get your point. Certainly, the security requirements 

play into that. 

Ms. NORTON. Just let me ask you straight away: How much of 

an asset, based on your expertise, has to be built to the unique 

specifications of the government before GSA, applying OMB guidance—they are going to be tougher than I am—determines that the 

asset is not a general purpose asset? 

Mr. MORRIS. That is a really good question, Madam Chairman. 

I think, as I mentioned, the predominant analysis that we do is 

whether or not there are other viable commercial alternatives to 

that facility. 

It has a lot to—well, a couple of examples: land ports of entry. 

They are generally located on the borders, in remote locations. And 

there is not much of a private-sector function for those land ports 

of entry. And so I question, personally, in my own mind, why those 

aren’t built to unique government specifications, and how do you 

meet the OMB guidelines for a capital lease versus an operating 

lease there. 

And so, there is a lot of twisting and turning that has to go in 

that, because it is hard to get the money to actually build and own 

those land ports of entry. But it is a difficult analysis to go 

through. But I would say, primarily, we look to see whether or not 

there is a commercial private-sector use for that facility. 

Ms. NORTON. And in your expert judgment, is there any basis for 

classifying back-office-type DOD functions, people who do the same 

kind of accounting work and back-office work as other employees 

of the Federal Government? Is there any land-use reasons for 

classifying them differently when you go out looking for space? 

Mr. MORRIS. Not really, no. 

Ms. NORTON. I am sorry? 

Mr. MORRIS. Not really, no. 

Ms. NORTON. Could you explain to us—you mentioned up front, 

that an agency may have to pay up front. And I understand that 

generally. But how could they pay up front for the extra land needed to provide, for example, 148-foot setback in a lease? I am trying 

to, as you know, adhere to the OMB—— 

Mr. MORRIS. That is a good point. Most of those costs are for— 

well, it depends upon the—I know you don’t like to hear this, but 

it actually does depend upon the transaction. A lot of the time—— 

Ms. NORTON. I do like to hear that, actually. 

Mr. MORRIS. Sometimes we get land that is donated. 

Ms. NORTON. You get what? 

Mr. MORRIS. We get land that is donated by a municipality because they are putting that up. 

Ms. NORTON. Oh. 

Mr. MORRIS. Well, that brings down the cost of the project and 

allows us to put more into a facility. We take a no-cost option on 

a site that, if we are going to put that into the procurement—— 

35 

Ms. NORTON. Yeah, but you see, Mr. Morris, I am not talking 

about the exceptional circumstance. You won’t get any land donated by the District of Columbia, by Arlington County, by Fairfax 

County, by Montgomery County, by Prince George’s County. You 

are not going to get any land donated by any of those folks, so I 

don’t know why you would cite something as exceptional as somebody donates the land in some kind of quid pro quo. We are trying 

to deal here with a problem. 

Mr. MORRIS. Well, you are right, except in the example of the 

DARPA procurement for DOD. The State of Virginia ponied up 

some land to help bring the costs down there, and some dollars. 

When you look at the overall expense of the project, we stayed 

within the prospectus cap, but there were definitely costs that were 

subsidized by the State of Virginia to make that location possible. 

Ms. NORTON. And I fully accept—not only do I accept, I compliment GSA for that kind of deal. And I say to you, Mr. Morris, 

isn’t that kind of deal unusual? 

Mr. MORRIS. It is in the lease procurement area. We see it more 

often—— 

Ms. NORTON. It is in the lease area that we are looking at now. 

Mr. MORRIS. Right. 

Ms. NORTON. Because Mr. McAndrew, you notice, hasn’t offered 

to have buildings built to specification, because he knows OMB 

would never authorize that. He knows that DOD would never even 

ask for that. He knows that DOD has said these are functions suitable for office space, and that is the only reason you have it in the 

first place. 

Ms. Edwards? 

Ms. EDWARDS. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. 

And thank you to our witnesses. I have questions principally for 

Ms. Armstrong and Mr. Morris. 

Ms. Armstrong, I just want to start with you, and I want to ask 

you about the prospectus for the DHS annex. On April 1st, GSA 

issued a solicitation for up to 1.136 million square feet of space to 

house three tenant agencies: Customs and Immigration, Under Secretary of Management, and Science and Technology. The offers 

were originally due on May 7th, which was just 4 weeks after the 

issuance of the solicitation, and then subsequently an additional 

week was granted. 

All the submissions had to include evidence of a final base building, zoning, subdivision, and site plan approvals and any other required local, State, or Federal Government approvals related to 

base building utilities, storm water management, and parking facilities, and landscape requirements. 

My experience with land use, and especially in the counties that 

I represent, is that there is no way that that could be completed 

within 4 weeks. And so I wonder if you could tell me why you 

would come up with that time frame for the completion of that kind 

of detail, given that in all of the surrounding jurisdictions the planning process can last anywhere from 12, at a minimum, to 18 

months to put together what you have required. 

And so it seems to me that, at the outset, there are several jurisdictions that would never have been able to compete, really, for 

this prospectus. And so I am curious as to what your thinking is 

36 

or was in determining that that would be a time frame for such a 

detailed prospectus and solicitation. 

And I wonder if you would go on to tell me why it is that there 

were some aspects of the prospectus that were actually changed, 

including the ceiling height and others. Were those things actually 

related to security? It is just hard to understand unless they were 

related to targeting the prospectus to a particular client. 

Ms. ARMSTRONG. And, ma’am, I am going to have to apologize. 

That is not my area of expertise. I am with the Office of Infrastructure Protection, and that is a Chief Administrative Officer function, 

the prospectus that you are referring to. But I am sure our Leg Affairs people will make sure that the right person comes and answers your question. 

Ms. EDWARDS. Someone from DHS really needs to answer that 

question, because it is really hard to understand that. 

And as it is related to GSA, Mr. Morris, I wonder if you could 

tell me what the role is of GSA. First of all, who is your client? 

Who is your customer? 

Mr. MORRIS. Well, the customer that we are housing there would 

be the Department of Homeland Security. I mean, ultimately—— 

Ms. EDWARDS. Is the taxpayer ever the customer? 

Mr. MORRIS. —it is the American taxpayer, absolutely. 

Ms. EDWARDS. Right. So, given that I think your ultimate customer is actually the taxpayer, can you explain to me why a prospectus would ever be put together that becomes then so narrowed 

and so restrictive that you actually impede competition, which 

doesn’t work in the interests of the taxpayer? 

Mr. MORRIS. Well, with all due respect, you know, I am not on 

top of that particular procurement. But I do know that when we 

were structuring how offers could be received, it was actually done 

to try and increase competition. 

Rather than combining all of the requirements—if you are talking about the DHS consolidated procurement, rather than combining all of those requirements and saying somebody has to build 

us a million square feet, we broke that down into the component 

parts of the mission support in a complete effort to try and increase 

competition across the metropolitan area so that different developers who couldn’t deliver one single total consolidated space could 

compete for parts of the requirement. 

Ms. EDWARDS. Let me read this to you, because this is your own 

language. All submissions had to include evidence of, and I quote, 

‘‘all final base building, zoning, subdivision, and site plan approvals, and site plan approvals on any other required local, regional, 

State, or Federal Government approvals that may be required relating to base building utilities, storm water management, and 

parking facilities, and landscape requirements.’’ 

How is it that you could ensure competition given those constraints in that time frame? 

Mr. MORRIS. I get your point. I would say that there were two 

factors in that. One was, we were looking for properties that, if not 

shovel-ready in the Recovery Act sense of the word, were close to 

it, so that any developers who wanted to offer needed to have permits in place or coming out of the ground with buildings. 

37 

And, secondly, I know last year I had to testify before the Subcommittee on concerns that we have had and I know the Committee has had with holdovers and extensions for GSA leases. And 

we have a number of those mission components of DHS that are 

in leases that are expiring. And so one of the driving factors there 

was to avoid high-cost, short-term extensions and try and get a 

project up and developed so that we could move those folks into 

new facilities before the leases expired. 

Ms. EDWARDS. Mr. Morris, let me just say to you that, representing developers in Prince George’s and Montgomery County, 

and particularly in Prince George’s County, the fact that GSA continues to use this criteria actually ensures that Prince George’s 

County will never, ever be able to compete for these leases, never. 

Because virtually every transportation facility, all of the land that 

is available, whether you are looking at studies that have been 

done by the Brookings Institution at land availability in this region—Prince George’s County will simply never be able to compete. 

And I want you to explain to me how it is that, in a region where 

rent should be treated similarly around this Beltway, where the 

prospectus should be clear from one solicitation to the next solicitation without changes being made at the last minute that seem to 

be targeted to a particular developer or development, you are effectively screening out an entire county, and that means that you are 

screening out competition. 

And I can’t see how, if the taxpayer is your customer, that you 

are doing a good deal for your customer with that kind of screening. And it has to change. 

Mr. MORRIS. I appreciate what you are saying to me. 

Ms. EDWARDS. And appreciation isn’t an answer. GSA has to 

come up with an answer for why it has created the kind of disparity in this region that has left an entire community left out of 

GSA competition. 

And this description of this prospectus, given what is required in 

the zoning and planning process, means that one jurisdiction would 

never be able to compete for this prospectus. 

And can you just tell me, why a change from a 9-foot to an 8- 

foot ceiling? 

Mr. MORRIS. I am not familiar with the change in the ceiling 

height. 

Ms. EDWARDS. I want to know why GSA changed a requirement 

in the prospectus from a 9-foot ceiling to an 8-foot ceiling. Is that 

to facilitate one building over another building? One area over another area? It is important for GSA to answer these questions. It 

doesn’t actually make sense to me. Is it a safety consideration? Is 

it to accommodate fire and sprinkler systems? GSA has to answer 

these questions. 

Mr. MORRIS. We will get you an answer for that. 

Ms. EDWARDS. Thank you. 

I want to ask you, as well, do you believe you have any responsibility to address the disparity that I have described in the treatment of these jurisdictions? 

Mr. MORRIS. Yes, ma’am. You know, I know I am not going to 

convince you of this, but there are a number of Federal leases in 

Prince George’s County for—— 

38 

Ms. EDWARDS. I have actually gotten the leases from GSA. We 

have looked at them. We have analyzed them. Independent sources 

have analyzed them. And, as I described before, I am not talking 

about warehouse space. And we all know that. We know that there 

are leases in Prince George’s County, but we also know that a substantial number of them are warehouse space, not commercial, 

class A office space. And that is what we are talking about because 

that is what facilitates economic development. 

And I will not sit on this Subcommittee again to hear GSA’s explanation without action. And I think that if we can’t get it out in 

a hearing, then it is going to be done in legislation. 

Can you just answer for me whether you can provide an analysis 

that justifies the rent cap differentials in Maryland, D.C., and Virginia for new construction? What is the justification for that? 

Mr. MORRIS. I can’t give you that right now, but I can get it for 

you. 

Ms. EDWARDS. I will expect that on the record, as well. 

Also, can you confirm that the final Nuclear Regulatory Commission lease for the new building in Montgomery County is within 

rent cap? 

Mr. MORRIS. I can’t confirm that right now, but I can get you 

that information. 

Ms. EDWARDS. I would appreciate an answer on the record. 

And then lastly, at what level are changes to a previously issued 

solicitation authorized? What is GSA’s role in any change in that 

solicitation? What is the review process for the solicitation? And is 

prospective bidding expected to favor specific locations? And what 

information can you confirm that the changes that are made to 

those locations? 

Mr. MORRIS. I am sorry, you lost me a little bit. I know—— 

Ms. EDWARDS. On the end, if prospective bidders feel that a particular change favors a specific location, what information does 

GSA then provide to confirm that the changes are made irrespective of location? What is there in the record that a developer can 

look to to say that GSA did this aboveboard and not to favor a specific location? 

Mr. MORRIS. That is a hard question for me to answer. I think 

if we have a change in a solicitation, there is an amendment that 

is issued to the marketplace. Anybody that is bidding explains 

what the change is and why we are doing it. 

In terms of your question that, whether or not it is transparent 

and aboveboard, that it is not favoring anybody, I mean, that is not 

the point of what the changes are. But I know you are not buying 

that from me just saying it. So I don’t think I am going to be able 

to answer your question here, satisfactorily anyway. 

Ms. EDWARDS. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. 

Ms. NORTON. Well, thank you, Ms. Edwards. 

I am going to ask you, within 30 days, Mr. Morris, to submit to 

this Committee answers to the questions the lady from Prince 

George’s has raised. For example, why the ceilings were lowered 

from 9 to 8, what the justification—or whatever was that figure; 

her question on the Nuclear Regulatory cap. We will submit a letter that details her questions. 

39 

Mr. Morris, we would like, the Committee also would like, you 

to break down those leases that Ms. Edwards says she believes 

were largely warehouse leases. We need to know about those 

leases, because it comes close to being an insult to a county that 

is one of the highest-income counties in the United States if the 

Federal Government is seeking to make it a repository for warehouses. 

Ms. EDWARDS. Madam Chairwoman, if you would yield for a 

minute. I would like to submit for the record a study that was done 

actually in September 2007 by the University of Maryland—they 

have updated some of this—entitled ‘‘GSA Leasing in the Greater 

Washington Metropolitan Region’’ that actually documents the 

space throughout the region, what kind of space it is, and where 

it is located. 

Ms. NORTON. So ordered. 

[The information follows:] 

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Ms. NORTON. And the staff will do its own analysis. 

And I am afraid GSA is going to have to justify how that happened systematically, if that is what the document shows. 

I want Ms. Edwards to know, as I indicated earlier, I believe that 

GSA has allowed the process to be taken over by its clients, just 

as it did in the District of Columbia. And the clients said to GSA, 

‘‘You know what? I like it on K Street.’’ We have had documentary 

evidence that the District of Columbia, much smaller territory, not 

a lot of places to go, but we have had documentation to show that 

people prefer to be in the very center of town rather than places 

like NoMa, which is close to the Senate, where in fact there are 

other Federal facilities, where the Federal Government put up—the 

only time where the Federal Government helped pay for an extra 

Metro facility. 

So it rings a bit too familiar to hear what the gentlewoman from 

Prince George’s County is saying. And it simply requires us to look 

more closely at how GSA handles its role as an agent. 

Now, if I go to look for a house and I am paying for it, then, of 

course, I can direct the agent to do whatever we have. GSA, for as 

long as I have been on this Subcommittee, has forgotten its role as 

caretaker of taxpayer funds and decided that whatever an agency 

wanted to do, it should do. 

We are so concerned with evidence of the kind that I have heard 

of since I have been on the Committee and some of what you, yourself, have raised, that in a reauthorization of the entire statute, 

first time ever since the GSA was created, we are considering language that would tighten what GSA can or cannot do. We like GSA 

to have—because, as a real estate agent, to have that broad authority. We don’t want to take away that authority. 

Our own analysis tells us that part of the problem is that GSA, 

in dealing with peer agencies, has a hard time regarding itself as 

a peer and, therefore, quickly dwarfs itself and forgets that it is the 

only expert agency in real estate for the United States. 

So we think we have to strengthen its hand, when it, in fact, represents agencies. Some of this is because GSA just doesn’t stand up 

to agencies. And others is because when the agency looks at GSA, 

simply says, ‘‘Who are you?’’ You asked about the customer and the 

client. They say, I am the client, and I am as much the client as 

if you were a commercial real estate agent, just as if you are the 

real estate agent for the United States Government. And excuse 

my French, but the taxpayers be damned, because that is what has 

happened. When you take everybody and move them into the center of D.C., where the cost differential between K Street and NoMa 

is sometimes $10 per square foot, that is what it sound like to us. 

Now, when it comes to Prince George’s County, the fact that they 

have found it harder to lease probably means they are more competitive, and yet they have not been able to get the leases. We don’t 

speak for leases for anybody. I can’t even speak for leases for the 

District of Columbia. 

We happen to be in a kind of catbird seat, because most agencies 

want to be located right here where the Congress is; they consider 

that is where they want to be. So they want to be here in the first 

place. 

71 

And yet, as you yourself will attest, Mr. Morris, we have never, 

ever indicated any preference for locating agencies even in my own 

district and even though I am Chair of this Committee. I could 

never say, given what the statute says about competition, ‘‘As between Ms. Edwards’s district and my district, I want it here, and 

I hope you all understand that.’’ I could never wink, wink, do that. 

And you know that would be a violation of Federal law, Mr. Morris. 

Mr. MORRIS. Yes, ma’am. 

Ms. NORTON. In the same way, I have to say, that I regard it as 

hugely unfair that this county, which, if anything, has made itself 

into a—by virtue of the skilled population it has had, made it into 

a very favorable location, in many respects, would find it so hard 

to obtain leases. 

And, I mean, we are going to help you out in the reauthorization, 

but we are going to have to ask you to help us initially by answering the questions. And we will submit those questions after consulting with the gentlewoman from Prince George’s County and 

will be pleased to receive them. 

Could I just thank this panel? I know we have kept you way over 

time, in part because the Subcommittee has been very troubled by 

this. 

Mr. McAndrew, we hope we didn’t subject you to unfair questioning. We know you were at the center of this dispute. And we 

didn’t expect you to come forward to say, ‘‘We hold up our hands. 

Just do anything you want to.’’ You have to respond with the guidance that you now have on the books. We very much appreciate 

that. Even given the difficulty, we had to make sure that, being a 

witness, that you have readily come forward, have testified candidly and forthrightly. We didn’t expect you to go outside of where 

you are now. 

All I am asking, Mr. McAndrew, is that you work with us more 

closely so that we can, in fact, make sure that, when you talk about 

waiver, people understand, for example, waiver means waiver and 

not simply add the cost on the other side on mitigation. 

We want to make sure, since the GSA is your agent, that there 

is, in fact, as much—the presumption should be that, if we are 

talking about employees whose mission is similar, there is a rebuttable presumption that they should be handled similarly. So, as 

with other agencies, it seems to us DOD ought to be able to come 

forward and say, we need this facility to be, as Mr. McAndrew 

says, perhaps not 148 but some other distance. Seems to me we 

ought to be wide open to that. 

At the same time, DOD, GSA, and this Subcommittee will be 

subject to terrible criticism if we accept the notion, Ms. Armstrong, 

that any standard applies across the board to any agency of the 

United States today. 

So I found your testimony to be very helpful. I want to dismiss, 

with great appreciation, this panel and to call the next panel, with 

apologies that you have had to wait so long but with every assurance that we are equally—you may be dismissed, and thank you 

again for coming—with every assurance that the next panel is just 

as important to this Subcommittee. 

The next panel, panel three, is very important to us. We never 

do a hearing just based on government witnesses. We have to know 

72 

compared to what and compared to what expertise that the government may or may not bring. 

Barbara Nadel, principal of Barbara Nadel Architect; Eve 

Hinman, president, Hinman Consulting; Maureen McAvey, senior 

vice president, Urban Land Institute. 

Let’s begin with Ms. Nadel. 

TESTIMONY OF BARBARA NADEL, PRINCIPAL, BARBARA 

NADEL ARCHITECT; EVE HINMAN, PRESIDENT, HINMAN 

CONSULTING; MAUREEN MCAVEY, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, 

URBAN LAND INSTITUTE 

Ms. NADEL. Chairwoman Norton, Members of the Subcommittee, 

good afternoon. My name is Barbara Nadel, FAIA, principal of Barbara Nadel Architect in New York City, and a member of the 

American Institute of Architects. Thank you for this opportunity to 

appear before you today. 

I specialize in building security and design of civic buildings. I 

have worked with over 40 Federal, State, and local government 

agencies. I recently chaired the AIA’s 21st-Century Embassy Task 

Force, which studied integrating design and security in U.S. embassies. As a result of our report, the State Department will create 

a Design Excellence Program. I am also editor-in-chief of ‘‘Building 

Security: Handbook for Architectural Planning and Design,’’ considered the industry standard for building security. 

Federal agencies must protect American personnel, buildings, 

and critical assets from terrorism at home and abroad. DOD and 

GSA have developed security standards: the Unified Facilities Criteria, or UFC; and Interagency Security Criteria, ISC, respectively. 

They are a baseline for determining a design response to threats. 

Each building is different and presents different security challenges. Building owners must consider risk assessment to determine threats and identify a level of protection based on good threat 

intelligence. Architects can design customized features to reduce 

vulnerabilities. 

Owners must have the flexibility to raise and lower security 

standards. For example, normal operations may be in place most 

of the time, but for a VIP visit or important anniversary with 

heightened tensions, owners can close streets to achieve greater 

setbacks or standoff distance, deploy more personnel, and limit access. This allows a wiser use of limited resources and taxpayer dollars. 

I would like to address three key areas of the UFC: standoff distance, parking, and glazing. 

Standoff distance is a response to mitigate damage from a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device, or VBIED. Every foot between an explosive and the building exterior can mitigate the impact of an explosion. 

Agencies require different standoff distances. GSA and ISC call 

for 50 feet, while the State Department requires 100 feet due to repeated VBIED attacks on American personnel and embassies in 

foreign countries. In contrast, DOD calls for a standoff between 82 

and 148 feet for leased buildings occupied by 50 or more DOD personnel and between 33 and 82 feet for buildings with 11 or more 

personnel. 

73 

This means that a military recruiting office in a suburban strip 

mall or in the heart of Times Square must have between 33- and 

82-feet standoff—unrealistic for existing urban buildings. 

When the State Department cannot achieve a 100-foot standoff, 

they make facades and building exteriors more robust and use 

blast-resistant exterior walls and windows. DOD could be able to 

do the same domestically. 

As for parking, the 1993 World Trade Center bombing caused by 

a truck bomb in the underground garage illustrates the need for 

appropriate security. Parking areas should have robust inspection 

policies. Vehicles should be screened for explosives, perhaps using 

bomb-sniffing dogs. Rejection lanes will prevent unauthorized vehicles from driving into the garage. And parking may be restricted 

to authorized employees only. 

Regarding glazing, the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing prompted 

GSA and DOD to research how glass behaves during an explosion, 

as many fatalities occurred from flying glass and debris. Laminated 

glass, consisting of glass sheets bonded to film, reduces the likelihood of flying glass. Blast windows absorb blast energy and are 

suitable for high-risk, high-profile buildings such those in D.C. Architects should have the flexibility to design the most appropriate 

window and door systems for project needs. 

In conclusion, building security should prevent mass casualties, 

minimize injuries, protect assets, mitigate risk, and enhance resilience. Owners, architects, and security personnel can assess the 

risks and options most suitable and affordable for each facility and, 

in many cases, develop alternative design strategies to ensure the 

appropriate levels of protection. 

Thank you for the opportunity to provide testimony on this important issue. I would be happy to answer any questions this Subcommittee may have. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much, Ms. Nadel. 

Is it Ms. Hinman? 

Ms. HINMAN. Yes. 

Ms. NORTON. Ms. Hinman, also an architect, we are pleased to 

receive your testimony at this time. 

Ms. HINMAN. Actually, I am a structural engineer. So I actually 

design buildings to resist the effects of explosive attack. 

Thank you, Madam Chairwoman and everyone else, for the insightful comments I have been listening to. I feel like you have all 

stolen my thunder here. 

The DOD standards require that virtually any office building occupied by DOD personnel needs to be protected regardless of 

whether it is leased or whether it is owned, whether it is new or 

whether it is existing. This differs from the Interagency Security 

Council, which has been using two separate criteria documents: one 

for owned facilities, federally owned facilities; and one for leased facilities. 

The one developed for leased facilities was developed with input 

from the private sector, from property owners, and is, for existing 

buildings at least, considerably more lax than the criteria for Federal-owned properties. 

Besides the differences in their approach to leased versus owned 

buildings, the DOD and ISC have another difference of note. While 

74 

the DOD standards were originally developed with the intent of 

protecting service men and women working and living on military 

bases, the ISC criteria was tailored to Federal buildings and courthouses located in urban areas. Now, military bases are separated 

from the community, whereas Federal buildings are enmeshed in 

the community. And because of this, the DOD standards are not 

well-suited to leased facilities that are within communities. 

In fact, the DOD standards impose heavy penalties, in terms of 

building hardening, on construction that is not able to meet the 

large, mandated building setback requirements or which has building features which are common for office buildings, such as interior 

garages and exterior arcades at the building entrance. 

In short, the DOD standards are very good at protecting buildings against explosive attack but are very onerous to use for conventional office building construction. 

I am going to skip a little bit because I have a couple of comments I want to make at the end. 

So, although there are similarities between the two documents, 

there are some significant differences. In particular, the fact that 

there are such significant differences between protection levels afforded DOD versus non-DOD Federal employees working in leased 

office space shows that there is some benefit to exploring ways to 

provide levels of protection which are both feasible and more equitable. 

I also would like to make a couple of comments, in that we are 

working on two projects now in the Midwest which are GSA-owned 

buildings with significant DOD tenants. And the risk assessments—and these are back-office DOD functions. And these buildings have been mandated by the DOD, by risk assessments, to be 

upgraded to meet DOD requirements. And it has been—it is not an 

easy job. And, in one case, it looked like we were going to have to 

upgrade every single connection in the building for progressive collapse, based on a prior study. 

I would like to also mention that the criteria documents are 

under revision right now. As was said before, a new version of the 

ISC criteria was released last month. And the DOD has their UFC 

criteria being finalized as we speak, and that has not been issued. 

My understanding is that these two documents are beginning to 

come together. 

And it is true that DOD does sit on the ISC committee, but I understand that one of the reasons for discord between the ISC and 

the DOD has been that the DOD mandates that you design for the 

actual blast pressures on the building, whereas the GSA allows for 

designing to reduce, sort of, artificial loads. And I understand that 

this disagreement has been resolved. It look like GSA is going to 

design for actual pressures now. 

So I think we need to see what result, what that leads to in the 

future. And it may require additional study by this Subcommittee 

to determine that. 

Ms. NORTON. Well, thank you very much, Ms. Hinman. And excuse me for calling you an architect. It is a very honorable profession—— 

Mr. HINMAN. It is OK. 

75 

Ms. NORTON. —but you are a structural engineer and a security 

expert. 

Mr. HINMAN. Yes. 

Ms. NORTON. And our final witness is Maureen McAvey, who is 

senior vice president of the Urban Land Institute. 

Ms. McAvey? 

Ms. MCAVEY. Thank you, Chairwoman Norton, and thank you, 

Congresswoman Edwards, for remaining today. 

I am Maureen McAvey, executive vice president of the Urban 

Land Institute. ULI is a global, nonprofit education and research 

institute. Its mission is the leadership and the responsible use of 

land and in creating and sustaining thriving communities. We were 

established in 1936, so have quite a track record. ULI has offices 

in over 50 metropolitan areas and counts over 30,000 professionals 

as members, across the spectrum of the real estate industry, including real estate developers, investors, lenders, architects, and 

public officials. 

I would like the broaden the scope of the discussion for a few moments today and concentrate on three areas. The first is the renewed emphasis on the significance of urban livability. The second 

is the nexus of Federal security guidelines, federally leased space, 

and sustainable communities. And the third is the need to reflect 

on the long view of urban development. 

As we considered this testimony, we clearly thought about the 

role and the benefits that Federal occupation, if you will, in the 

good sense, can play within communities, not just the costs. 

First, the renewed emphasis on the significance of urban livability. U.S. census data now shows that residents are moving toward urban centers in many communities. Over the last 20 years, 

residential development is up substantially within central cities 

and in close-in suburbs. In addition to the wider market acceptance, these mixed-use compact developments reduce vehicle trips, 

reduce overall miles driven, and produce fewer greenhouse gas 

emissions, and this will have a compounding effect over time. 

These communities rely on an attractive public realm, and require that employees, neighbors and visitors clearly want a community that is safe as well as inviting and welcoming. I might add 

that these communities, as we have seen in this last recession, hold 

value better than alternative communities. 

Second, the nexus of Federal security guidelines, federally leased 

space and sustainable communities. We all want Federal employees 

and visitors to be safe, but as guidelines are considered and costs 

are considered, the atmosphere in which employees and visitors 

work must also be considered. 

Chairwoman Norton, you raised several points in your opening 

testimony, and we would echo those points. First, locations should 

be considered which are highly accessible and are near workforce 

and affordable housing. 

Second, the opportunity for development and Federal properties 

to serve as a development catalyst in communities is particularly 

important and should be really considered. 

Third, the opportunity to consider buildings or sites which are 

underutilized currently should be considered. 

76 

Fourth, as was mentioned so well by Congresswoman Norton, the 

availability and access to public transportation. 

The last point I would like to make is regarding the long view 

of development. Federal policies can encourage real sustainability 

in communities. People leave cities or stay in cities not because of 

threats and concerns about terrorism. Employees don’t leave often 

because of threats of terrorism. They stay in cities, and they come 

back to cities because cities work. They provide good jobs, good 

transit and good residential choices. Federal employment can be a 

significant contributor to this equation. 

One of the things that struck us in preparing this information is 

ULI presented the J. Nichols award to Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan shortly after 9/11 occurred. As we gave the award to Senator 

Moynihan only weeks after 9/11, he said, and I would quote, 

‘‘Buildings—particularly public buildings—should serve a greater 

purpose than to simply provide shelter. They should be built to instill pride among citizens who use them, serving as a way of saying 

who we are. This is a moment not to be intimidated. The only way 

the terrorists can win is if we change the way we live, and a lot 

of us live in cities. These acts won’t change our civilization.’’ 

And I would add these acts won’t change our civilization unless 

we back away and don’t thoughtfully balance security with other 

community goals. 

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to testify, and I would 

be happy to answer any questions. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much, Ms. McAvey. 

Ms. NORTON. All of you have given very important testimony 

that requires me to ask you some questions. 

For example, Ms. Nadel, we note that in your testimony the 

higher the risk, the higher the level of protection, you say. 

Given the familiarity that your testimony shows that you have 

with the two government security standards that we have discussed today, do you believe the levels of protection for the risks 

involved are roughly equivalent, or that it is justifiable to have separate and distinctly more stringent standards for one set of backoffice employees of the Federal Government than for others? 

Ms. NADEL. Just for clarification, do you mean UFC versus ISC? 

Ms. NORTON. I do, yes. Those are the two sets. 

Ms. NADEL. I studied the UFC quite carefully over the weekend—there was a matrix chart that indicated facilities with a controlled perimeter and those without, and then there were columns 

on the level of protection and the circumstances for 82 feet and 148 

feet. 

What I noted, as I recall, was that it said low level of protection, 

and correct me if I am wrong—is it said low level of protection 

for—— 

Ms. NORTON. I am looking at it. Yes, low level. Yes. 

Ms. NADEL. I thought that was unusual because my read of what 

they call ‘‘inhabited buildings’’—it sounded like office buildings. 

They are calling it a low level of protection, and they are giving 

them an 82-foot standoff or a 148-foot standoff. Yet if I am remembering the chart correctly—— 

77 

Ms. NORTON. Yes, we are looking at it. You are remembering it 

correctly. For primary gathering, they use low. For an inhabited 

building, they use very low. 

Ms. NADEL. Inhabited, I think, is about 11 people or less. 

Ms. NORTON. I see. So all of this is low. We don’t see any highs 

anywhere or even mediums. 

Ms. NADEL. You know, in my familiarity with the State Department and the fine work that they do on our behalf overseas, they 

require a 100-foot standoff, so I am not sure. 

Ms. NORTON. So they, themselves, you are saying, use the word 

‘‘low,’’ and yet they are requiring these setoffs that are not required 

in the other set of standards. Those are the kinds of issues we are 

trying to get to. If we cannot articulate the difference, if they can’t 

articulate the difference, it follows that the average person who 

pays for this increased cost will not be able to do so. 

Do you have an answer, Ms. Hinman? 

Ms. HINMAN. Yes, I do. 

For the State Department buildings, it is true. The setback is 

100 feet, but those are heavily fortified buildings. Those are very 

special buildings with thick concrete walls and really thick ballistic 

and blast-resistant glass. So they are heavily fortified; whereas, a 

low level of protection that the DOD is talking about is basically 

the distance—it takes 148 feet, according to that document, in 

order for a small, rather weak building to not be terribly impacted. 

Ms. NORTON. To put it another way then, Ms. Hinman, if they 

were your funds, as a security expert, as a structural engineer, 

what security countermeasures would you invest in for these backoffice DOD employees? Would they be any different than what you 

would advise GSA to do for similarly situated employees? 

Ms. HINMAN. Well, I would say that I think we have to be very 

pragmatic here. I think the first job for an existing building is you 

need to maximize the standoff as best you can, and then you need 

to control the access of vehicles and people onto that property. If 

you do that, you have done good without even touching the building. Then I would put in antishatter film for the windows and, lastly, if justified, incorporate structural hardening. 

Ms. NORTON. The last two, antishattering and hardening, is this 

even for people who are doing accountant, paper-pushing work? If 

these people are doing accounting the way people are doing accounting for GSA, how could you justify finally going to shatterproof glass? 

I understand the first things you said. It is very important what 

you are saying because you are saying there are things you can do 

that don’t even touch the building, but remember, my question had 

to do with similarly situated employees. ‘‘I am an accountant, except I have been hired for DOD through OPM instead of for GSA.’’ 

So, if I am a taxpayer or if I am Chair of this Subcommittee, I have 

got to be able to say to people, this is why I think there should be 

shatterproof glass for DOD accountants and not for accountants in 

the CIA. 

Ms. HINMAN. Right. Well, when I use the term ‘‘antishatter 

glass,’’ I am talking about a very minimal retrofit to the buildings. 

78 

Ms. NORTON. But why should there be any retrofit for a building 

full of accountants who happen to have ‘‘defense’’ before their 

names? 

Ms. HINMAN. Well, because it is a cost-effective measure that 

does reduce the hazard—— 

Ms. NORTON. What hazard do they have that accountants in 

other Federal facilities do not have? What hazards do they have 

that the IRS, which has been hit by an airplane, does not have? 

Ms. HINMAN. Well, I will say the other Federal employees are 

protected using antishatter glass. 

Ms. NORTON. Excuse me? 

Ms. HINMAN. Other Federal employees are protected using 

antishatter glass as well as—— 

Ms. NORTON. Well, I can tell you for sure, Ms. Hinman, that all 

other employees are not protected by the use of shatterproof glass. 

There may be some who are and some who are not. 

Are you suggesting that that is the standard for all Federal employees in the United States today, in all areas of our country? 

Ms. HINMAN. Well, there are a lot of injuries that occur in explosions, and it is a fairly easy fix. I think the problem—— 

Ms. NORTON. It is only an easy fix, Ms. Hinman, if you are not 

paying for it. We are now talking about fixes in light of an out-ofcontrol deficit and what has been called the ‘‘Great Recession.’’ So 

we are not looking for things to spend money on unless we can justify them. 

Ms. HINMAN. Well, as I said—— 

Ms. NORTON. I would like to have shatterproof glass in my house. 

I want to tell you, Ms. Hinman, that I live on Capitol Hill, and the 

Capitol Hill Police will police up to a certain portion of Capitol Hill 

based on a risk assessment. My house and some other houses of 

Members, because they are so close to Capitol Hill, are within that 

perimeter. It is a perimeter that goes east-west only so far. It is 

not only because there are Members who live there, it is because 

of other facilities that are there. 

I will tell you, when I see that Capitol Police go by, you know, 

I would like to have some shatterproof glass, too, but I don’t go out 

and spend the money on shatterproof glass just because I know I 

am within a perimeter. If I don’t do that for myself, I have an obligation to guard the taxpayers’ money in the same way for employees. 

So we are not asking for your structural engineering expertise, 

because I understand that you could, in fact, advise me on how to 

do that. I am asking for your cost-benefit expertise. 

Ms. HINMAN. OK. Well, I would like to mention that the first two 

items that I listed had nothing to do with upgrades to the structure, and those would be my first priority. And then—if there were 

funding available, then I would consider the other two. Those 

would be a lower priority for me. 

Ms. NORTON. Ms. Hinman, I am going to move on. I accept what 

you say, but, again, I bring you back to not what might be done, 

but to what the hearing is all about. It is about similarly situated 

government employees, employees at the CIA who are doing accounting, who come under the GSA type, and employees at the 

DOD who are doing the same kind of accounting work. 

79 

So what we have got to do is to justify people who are—forgive 

me, that is a terrible word, it is a pejorative word—but they are 

pushing paper, Ms. Hinman, and the taxpayers want to know why 

people—they don’t like Federal employees as much as they should. 

We are not trying to give them another reason to dislike us because 

people who push paper, doing the same thing, get more protection 

than people who don’t. 

Ms. McAvey, given what we do know about the need for protection, and given your very important testimony about land use patterns, about government encouraging collocation, about urban planning and modern notions of urban planning and how they can be 

countermanded by certain kinds of regulations, don’t you also have 

to take into effect 9/11 and what that meant? 

Your use of compact development is what makes me ask that 

question. In post-9/11 America, especially in this region, would you 

believe that compact development is still practical? How would you 

resolve the research about compact development in light of the security needs that have been raised post-9/11? 

Ms. MCAVEY. Thank you. 

We have seen a significant uptick in desirability of compact development not only in central cities themselves, but in urban villages, in transit corridors, in transit-oriented development areas, et 

cetera, in suburban areas, since 9/11, since 2000 when we have 

data. Already we are starting to see the 2010 data that shows that 

there is a significant desirability of the market to move into these 

types of communities, into more compact settlements, not by everyone, but certainly by many. 

If I might just add, there has been a considerable amount of 

study that has been done on office buildings in Manhattan and by 

large tenants and by large users both in lower Manhattan and midtown Manhattan in terms of how they have looked at increasing security over time in their buildings, and, after the immediate reaction to 9/11, what they have done over time in those buildings. It 

might be worth the Subcommittee looking at this information, because they had to weigh, of course, the costs and benefits to their 

employees and to the visitors to their buildings. 

Ms. NORTON. And when they have a bottom line to look at, when 

they are not spending somebody else’s money, they then do security 

in a much more cost-effective and analytical way. 

Ms. MCAVEY. Well, in many cases they have judiciously, I would 

say, from what I know of some of these studies, chosen to do some 

things and not others because they simply thought that—I guess 

in their own risk assessment, to use those words, they felt that 

some things were not justified. 

Ms. NORTON. Well, there are some commonsense things that Ms. 

Hinman said. You can control who uses your parking, you can control who comes into your building, all without hardening the building, all without spending money on shatterproof glass, all without 

142-foot setbacks that puts off base huge parts of the United States 

of America now where Federal office space is located. 

My office has just come to me about something that has to be 

done before 6 o’clock. I am going to ask the gentlewoman from 

Prince George’s County if she would continue with her questions. 

If, as I suspect, I will not be back, if she would close the hearing. 

80 

I leave the Chair in her hands. I am even going to hand her the 

gavel. 

Ms. EDWARDS. [Presiding.] Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. 

I won’t be long, and I know you all have had quite a long afternoon. I really appreciate your testimony, and I am actually glad I 

stayed for your testimony. 

Part of the reason is because I want to get to what architects and 

engineers are thinking about building structures, because the questions that we raise don’t just come up with Federal buildings. 

There are a lot of States and State facilities that are now taking 

into consideration these security concerns, and we can’t, you know, 

fortify every single building that all of our State and municipal employees work in, including our Federal employees. 

So I wonder, from AIA’s perspective, if you could describe—and 

maybe Ms. Hinman as well—some sort of design features and 

things that can be done from an architectural perspective, which 

actually wouldn’t turn us off from a land use perspective, to secure 

buildings. I am thinking, you know, the buildings that I have seen 

now where along the curbsides you have—I don’t know what they 

are—posts and columns and things like that. You know, they are 

not unappealing to the eye, but they still provide some level of security that isn’t a 148-foot setback. 

So, if you could, describe some of those kinds of features that 

could meet minimum security guidelines and that could go across 

Federal agencies, including most DOD functions, that are not, you 

know, high level of security military functions. 

Ms. NADEL. Thank you for this opportunity. A couple of things 

come to mind. 

Let me just make a general statement that a comprehensive security approach integrates design, which is what I do; technology, 

which includes electronic surveillance, cameras, access, and so 

forth; and operations, which are the policies and procedures that 

building owners put in place—building owners, whether it is an 

agency or a landlord, whoever runs that building—and that all 

three of these elements come together and work together to enhance security. It is not just one element alone. So these elements 

are really important when it comes to sites which don’t have the 

luxury of deep setbacks. 

I think, just to go back a moment to something that Eve said 

about embassies, my friend and colleague Eve, there are embassies 

around the world that don’t have concrete walls, that don’t have 

setbacks. I think of Rome, if anybody has been to the Rome Embassy. I think of the Paris Embassy, which is right at the ChampsElysees, next to a major French government building and right on 

the street, in a very busy section of Paris; and the current London 

Embassy, but, you know, they have a new London Embassy which 

has just been announced. So, in those instances in urban areas, you 

have electronic surveillance; you have security personnel, but the 

buildings are an integral part of the urban fabric. 

Now, to answer your question, I guess starting from what we call 

the site perimeter, we can have bollards, which are those small 

posts, and they are much more aesthetic than the concrete Jersey 

barriers that sprouted up after 9/11. There are different ways to do 

that, but what a lot of building owners, say, in lower Manhattan 

81 

have done, including at the new World Trade Center site, is use 

landscaping. GSA is a big proponent of using landscape for what 

we call ‘‘transparent security,’’ and I am a big advocate of that as 

well. It is security that is not visible to the public eye. It is there, 

but it is not overbearing like a fortressed America. 

So, to use the landscaping on the site might mean berms, which 

are changes in levels of planting, landscaping, trees, that prevent 

a car or a vehicle from ramming straight onto the building. That 

is a major concern. 

Then the surveillance for the VBIEDs shouldn’t be a surprise in 

our cities at this point. 

Street furniture can also prevent vehicles from ramming into a 

building, but that enhances the site, so people can go there for 

lunch, and it is a pleasant place to be. 

The lobby security is also very important because that controls 

access to who gets in the building. The lobby can be very vulnerable for a suicide bomber, for example, before they get to the 

screening area. 

Also, where certain rooms and spaces are placed within the 

building maters. I think somebody earlier mentioned that sensitive 

areas may not need to be in an area facing a street that, if there 

were an explosion, would be impacted. So, perhaps, more of the 

sensitive areas would be further on in the building or away from 

some streets. 

Then there are the mechanical systems, because, we have been 

talking today, about ‘‘standoff’’ which basically refers to a vehicle 

bomb explosion, but there is a lot of talk about chemical biohazards, and standoff really doesn’t do anything for chem-bio. 

So, in the big picture, there are site issues, how the landscaping 

goes, trees. It doesn’t have to be a barren plaza. It is how the lobby 

is designed and how access is controlled. 

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the exterior walls, to chime 

in on what Eve had mentioned—the windows, of course—but within the building where the exits are placed, and we learned a lot of 

that from the events of 9/11, because the Twin Towers were designed during the 1960’s, and building codes were quite different 

at that time, and so were building materials. That building would 

never be designed today. 

Ms. EDWARDS. So the point, though, is that there are a range of 

different considerations that could be given that provide low levels 

of security that could be applied across the board to an agency, 

whether it is the Internal Revenue Service, or if it is a leased facility housing DOD workers who are not central to, you know, high 

levels of security or military functions; isn’t that correct? 

Ms. NADEL. Yes, and these things are part and parcel of any 

building design, but it is a matter of thinking smart about it. If it 

is the private sector, they don’t have to rely on ISC, but owners 

who want to make their buildings secure or who want to lease out 

to government might choose to look at some of those features. 

Ms. EDWARDS. Thank you. 

I wonder, Ms. McAvey—and thank you so much for your testimony because I think what you highlighted is what I was trying 

to more passionately get to because it is such an annoyance to me, 

which is that government spaces, whether they are Federal spaces 

82 

or State or local spaces, really provide a nexus for a broader community and for economic development in that community, and for 

integrating the functions of the community with the functions of 

the facility that is located there. 

Has ULI done any research or study of the Washington, D.C., 

metropolitan region to look at those issues? 

Ms. MCAVEY. We have not specifically looked at where Federal 

facilities are or at the security and the trade-offs. 

I might add, though, in a former life of mine, I was a private developer. I worked for a large developer who built Bethesda Row. In 

downtown Bethesda—one of the reasons downtown Bethesda has 

been so successful is that there are 35,000 daytime workers barely 

up the street at NIH and in related facilities. It is a classic example of why downtown Bethesda is so successful. It is not only because there are affluent people around, it is also because it doesn’t 

thrive just on evening and weekend activities and restaurants. 

There are daytime employees. 

That is true, to varying degrees, in several communities around 

Washington, D.C., and it is critical to the long-term health of the 

communities in areas like Prince George’s County that want to 

have sustainable, thriving communities over the long term. 

Ms. EDWARDS. Thank you. 

Lastly, because I know, again, it has been quite a long day for 

all of us, Ms. Hinman, if you could just tell us from a structural 

standpoint whether there is a real advantage to either locating a 

facility, what I like to describe sometimes as behind God’s back, or 

these, you know, really tremendous setbacks. Can’t you achieve the 

same levels of security even in an urban area? 

Ms. HINMAN. Well, structurally there is a lot we can do to make 

a building more robust so that it inherently has the ability to withstand an assault, such as an explosion, without any special fortification. adding redundancy so that, if you lose a column, the 

whole building doesn’t fall down; there are things like that. So I 

think that there are materials and there are ways of detailing 

building connections, without hardening, that can provide a lot of 

protection. 

Ms. EDWARDS. So is there any inherent advantage to the different standards offered by DOD in terms of protecting facilities 

from what could be achieved by simply applying the GSA standards? 

Ms. HINMAN. There are very different criteria. 

I know the ISC criteria a lot better than the UFC, but I tend to 

agree with what has been said here, which is that it is more flexible, and it is more sensitive to the urban environment. I think it 

is more practical and cost-efficient, and for those reasons, I think 

it has a lot of benefit to offer. 

Ms. EDWARDS. Thank you. 

Again, thank you to the witnesses for your testimony. Your full 

statements will be included in the record. 

With that, the hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 6:00 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.] 

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