U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

WASHINGTON : 

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office

Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512–1800; DC area (202) 512–1800

Fax: (202) 512–2250 Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402–0001

44–892 CC 1997

THE GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE AND

EXECUTIVE BRANCH INFORMATION

DISSEMINATION

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT, 

INFORMATION, AND TECHNOLOGY

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON 

GOVERNMENT REFORM 

AND OVERSIGHT 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED FIFTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

MAY 8, 1997

Serial No. 105–53

Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight

(

(II)

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM AND OVERSIGHT 

DAN BURTON, Indiana, Chairman 

BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York 

J. DENNIS HASTERT, Illinois 

CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland 

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut 

STEVEN SCHIFF, New Mexico 

CHRISTOPHER COX, California 

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida 

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York 

STEPHEN HORN, California 

JOHN L. MICA, Florida 

THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia 

DAVID M. MCINTOSH, Indiana 

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana 

JOE SCARBOROUGH, Florida 

JOHN B. SHADEGG, Arizona 

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio 

MARSHALL ‘‘MARK’’ SANFORD, South 

Carolina 

JOHN E. SUNUNU, New Hampshire 

PETE SESSIONS, Texas 

MICHAEL PAPPAS, New Jersey 

VINCE SNOWBARGER, Kansas 

BOB BARR, Georgia 

ROB PORTMAN, Ohio 

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California 

TOM LANTOS, California 

ROBERT E. WISE, JR., West Virginia 

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York 

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York 

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania 

GARY A. CONDIT, California 

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York 

THOMAS M. BARRETT, Wisconsin 

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, Washington, 

DC 

CHAKA FATTAH, Pennsylvania 

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland 

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio 

ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois 

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois 

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts 

JIM TURNER, Texas 

THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine 

HAROLD E. FORD, JR., Tennessee 

———

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont 

(Independent) 

KEVIN BINGER, Staff Director 

DANIEL R. MOLL, Deputy Staff Director 

JUDITH MCCOY, Chief Clerk 

PHIL SCHILIRO, Minority Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT, INFORMATION, AND TECHNOLOGY

STEPHEN HORN, California, Chairman 

PETE SESSIONS, Texas 

THOMAS DAVIS, Virginia 

JOE SCARBOROUGH, Florida 

MARSHALL ‘‘MARK’’ SANFORD, South 

Carolina 

JOHN E. SUNUNU, New Hampshire 

ROB PORTMAN, Ohio 

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York 

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania 

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York 

ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois 

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois 

EX OFFICIO

DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California 

J. RUSSELL GEORGE, Staff Director and Counsel 

MARK UNCAPHER, Counsel 

JOHN HYNES, Professional Staff Member 

ANDREA MILLER, Clerk 

DAVID MCMILLEN, Minority Professional Staff Member 

MARK STEPHENSON, Minority Professional Staff Member 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Hearing held on May 8, 1997 ................................................................................. 1

Statement of: 

DiMario, Michael, Public Printer, Government Printing Office, accompanied by Wayne Kelley, Superintendent of Documents, Government 

Printing Office; and Bruce Holstein, Comptroller, Government Printing 

Office .............................................................................................................. 5

Jones, Daniel S., president, Newsbank, Inc., on behalf of the Information 

Industry Association; Robert L. Oakley, Washington Affairs Representative, American Association of Law Libraries; and Wendy Lechner, 

legislative director, Printing Industries of America, Inc. .......................... 93

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by: 

DiMario, Michael, Public Printer, Government Printing Office: 

Memorandum for heads of executive departments and agencies .......... 47

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 8

Horn, Hon. Stephen, a Representative in Congress from the State of 

California: 

May 5 and 31, memoranda ....................................................................... 70

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 3

Jones, Daniel S., president, Newsbank, Inc., on behalf of the Information 

Industry Association: 

Exchange of correspondence ..................................................................... 155

Information concerning higher costs ........................................................ 194

Information concerning IIA................................................................... 152, 153

Information concerning NTIS ................................................................... 104

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 96

Lechner, Wendy, legislative director, Printing Industries of America, Inc., 

prepared statement of ................................................................................... 146

Oakley, Robert L. Washington Affairs Representative, American Association of Law Libraries, prepared statement of ............................................. 107

(1)

THE GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE AND 

EXECUTIVE BRANCH INFORMATION 

DISSEMINATION 

THURSDAY, MAY 8, 1997 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT, 

INFORMATION, AND TECHNOLOGY, 

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM AND OVERSIGHT, 

Washington, DC. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:30 a.m., in room 

311, Cannon House Office Building, Hon. Stephen Horn (chairman 

of the subcommittee) presiding. 

Present: Representatives Horn, Maloney, Davis of Illinois, and 

Owens. 

Staff present: J. Russell George, staff director and counsel; Mark 

Uncapher, counsel; John Hynes, professional staff member; Andrea 

Miller, clerk; and David McMillen and Mark Stephenson, minority 

professional staff members. 

Mr. HORN. The Subcommittee on Government Management, Information, and Technology will come to order. 

We are here today to examine the operations of the Government 

Printing Office, and especially its efforts to disseminate Government information to the public. This is no small matter. Citizen access to Government information is critical to a free society. 

No one has put it better than James Madison did over two centuries ago: ‘‘A popular government without popular information, or 

the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy, 

or perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance, and a 

people who mean to be the Governors must arm themselves with 

the power knowledge gives.’’ The Subcommittee on Government Management, Information, 

and Technology is a principal congressional guardian of access to 

executive branch information. The subcommittee’s charter states 

that it ‘‘will ascertain the trend in the availability of government 

information and will scrutinize the information practices of the executive agencies and officials.’’ Today, we hope to hear from our expert witnesses on exactly this 

matter: How well is Federal information being disseminated? What 

improvements can be made? What is the proper role for the Government Printing Office and the Superintendent of Documents? 

Information dissemination programs at the Government Printing 

Office include the distribution of publications to Federal depository 

libraries nationwide, cataloging and indexing, and distribution to 

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recipients designated by law. They also include distribution to foreign libraries designated by the Library of Congress, in return for 

which the Library receives governmental publications from those 

countries. 

The Government Printing Office distributes about 100 million 

copies of government publications per year. Approximately 75 percent of all its printing needs are contracted out to private printers. 

Of the work handled in-house, about half is for Congress. The Government Printing Office currently employs 3,674 employees, fewer 

than at any time in this century. 

There is concern that the administration has been reducing public access to information. Specifically, many executive branch agencies are not furnishing copies of the information they produce to 

the Government Printing Office for dissemination through the Federal depository libraries. Furthermore, there is concern that the administration is allowing many agencies to enter into restrictive distribution agreements that further limit the availability of agency 

information to the public. 

We have two panels today. The first will feature two witnesses 

from the Government Printing Office. Michael DiMario is the Public Printer. He has worked at the Government Printing Office since 

1971, and he has, at one time or another, headed each of its major 

program areas. Mr. DiMario will be accompanied by Wayne Kelley, 

who is Superintendent of Documents. Mr. Kelley was a journalist 

and a publisher until he was named to his current post in 1991. 

The second panel will feature three witnesses. Daniel S. Jones is 

president of NewsBank, Inc. He is appearing on behalf of the Information Industry Association. Robert L. Oakley is governmental affairs representative of the American Association of Law Libraries. 

He is appearing on behalf of a coalition of library associations. 

Wendy Lechner is legislative director of Printing Industries of 

America. 

We welcome each of you, and we look forward to your testimony. 

[The prepared statement of Hon. Stephen Horn follows:]

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Mr. HORN. The tradition on the committee and all subcommittees 

of the Government Reform and Oversight Committee is to swear in 

all witnesses except Members of Congress. If you would stand and 

raise your right hands, we will swear in the witnesses. 

[Witnesses sworn.] 

Mr. HORN. The clerk will note all three members have affirmed. 

We will begin with the Public Printer of the United States. A 

quorum is present, with Mr. Davis of Illinois. 

We welcome you. Did you have an opening statement, Mr. Davis? 

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. No, sir. 

Mr. HORN. Then we will proceed with the first panel and the 

Public Printer of the United States, Michael DiMario. He is accompanied by Wayne Kelly, Superintendent of Documents, Government 

Printing Office; also, Bruce Holstein, the Comptroller of the Government Printing Office. 

Gentlemen, proceed as you would like. 

STATEMENT OF MICHAEL DiMARIO, PUBLIC PRINTER, GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE, ACCOMPANIED BY WAYNE 

KELLEY, SUPERINTENDENT OF DOCUMENTS, GOVERNMENT 

PRINTING OFFICE; AND BRUCE HOLSTEIN, COMPTROLLER, 

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 

Mr. DIMARIO. Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, 

thank you for inviting me here this morning to discuss GPO’s role 

in Federal information dissemination. As you indicated, Wayne 

Kelley, the Superintendent of Documents, who is seated to my left, 

is accompanying me, and also Bruce Holstein, GPO’s Comptroller, 

who is seated to my right. In the interest of time, I will briefly 

summarize my prepared statement, which has been submitted for 

the record. 

Mr. Chairman, an abiding commitment to public access to Government information is deeply rooted in our system of Government. 

GPO is one of the most visible demonstrations of that commitment. 

For more than a century, our mission, by law, has been to fulfill 

the needs of the Federal Government for information products and 

to distribute those products to the public. 

Formerly, our mission was accomplished using traditional printing technologies. However, a generation ago, we began migrating 

our processes to electronic technologies, and in 1993, Congress 

amended Title 44 with the GPO Electronic Information Access Enhancement Act, which requires us to disseminate Government information products on-line. This act is the basis of GPO Access, our 

Internet information service. Latest data shows that this service 

was used to download more than 4.5 million Government documents electronically last month. 

Today, GPO is dedicated to producing, procuring, and disseminating Government information products in a wide range of formats, both print and electronic. We provide printed and electronic 

information products and services to Congress and Federal agencies through in-plant processes and the purchase of information 

products from the private sector. In fact, as you have noted, we buy 

approximately 75 percent of all information products requisitioned 

from us, in one of the Federal Government’s most successful procurement programs. 

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We distribute upwards of 100 million copies of Government publications every year through a variety of programs, including a lowpriced sales program, and to Federal depository libraries nationwide where the information may be used by the public free of 

charge. 

One of these items is the Citizens Guide on Using the Freedom 

of Information Act and the Privacy Act to request Government 

records, which is issued as a report by the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight. We have been distributing this item, 

in various editions, for many years, and it is very popular. 

We also disseminate a growing volume of information via the 

Internet. We catalog and index Government information products, 

and we distribute them on behalf of other Federal agencies. We 

conduct all of our services in a nonpartisan, service-oriented environment that emphasizes the primacy of the customer’s requirements for timeliness, quality, security, and economy, and we are 

committed to achieving the greatest access and equity in information dissemination, whether through printed publications, CD– ROM, or on-line. 

At the bottom line, our programs reduce the need for duplicative 

production facilities throughout the Government, achieve significant taxpayer savings through a centralized procurement system, 

and enhance public access to government information. 

With the growing use of electronics, there is a temptation to say 

that the Government no longer needs a printing capability. I think 

this temptation should be resisted. Last year we produced over 

$700-million worth of printing services for the Government, and 

printing is still a major avenue of communication between the Government and the public. 

The transition to full electronics is coming, but it is a long way 

off. We need to manage that transition effectively. Maintaining a 

cost-effective printing and dissemination capability for the foreseeable future gives us an important management tool. 

A major problem confronting us today is the growing decentralization of Government printing activities. GPO is a primary 

guarantor not only of cost-effectiveness, but of public access to the 

comprehensive body of publications produced by the Government. 

When agencies do not use GPO for printing, the likelihood is that 

they will not only spend more, but their publications will not be 

put into GPO’s dissemination programs where they can be accessed 

conveniently and equitably by the public. 

The growing decentralization of Government printing is a major 

source of so-called ‘‘fugitive documents,’’ documents that, by law, 

belong in our depository library program, but which are not included, usually because they are produced elsewhere than GPO. 

Decentralization is also expanding the opportunities for Federal 

agencies to use other dissemination mechanisms for their information products. With increasing frequency, these mechanisms are involving copyright or copyright-like arrangements that also have the 

effect of impeding public access to Government information. 

Two weeks ago, I testified on proposals for revising Title 44 that 

would address these problems, including the issue of the constitutionality of GPO’s operations that has been raised by the Justice 

Department’s Office of Legal Counsel. For the record, I do not 

7

agree with that opinion. I think the issue of GPO’s constitutionality 

can be addressed without sacrificing the current system of printing 

and distribution that serves the Government and the public well. 

Mr. Chairman, Government information is increasingly valuable 

to American citizens and taxpayers in the information age. At GPO 

we provide a service which makes that information available to the 

public cost-effectively, comprehensively, and equitably. 

GPO’s continuing migration to electronic technologies, as well as 

the ability of our staff, are already facilitating the re-engineering 

of information products and processes to satisfy the changing information requirements of the Government and the public. At the 

same time, our traditional printing and distribution capabilities are 

preserving and protecting access to government information for all 

of our citizens. 

More than a century ago, Congress, in its wisdom, designed a 

system in GPO for keeping America informed. That system continues to serve a vital purpose today, and we look forward to working under congressional oversight and guidance to improve the performance of our operations and programs. 

Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, I thank you for 

taking an interest in GPO and for inviting me to be here this morning. I would be pleased to answer any questions you may have. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. DiMario follows:]

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Mr. HORN. We thank you. 

Does the Superintendent of Documents wish to comment on his 

operations? 

Mr. KELLEY. I would just add to what Mr. DiMario has said that 

we welcome the interest of the committee, Mr. Chairman. We feel 

that Federal information policy is at a crossroads, that information 

is disappearing rapidly from the public domain, and we appreciate 

the interest of this committee in that topic. 

Mr. HORN. I wonder if you could elaborate on that, because you 

have hit a very important issue, probably the most important we 

will discuss. Give me some examples of how you would back up 

that statement. 

Mr. KELLEY. Well, there are three or four ways that Government 

information is now disappearing from the public domain, Mr. 

Chairman. One is copyright or copyright-like restrictions. An example of that would be the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. 

For 50 years, that journal, a leading source of information to the 

public on cancer research, was available through depository libraries or through sale by the Government Printing Office. 

On January 1 of this year, the National Cancer Institute 

privatized that journal. They did so under authorization that they 

said came from a cooperative research and development agreement. 

They have signed over copyright of the journal to the Oxford University Press. The American public may now only get information 

on American cancer research, previously supplied by this journal, 

by purchasing the information. This is an example of copyright restrictions. 

A copyright-like restriction would be a publication, Big Emerging 

Markets, which is published by the Commerce Department, produced entirely by Commerce Department employees. They made an 

agreement—the International Trade Administration is the publisher—made an agreement with the National Technical Information Service. This agreement permitted a commercial publisher, 

Bernan Press of Lanham, MD, to publish this Government document, exclusively. So it was available only through NTIS’ partner 

and NTIS itself. 

There are other restrictions when Government agencies decide to 

sell information and they do not make it available except under 

their terms and conditions. This is happening more and more frequently. An example of this is NTIS and a new CD–ROM product 

called Order Now. For many years, this valuable resource, which 

had all of the bibliographical references to scientific and technical 

information published by the Government, was printed by the Government Printing Office. 

The National Technical Information Service recently decided to 

make a CD–ROM of this. This CD–ROM is available only by purchase from NTIS and is not made available to the depository libraries. 

There are numerous other examples, but this will give you an 

idea. 

Mr. HORN. Before this trend occurred, when information was 

published by the Government Printing Office and was distributed 

to depositories, I assume some of that information was occasionally 

compiled and issued by commercial presses. They didn’t have to 

34

worry about a copyright, because that information was freely available, and depositories didn’t have to worry about buying the information, because they were automatically put in those depositories 

by the Government Printing Office. 

Now, how has that changed? Do we have actual data as to how 

many situations like the ones you described have occurred, and is 

that really restricting information, in the sense that there’s a price 

to pay for information, most of which is done and created with the 

taxpayers’ money? 

Nothing would stop—and I don’t think we would want to discourage—commercial publishers from taking Government works and 

putting them in book form, editing and putting subheads, whatever 

they want to do, putting better indexing, if they think that’s possible. 

But the question is, to what degree, if we don’t have the Government Printing Office depositories furnished in the way they have 

been furnished in, you could say that is a restriction of information, 

and do we have any numbers on what is happening here, kept 

track of them all, on the privatization? 

Mr. KELLEY. We have only a trend, Mr. Chairman. I can’t quote 

you exact numbers. But in our sales program and in the depository 

program, we are seeing a very pronounced trend. Any information 

that has commercial value is now very likely to be sold exclusively 

and removed from our program. 

The U.S. Industrial Outlook, prepared for decades by the Department of Commerce, is now going to be done on an exclusive arrangement with McGraw-Hill, using Federal employees. As I said, 

the cancer journal and others. 

Mr. DiMario may add something to that. 

Mr. DIMARIO. We have a list of several publications that have 

given us concern. The ones mentioned by Mr. Kelley, certainly, and 

then the Export Administration Regulations; CIA World Fact Book; 

the NOAA Diving Manual; Hispanic Latinos, Diverse People in a 

Multicultural Society, a booklet by the Department of Commerce; 

A Nation of Opportunity, Kickstart Initiative, another from the 

U.S. Advisory Commission on National Information Infrastructure. 

We have Population of States and Counties of the United States, 

a Bureau of the Census publication, 1790 to 1990; Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970, in CD–ROM format; Toxic Substances Act, Chemical Substance Inventory; and 

there are several others I can read to you that are included here. 

It is these kinds of publications that bother us. Now, concerning 

your reference to the value-added producers in the private sector, 

I think the beauty of the existing Title 44 is that it has contained 

in it the essence of supporting the private sector’s use of public information. 

We are a publisher, in the first instance, of the information as 

it came from the Government. But the private sector, in putting 

value to it, enhances that, and for those people who want to go beyond the basic information given to the Government, we encourage 

that. It is a wider dissemination of Government information disseminated to the public, and the better the Nation is informed. So 

we totally support the private sector. 

35

What we oppose is the exclusive arrangement that then starts to 

deny people access to the basic information except to pay a price 

that they may not be able to afford. The existing structure allows 

everyone to get free access. It does not allow them to get their own 

publication. 

Mr. HORN. Now, how much of your material—and then I will 

yield to Mr. Davis—is on the Internet? 

Mr. DIMARIO. We currently have 70-plus data bases that we 

have put up on-line on the Internet. Those include the Congressional Record and the Federal Register, which the GPO Access law 

required us to put up, but it also includes the U.S. Code. It includes many, many other publications. 

We are putting additional publications up. We are trying to enhance that information to make as much of the demand publications available to the public as possible. Now, there is a limitation 

on the number of resources we can commit at any given time. 

We are trying right now to do the Code of Federal Regulations 

with the Office of Federal Register and the Archivist of the United 

States, Mr. Carlin. That’s a very important project to them. And 

the Code of Federal Regulations is probably the most in-demand 

publication that we make available, because this is how the public 

interacts with its Government, they know the rules and regulations 

that are out there. 

All agencies have to be involved in that process, so it’s a difficult 

process, but we are undertaking it and we are moving along quite 

rapidly. This is not to preclude commercial folks from purchasing 

from us the information, at cost, essentially, and going and putting 

a value-added product up that enhances what we are doing. 

Mr. HORN. Mr. Davis, the gentleman from Illinois. 

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. DiMario, good morning. How are you doing? 

Mr. DIMARIO. Yes. Good morning. 

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. You address, I guess, one of the main 

thoughts that I had, and that is, as we continue to increase our 

telecommunications technology and there is a greater reliance on 

the use of it, can we measure the extent to which it has impacted 

the need for our printing office? 

Mr. DIMARIO. Well, to some degree, we can measure that. The 

printed product is declining, to some degree, in demand with respect to traditional products that we have been putting up on-line. 

That is, as we put up an electronic product, there are some people 

who would prefer the electronic product. But there are still people 

who want the paper product, and there are some who want both. 

So we see both of those things happening. 

If we examine our subscriber lists for paper products, often we 

see that they are getting the electronic products. What is happening, though, is, as products are being put up electronically, in 

some instances, they are replacing the paper product. And when 

that happens, they are not fully available to everyone in the public. 

The public has a difficult time finding these. 

There is a Government information locator system that is supposed to be being developed throughout Government. We have our 

own GILS structure, and we reference it in the official statement 

36

that we submitted, the prepared statement. That GILS structure 

allows people to identify publications that we are aware of. 

We have attempted to make the structure in such a way that 

people can point to other agencies and obtain the information on 

the other agencies’ lists. But not all information is coming through 

us, and the public has to go hunting across many, many sources 

to identify information, as it stands right now. We think they need 

one place where they can locate that information. 

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Do you get the impression that we are 

seeking more information? It seems to me that I’m getting more 

paper, and I’m also getting more telecommunication inquiries. Are 

we getting more of a requirement? 

Mr. DIMARIO. I really can’t say, but my experience is somewhat 

like yours. What is happening is, a lot of paper is being outputted 

at the point at which you receive it electronically. As a consequence, you may be receiving more paper. I have not looked into 

that. 

From the standpoint of what we produce, we are producing fewer 

paper products, but it’s still a very, very significant number, as I pointed out that over $700-million worth of paper is still coming 

through us. The electronic portion is still a small number. Even 

when I talk about putting 70 data bases up electronically and doing 

various things, it is still a small number relative to what we are 

doing in paper. 

Mr. KELLEY. I might add, Mr. Davis, that it’s interesting that the 

Library of Congress paper collections continue to increase, even in 

this electronic age. So it’s not disappearing in print. 

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. It’s an interesting point. 

You mentioned that decentralization would likely increase the 

cost. Would you talk about that a little bit? 

Mr. DIMARIO. Sure. From our perspective, when you decentralize 

the procurement of printing and the production of printed products, 

each point at which that product is generated has to put in place 

some mechanism that allows them to acquire that product. 

Printing is very different than just going out and buying, say, 

pencils that are available in the marketplace. Printing is essentially created for a particular use at a particular time. So you have 

the administrative cost that now gets decentralized. 

We have some 6,000 billing addresses in Government, as an example, people who are ordering publications from us. If you have 

a decentralized structure where these 6,000 billing centers now become independent structures buying their own printing, you are 

going to build up significant administrative costs. 

You are also going to create costs for the printer, who now has 

to look at that market and potentially have salespeople to call on 

all of these various areas of Government in order to come in and 

get business. 

Right now, we are a centralized source. We get information from 

the various agencies. They place orders with us. We place them 

against contracts that we use our own internal expertise to create. 

We know that every printed product has some variation to it, but 

we can create contracts that are sort of general usage kinds of contracts, and we can have large numbers of contractors around the 

country bid on these contracts. 

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We have some 13,000 contractors on our bidding list, around the 

country. As a result, we get very, very low prices. There are people 

all over the country who bid on the work. We have quality measurements for the quality of the work. We have a sense of what that 

work ought to cost. 

And the issue is always the bottom line cost: Can that contractor, 

at any location, provide the product to the customer agency in a 

timely manner, at the quality level that the customer wants, at the 

lowest cost, including transportation costs? 

If the contractor meets the requirements and comes in with the 

low bid under those circumstances, we don’t care if they are in 

California and the need is in New York, as long as it’s there in a 

timely fashion. Well, that gives us a very, very low price. But when 

you simply are going to your local provider, at any of these 6,000 

locations, you walk down to your neighborhood quick printer, you 

are not assured that you are getting the very best price for your 

money. 

We have examples of that. We have an example of one publication that could have been produced through one of our programs 

for one-tenth of the cost that it was produced through a local private sector provider, where an executive agency went to purchase 

the publication. I think they paid $30,000 for it; it could have been procured, with 

their specifications, in our office for one-tenth of that amount. And 

additionally, had they come in and talked to us about modifications 

in the specifications that still would have met their requirements, 

we think we could have purchased that product for around $500, 

as opposed to $30,000. 

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. One other question, if I could, Mr. Chairman? 

Mr. HORN. Sure. 

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Do you feel that, through this system, 

small businesses get an adequate opportunity to participate? 

Mr. DIMARIO. We think so, because, No. 1, the printing community is predominantly a small business community. One of our 

main suppliers, by the way, is an 8(a) firm in California, and they 

are a marvelous supplier. They have done a great job for us, and 

they regularly bid on the work, and they are considered a small 

business. So small businesses are out there. 

In fact, printing is predominantly small business. Certainly, 

there are firms like Donnelly, that is just very, very large, but 

many of these companies that, in this industry, would be considered very large, may, under the existing Small Business Act, be 

considered a small business. 

In our structure, we actively go out and attempt to get small 

businesses to participate in the program, and they do. The Printing 

Industries of America has just got untold numbers of people who 

are small businesses and actively participate. 

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Thank you very much. You’ve been very 

helpful. 

Mr. DIMARIO. Yes, sir. 

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. I have no further questions. 

Mr. HORN. We are delighted to welcome another member of our 

full committee, and that’s Major Owens. 

38

I think you are the only professional librarian in the Congress. 

Are there some questions you would like to ask? 

Mr. OWENS. Not at this time. 

Mr. HORN. Well, let me proceed down some questions. And whenever my colleagues have a question, just let me know, and we will 

get them all out on the record. 

In your testimony, you noted that the Government Printing Office has gone from 8,200 employees, about 20 years ago, to 3,700 

employees today. Have you had to lay off employees in order to accomplish those reductions? 

Mr. DIMARIO. By and large, the answer is no. We have accomplished this through attrition and planned attrition. Knowing that 

technology was changing, we worked through a very long-term 

planning process and reduced the size of the office. 

The only place where we have had to RIF was in the closure of 

some of our field operations. In fact, in the downsizing of those regional plants, there were, as against this entire number, eight individuals that were actually RIFed. There were 32 people who were 

affected by the downsizing, but we were able to help place the 

other employees effectively with other agencies. 

Mr. HORN. What technological change had the most to do with 

the reductions? 

Mr. DIMARIO. I would say the move from hot metal to the existing structure that we have. When we went from hot metal composition, just the nature of the process allowed us to reduce very, very 

substantially. As noted in the testimony, we’ve been into electronic 

photocomposition since really the mid-1970’s. I think we started in 

the late 1960’s. But in the mid-1970’s, that transition allowed us 

to just change the numbers of people that were necessary to 

produce products. 

Mr. HORN. You mentioned, and you expanded a little on that, 

that about 75 percent of your printing is outsourced to private contractors. How do you decide what work should be performed inhouse and what work should be performed by private contractors? 

Mr. DIMARIO. The work that is performed in-house, to a large degree, is work that requires very quick turnaround, security issues, 

maybe sensitive material, or requires a very quick, close relationship with the customer agency. 

Let’s take congressional printing. We do the Record and Register 

and the bills internally. We have to work with each committee of 

Congress. We have to work with the leadership in order to get 

those products done and turned around so they can be on your 

desks early in the morning. 

With respect to other congressional products, we are certainly 

looking at the degree to which we can contract out some of that 

material, but by and large, it is dependent on the needs of Congress. We will have staffing in the office to meet these peaks and 

valleys in congressional demand, and so we have to retain some 

products to meet those peaks and valleys. 

We look at executive branch publications from the standpoint of 

how well they fit on equipment that we have and is necessary. For 

example, the Record presses that we have to produce the Congressional Record we also use for the Federal Register. They are identical products in many ways. They use newsprint. But they all need 

39

this timely daily delivery, and so we have a work force that’s able 

to handle those. So that’s one of the ways we make that decision. 

We also retain in-house the U.S. budget at the request of the 

White House. There’s a great deal of security involved in that, and 

we work very, very closely with the Director of OMB and their staff 

on the production of that. We do passports in-house. We do postal 

cards in-house. And other products, as our capacity allows, we will 

negotiate with the agencies to keep products in-house. 

But it’s largely timeliness of delivery, security of the product, the 

sensitivity of the product, things that we need to embargo. As an 

example, the budget itself, we have it in; we work with OMB. And 

we embargo it before it’s released, and they tell us when to release 

it. 

Mr. HORN. And that’s a very detailed job. I don’t think there has 

ever been a leak, has there? 

Mr. DIMARIO. I hope not. 

Mr. HORN. I’m not aware of any. 

Mr. DIMARIO. I’m not aware of any. 

Mr. HORN. Has this percentage of work—essentially three-to-one, 

if you will—has that been changing in recent years, and in which 

direction is it changing? 

Mr. DIMARIO. Yes, sir. It changes on a yearly basis, to some degree, but it’s a fairly constant number, although it has been going 

up, as a percentage. When I came to GPO, in 1971, I would say 

the percentage was roughly 62 percent, 63 percent of the total 

work. We are now at 75 percent to 80 percent. I think that shows 

the variation. 

But it’s an effort on our part to put as much into the private sector as we can, with the need to retain an in-house work force. What 

we have done during my term, we have closed a number of field 

facilities. So the only remaining field printing facility that we have, 

and it’s quite small, is our Denver field printing plant. 

Other than that, we procure printing, and we have field procurement operations. Even in this town, we had a facility at the Navy 

Yard that is closed; it has been merged into our central office plant. 

And the central office plant has been reduced dramatically. 

Mr. HORN. Later today, we’re going to have a witness from the 

Printing Industries of America, and the recommendation from them 

is that the Government Printing Office should contract out far 

more of its printing to private sources. Do you have any comments 

on that? 

Mr. DIMARIO. Well, I think they look at the dollar value of the 

printing that is in the plant. And they, obviously, would like it all 

contracted out. I think that’s a given. If you’re out there, you see 

it as a source of revenue in your industry. 

My sense is that we have worked very diligently to put a maximum amount of work into the private sector, but we still have to 

take into account the needs of Government. We need a central facility to produce some products in a timely fashion, in order to support your work and the work of your staffs. 

Let’s look at the budget process. We work very, very closely with 

the budget committees during the appropriations process. Frequently, those staffs are dependent on going back and forth with 

our office on all of those appropriations bills. We have to move 

40

those through in that appropriations cycle, every bill that comes 

through, working with those various staffs, and that is critical to 

how Congress operates. 

We work with the Office of Legislative Counsel, the Senate Office 

of Legislative Counsel and the House Office of Legislative Counsel, 

in the bill drafting process. That’s all part of our in-house production. 

So it’s not just the output that we’re talking about, it’s not just 

the printed product at the end, it’s the totality of how information 

is created and used. That interface is a constant. I don’t know how 

you separate the two out effectively. 

Mr. HORN. Let me ask you about the Congressional Record. Now, 

a lot of the depository libraries have not had the permanent bound 

volumes of the Congressional Record for a number of years. What 

is the situation on that? 

Mr. DIMARIO. Well, that’s one that I think it’s partly our fault. 

We have to move the bound Record out. And we do the bound 

Record when we have work space available for our people to work 

on it. But the bound Record is also dependent on getting the final 

data from the Congress. And when the Record is produced on a 

daily basis, it’s subject to some modification. The Congress, as you 

know, may provide some changes to us at a subsequent time, so 

that is difficult to get out. 

Moreover, we have, in the appropriations process, a situation 

where there has been an effort to limit the distribution of the 

bound Record in the paper format, and a movement toward trying 

to get us to do it as a CD–ROM product. That has not been well 

received in the library community. The view of researchers is that 

the permanent bound Record is a very, very important document, 

and they would like to see the paper volume continue. 

So what we’ve done is, we’ve had a committee that deals with the 

bound Record, and we deal also with the serial set—I’m certain you 

are familiar with the serial set, which is all the congressional numbered documents—whether or not those two publications should be 

continued in some way as paper products. 

But the timeliness of delivery, which is part of your issue, is tied 

into that whole structure. 

Mr. HORN. I think, basically, we need both. I mean, if the CD–

ROM permits indexing and searching by word or key phrase, that’s 

very helpful. Because one of the frustrations with the current 

microfiche, I believe, that as it goes out to the depositories, it’s just 

about impossible to do research and find the material you want in 

a timely way. 

As we all know, there’s a difference between the pagination of 

the daily Record versus the bound permanent Record. Unless we 

can solve that problem, we have a real difficulty to track sources 

and footnotes in scholarly works on Congress, at least that quote 

the Congressional Record. 

So I guess I’m saying, what’s slowing you up, and what’s stopping you from making up those permanent records that are bound 

and can be in libraries, that will hopefully be there for a few hundred years, at the least? I realize there are other ways of technology, and all that, but, on some of it, you just need to look at 

41

what was said, and you need to get the right page numbers when 

you are doing research. 

Mr. DIMARIO. Well, correct, and I support that view. We need to 

do a permanent bound Record that is truly available to the research community. I think the issue needs to be addressed in the 

Appropriations Committee, though. That issue has been raised on 

a regular basis for as long as I can recall, in that committee, and 

it needs to be worked out between the various committees of jurisdiction. 

Mr. HORN. Well, are they shorting you on money for that? 

Mr. DIMARIO. Well, they would like us to migrate away from the 

paper products. And one of the reasons we moved to the microfiche, 

initially, was to save money. So the question, are they shorting us 

on money, I think that yes, they are. But it is more by way of policy. They do not want us to produce these paper products. They do 

not see the value of them as readily as some others see them. 

Congress is not deriving a direct benefit, necessarily, from the 

number of paper products that are produced, the bound records 

that are produced. But the depository community, the research libraries are the ones who derive the benefit, and the entire Nation 

does. They are, through the availability in research libraries, serving the entire Nation, commercial users as well as research institutions. 

Mr. HORN. Well, is the Appropriations Committee telling you not 

to print the Presidential papers in hard copy, with hard covers? 

Mr. DIMARIO. Well, they have not made that an issue, because 

we’re talking about the legislative branch appropriation, and they 

are concerned about the size of the legislative branch appropriation. I cannot speak to appropriations with respect to the executive 

branch, but we’ve not heard that as an issue. 

Mr. HORN. Well, we pay the bills in either case, and I’m rather 

shocked my colleagues don’t see equality in how we maintain congressional legislative branch records and permit the executive 

branch printing to go on as it is. I think both should be treated the 

same way. Your Presidential papers series is invaluable for scholars, as they use those records. And I would just think we should 

be updating the binding on the permanent Congressional Record. 

It is very frustrating, as a professor, which was my life before I 

was elected to Congress, to have your class try to track down information on Congress. As I say, the microfiche thing is nonsense. The 

index is horrible. And it’s just about impossible to do work in a reasonably rapid way. And I would think we need that permanent 

Record out. 

Mr. DIMARIO. Yes, sir. 

Mr. HORN. And I will talk to my friends in the Legislative Appropriations Subcommittee, because that’s just being—that’s one of 

those silly economies that don’t get us anywhere, frankly, and they 

are on the wrong track. 

Major, do you have a few questions you would like to ask? I’ve 

got a long list here to get in the record, but help yourself. 

Mr. OWENS. The depository libraries, you distribute information 

to some in electronic formats. What percentage of the information 

distributed—well, do we have all the information that is in electronic format distributed to depository libraries also in print? 

42

Mr. DIMARIO. Mr. Kelley may respond to that. Generally speaking, if the product is in print, it, up to this point, has been distributed in print. But under the direction of the Appropriations Committee, we established a task force, a couple of years ago, to look 

at transitioning the entire depository library system to a fully electronic system. And that task force had a great deal of participation. 

Mr. Kelley chaired it for us. 

It involved a number of committees, including Representatives 

from this committee, who participated on that, and the library community. The result was, the recommendations were to slow the 

transition down somewhat from what the Appropriations Committee wanted, and to look at certain documents as core documents 

that must be maintained in paper, and that are fundamental to our 

democracy, our Government. 

Mr. Kelley may want to add to that comment. 

Mr. KELLEY. Mr. Owens, the number of tangible products, that 

is, CD–ROMs and discs, and so forth, is still a small percentage, 

perhaps 5 percent of the holdings in depository libraries. 

The on-line versions through GPO Access include, as Mr. 

DiMario said earlier, some 70 data bases. The Federal Register, the 

Congressional Record, Commerce Business Daily are the big ones, 

and we’re now getting—in April, we had 4.5 million downloads, in 

that month, of those documents. So it’s getting to be a large number of accesses by the public and depository libraries, on-line. 

The Appropriations Committee has urged us to make a transition 

to electronic documents. We have begun that transition, and by the 

end of 1998 fiscal year, we may have available as much as 50 percent of all the depository holdings on-line or electronically. 

Mr. OWENS. My question is, what percentage of significant documents do you have which are only in electronic format now and not 

available in print? 

Mr. KELLEY. Very few, but the pressure, as I say, is to transition 

and then drop the print. 

Mr. OWENS. The pressure is to transition. 

Mr. KELLEY. To electronic. 

Mr. OWENS. But, at this point, only a few are not available in 

print as well as electronic format? 

Mr. KELLEY. Only a few. We have been urged to do the bound 

Congressional Record in CD–ROMs and to limit the number of libraries who will get the bound Record. We have been urged to do 

the same with the bound serial set. 

Mr. OWENS. So, at this point, you would say that the depository 

libraries are not experiencing any hardships with respect to the 

distribution of Government documents, situations where they don’t 

have the capacity to utilize the electronic formats, but they don’t 

get them in any other form, so they end up without having the information in any form. 

Mr. KELLEY. The impact, at the moment, is minimal. But we are 

looking for it to increase. For instance, with Census 2000, the Census Bureau is telling us that they will not make available any 

paper and that you will have to get census reports electronically. 

And under consideration right now is a process under which they 

will only sell them electronically. We are working with the Census 

43

Bureau to try to get some exemption that would allow electronic access by depositories. 

But we can see, in the next 2 or 3 years, there will be a significant impact. 

Mr. OWENS. I assume that only Congress can redirect the Census 

Bureau to drop that. They have declared they will not produce it 

in any other format? At this point, it’s going to happen unless Congress were to turn that around? 

Mr. KELLEY. That’s correct, sir. 

Mr. OWENS. What about fugitive documents, very significant documents that are produced by agencies that don’t come through the 

Government Printing Office. Would you have an estimate of how 

many of those are presently only in electronic format? 

Mr. KELLEY. There are just now beginning to be a number of 

very significant ones. The Order Now CD–ROM from NTIS is an 

example. NTIS has taken the position that electronic documents 

don’t need to be included in the depository program. If that’s the 

case, and the administration generally takes that view, then we 

will really have a problem as we move into the electronic future. 

There are some other data bases. The Export Administration 

Regulations are now on an on-line data base updated daily. We still 

have the print product, but only because NTIS, under pressure, 

agreed to keep the print product in. But the more useful on-line 

Export Administration Regulations is not available, only for sale. 

Mr. OWENS. Mr. DiMario. 

Mr. DIMARIO. Well, I think the significant thing that Mr. Kelley 

mentioned is this trend within Government agencies, and NTIS 

being an example of it, where they are looking at a publication that 

was previously a print publication and saying, well, this is an electronic product now, and therefore it’s not covered by any of these 

rules. 

We don’t read the provisions of the depository law in that way. 

It includes Government publications. Government publications are 

defined as informational matter created as individual documents at 

Government expense. It’s a very broad definition. 

Mr. OWENS. You are saying they are still required to handle an 

electronic information product in the same way they would handle 

a publication in print? 

Mr. DIMARIO. We believe so. We believe that the broad structure 

of the depository law requires that electronic products that are created in Government agencies, that are intended as individual documents, are still required to be distributed through the Superintendent of Documents to the depository libraries. 

Now, a number of agencies are just not adhering to that law. To 

some degree, they look to the Paperwork Reduction Act definition 

of publications that has been put in there, which is less broad. 

OMB, to a large degree, the Office of Information and Regulatory 

Affairs, OIRA, has interpreted the definition that they have in the 

Paperwork Reduction Act to say that it needs to be a publication 

that was produced, in the first instance, intended for distribution 

to the public. Well, most documents are not produced, in the first 

instance, with the intention of distribution to the public. They are 

produced for some need of an agency. 

44

So that interpretation of conflicting laws—I don’t even believe 

that they are conflicting—but if you take their definition, you have 

to look to see whether or not the publication was produced for distribution to the public. As a general rule, it allows agencies to say, 

‘‘Well, this has not been produced that way. Moreover, it’s an electronic product. We don’t read that as being under the Chapter 19 

provisions of Title 44, and therefore, we’re not going to include it 

in the program.’’

And they do not give us the publication. So more fugitive documents, in fact, are being created each day. 

Mr. OWENS. Would you say we need legislation to clarify Government policy on two major issues, and that is, this definition issue, 

as you have just outlined, exactly what is appropriate under this 

law to be included in the system; and also we need some legislation 

to deal with the capacity of the depository libraries to utilize information in electronic format? 

If they don’t have the capacity, then the law is really not being 

carried out. We need to do something to make certain that depository libraries have the capacity to utilize the information. 

Mr. DIMARIO. I would certainly think that statutory modifications that would clarify everything would be useful. Whether it’s 

necessary or not, I don’t know. I think you can read the laws in 

a compatible way. I think what is happening is that there are people who are charged with administering the laws who are not reading them in a compatible way. 

Mr. OWENS. But fugitive documents are increasing. The number 

is escalating rapidly. 

Mr. DIMARIO. They are increasing. 

Mr. OWENS. So, obviously, you need something. 

Mr. DIMARIO. Some affirmative action by Congress or within the 

administration, recognizing the Title 44 provisions in Chapter 19, 

and the definition of that law as being critical to the information 

dissemination to the public, certainly needs to be made. 

To take the Paperwork Reduction Act definition, which was intended for a totally different purpose, and to say this allows us not 

to put publications out through the depository program, I think is 

a distortion of intention. 

Mr. OWENS. Thank you. 

Mr. HORN. I think the gentleman is absolutely correct. I think 

the gentleman from New York is correct. I can assure you we are 

going to review this and try to get the administration to follow the 

intent of both laws, which, to me, is quite clear. 

We do not want to deny information to the American public. 

What we want them to do in their paperwork reduction is the kind 

of bureaucratic nonsense that comes out of every agency sometime 

during the year, and reduce that, which is a burden in the regulatory sense, but not in the information sense. And that’s just common sense. 

I am going to declare a recess for 15 minutes. We have a vote 

on the floor we have to respond to. So, gentlemen, relax for 15 minutes. 

[Recess.] 

Mr. HORN. Let us continue with the questioning. 

45

Has the GPO ever approached the Office of Management and 

Budget’s Office of Regulatory and Information Affairs about negotiating a Memorandum of Understanding to cover the executive 

branch’s printing and information relationship with the Government Printing Office? 

Mr. DIMARIO. We have participated in an attempt at negotiating 

that. It was not our directly approaching OMB or OIRA. It was 

done, actually, through the House of Congress a couple of years 

ago, or a committee of the House of Congress, and that committee 

of the House was, I think, Post Office, Treasury, and General Government Subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee. 

They brought us together, and we talked about having some policy that would be put in place until the differences could be worked 

out legislatively between the executive branch and the committee. 

The result of that was the so-called ‘‘Rivlin memoranda’’ that we 

have made some mention of. Alice Rivlin first, and then Mr. Panetta, issued memoranda that asked the agencies of Government to 

continue to do work through GPO. 

And there were certain exceptions that were spelled out in the 

memoranda where agencies could continue to do a certain amount 

of their work in existing plants, but could not expand capacity, had 

to continue their downsizing efforts for their internal operations, 

and at the same time give preference to procured products, and 

that the procurement be through the Government Printing Office. 

So that policy statement was issued in conjunction with this committee negotiation with OMB. And I personally participated in that 

and also in the drafting of the memoranda. The memoranda were 

issued by Ms. Rivlin, then Mr. Panetta, and then the Acting Director, Jacob Lew, at OMB. 

Mr. Raines has been asked, not directly by GPO, but I believe 

by the Joint Committee on Printing members, a number of whom 

or all of whom have signed a letter to Mr. Raines asking that he 

reissue the policy of this negotiated agreement until some legislative solution can be worked out. 

What has happened is, that memorandum that came out had a 

1-year timeframe to it. It was first issued in September 1994, then 

in April 1996, but there was this sense in OMB that, in April 1997, 

the memorandum expired, because it made reference to a 1-year 

timeframe. 

And in advance of that 1-year timeframe, we saw evidence in 

OMB that they were looking, together with a couple of agencies, to 

migrate away from GPO and to set up their own centralized printing activity. In fact, they issued a publication to a number of Government agencies and held a meeting that discussed a restructuring of government printing in the executive branch, and that 

would have been to essentially ignore the current law and to push 

GPO outside that. 

Mr. HORN. Is there anything in that memorandum that Rivlin, 

Panetta, and the Acting Director signed off on, to which you, as 

Public Printer, object? 

Mr. DIMARIO. No, sir. I have no objection. 

Mr. HORN. So you have no problem with that memorandum 

being continued as a guidance to the executive branch? 

46

Mr. DIMARIO. I would support it completely. And I think that we, 

at that point, both in the executive and in the legislative branch, 

could work toward a common solution that was agreeable to everyone. 

Mr. HORN. Are you aware of any rival printing operation that is 

now being established in the executive branch, and if so, where is 

it, and does Congress know about it? 

Mr. DIMARIO. Well, we have some evidence regarding the Defense Department, the Defense Automated Printing Service, specifically. 

Mr. HORN. Well, they have been excluding themselves for years, 

haven’t they? 

Mr. DIMARIO. Yes, sir. 

Mr. HORN. This is not new. 

Mr. DIMARIO. No. But they have been acting with the General 

Services Administration printing operations and have been looking 

at merging the two activities. And the Defense Automated Printing 

Service has actually been reaching out for customers outside of the 

Defense Department, in an expansive role, to provide printing services and contracting services for them. 

We also see the same thing happening in NTIS, the National 

Technical Information Service, in Commerce, where they are reaching out for customers. They assert that they have their own independent authority to act and that they are not bound by the printing laws. 

So, yes, sir, we do see this. 

Mr. HORN. Has your counsel looked at that document, and what 

is the reaction of the Public Printer to that document? 

Mr. DIMARIO. Well, we believe that they do not have this independent authority, and we believe that they are simply looking at 

ways of avoiding the generic law that is in Title 44. And we saw 

exactly that in some activity by GSA, where they asserted they had 

independent authority. They looked at some obscure provision of 

law. 

The Justice Department came back and said that the authority 

that they were relying on was not sufficient, not adequate, I believe. Our counsel, in looking at these, has clearly said they are not 

consistent with the Title 44 provisions. 

Mr. HORN. OK. At this point, I want in the record an exhibit of 

the memorandum signed off by two budget Directors and one Acting Director, and the relevant citation that you have from Defense, 

and any other exhibits. 

Do we know what their costs are? Do we know what their overhead is? We will ask our staff to ask the two agencies you named 

for how many printing jobs have they handled outside of their own. 

What are their charges? How much overhead are they levying, et 

cetera? 

Mr. DIMARIO. We will submit all of those to you. 

Mr. HORN. Very good. Without objection, they will be put in the 

record at this point. 

[The information referred to follows:]

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g:\graphics\44892.028
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g:\graphics\44892.029
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g:\graphics\44892.030
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g:\graphics\44892.031
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g:\graphics\44892.032
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g:\graphics\44892.033
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g:\graphics\44892.034
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g:\graphics\44892.035
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g:\graphics\44892.036
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g:\graphics\44892.037
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g:\graphics\44892.038
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g:\graphics\44892.039
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g:\graphics\44892.040
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g:\graphics\44892.043
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Mr. HORN. Now, let me just finish on a few questions. Some of 

these, the staff will send them directly to you, and we will put 

them in the record at this point. I’m just wondering, if there is one 

thing we ought to take a look at, it’s probably the Citizens Guide 

to the Freedom of Information Act, which the subcommittee and 

full committee take great interest in, since it is prepared between 

the Congressional Research Service and this committee staff. 

Mr. Kelley, you are responsible for marketing noncongressional 

publications. How does GPO go about promoting publications that 

have a broad interest to the public and has the Citizens Guide, essentially, on the best sellers list? What is your best sellers list? 

What’s your top 10? You might want to file it for the record, if you 

don’t have it. 

Mr. KELLEY. Mr. Chairman, the Citizens Guide, for congressional 

documents, is indeed the very best. 

Mr. HORN. This is the one to the Freedom of Information Act 

that you’re thinking of. 

Mr. KELLEY. Right. 

Mr. HORN. Yes. 

Mr. KELLEY. It is indeed a very good seller among congressional 

documents. It, in the last 18 months, has sold some, I think, 3,200 

copies, and that’s in addition to the distribution to the depository 

libraries of another 1,000 copies. So it is a very good seller. 

We promote these things by including them in catalogs circulated 

by the Government Printing Office. We promote them with press 

releases. We promote their existence in direct mailings, sometimes 

in conjunction with the publishers of these documents. We have a 

fax system which alerts the public to new documents that have 

been published. And on our World Wide Web site we now have a 

complete reference file of all documents available for purchase, and 

it also permits the public to order electronically through the Web 

sites. 

So we have a large number of marketing channels for making 

the public aware of these documents. 

The best sellers list, we do have a best sellers list, and it tends 

to be seasonal. Recently, to give you a couple of examples, the IRS 

publications, this is from December, were very popular. There are 

Health and Human Services publications, like the one on international vaccination. There are things like educational statistics. 

And there are diet and other publications that get wide circulation, 

at very low cost, but quite popular with the American public. 

Mr. HORN. What has happened to the Agricultural Yearbook? Is 

that a dead duck, or is that still going? 

Mr. KELLEY. It is, I believe, no longer in print. I would have to 

check on that, but I don’t think that the Agriculture Department 

is producing it the way they used to. 

Mr. HORN. What has happened to some of the documents you 

printed 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago, that might be congressional 

documents? Are they being thrown away, destroyed, or are you 

going to put them up for sale so some of us that collect those can 

go over and pay you a little money for them? 

Mr. KELLEY. Of course, they are still available in depository libraries, regional libraries. We have just, in the last year, under a 

lot of pressure in our sales program, adopted a policy of keeping 

64

a minimum stock. Because for the first time last year, in 13 years, 

the sales program lost money, for a number of reasons. But some 

of them are the things that I documented earlier, people putting 

controls over more popular publications and removing them from 

our program. 

So, on an ordinary volume, we would have about an 18-month 

supply. Some more historic things, the U.S. Senate History, authored by Senator Byrd, and others, we would keep a 10-year supply. But we have made a commitment, when there is a public demand, to reprinting. So we will respond to that. 

Mr. HORN. Very good. 

Mr. DIMARIO. May I add to that? 

Mr. HORN. Yes. 

Mr. DIMARIO. Prior to 1978, we received direct appropriations for 

our workforce and facilities in the sales program. In 1978, the law 

was modified to put us on a self-sustaining basis, so we must recover the cost of all of our publications through that sales program. 

The result of that is that in the storage, long-term, of publications, there are constant costs being added to the publication, and 

it reaches a point where it is easier to look toward potential reprint 

at a later date or to recover the information in some other way. So 

we have had to slim our inventory down substantially, in the process. 

Mr. HORN. Very good. I have no further questions. 

I am going to ask the ranking member, Mrs. Maloney from New 

York, if she has any questions? 

Mrs. MALONEY. Sure. Thank you. 

Good morning. 

Mr. DIMARIO. Good morning. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Mr. DiMario, I’d just like to understand a little 

bit about the electronic printing procurement program at GPO. I 

understand that it’s extremely efficient. What is the average turnaround time, from the time that an agency submits a printing job 

to the GPO and getting a final printed document? What is your 

turnaround time? 

Mr. DIMARIO. Well, I can’t tell you an average time, because all 

documents are quite different. You can have a 10-page document, 

and you can have a 2,000-page document. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Just say, for instance, a 2,000-page document, 

what is the turnaround time? 

Mr. DIMARIO. Well, we attempt, on any document, to produce the 

document within the timeframe that the agency asks us to produce 

it. They give us a time that they need the publication distributed 

to them. 

When the order comes into our office, the requisition comes in, 

our customer service group looks at that, places it with our printing procurement folks. It then goes out on our bid information system so that it’s up electronically, and people can then bid on that. 

We normally are not producing the publication in-house for the 

agencies. The bid time has, depending on the product, a certain 

timeframe. It may be a 3-day bid period because the agency needs 

the document in 2 weeks. But if they need it a longer period down 

the road, it will be a longer term. 

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When we go out with that bid information, the contractors can 

then bid on the product. We go through awarding the contract to 

the contractor, and the contractor, in bidding on it, is assuring us 

that they will deliver the product to the agency in the timeframe 

that we have asked for. We have a 95 percent timely delivery capability, and that is what our record is, from the printing contractors. 

But as to a specific job, to give you an average turnaround time 

is just difficult to do. 

Mrs. MALONEY. So how much of your printing do you do in-house 

now? 

Mr. DIMARIO. We do approximately 25 percent of the printing inhouse; 75 to 80 percent is done through the procured process. 

Mrs. MALONEY. And what is the average cost, in a general sense, 

of a job printed in-house by GPO versus the average cost of a job 

printed through the competitive system? Is the competitive system 

more or less than printing in-house in GPO? 

Mr. DIMARIO. It is, generally speaking, cheaper to procure the 

product on the outside. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Really. It’s cheaper outside. That’s interesting. 

Mr. DIMARIO. Yes. 

Mrs. MALONEY. And what determines whether an agency printing job goes into the competitive process or gets printed in-house 

by GPO? And can an agency be assured that its job will go into the 

competitive system? 

Mr. DIMARIO. What determines it is whether or not the product 

is, in fact, a procurable product. Not all products are procurable. 

If you look at the true cost, as opposed to just this average statement of whether something is cheaper on the outside, on an average, or cheaper on the inside, on an average, the jobs that we do 

in-house, we believe, are not generally procurable jobs, that these 

are jobs that require enhanced security, a great deal of interface 

with the agency that is creating the information, that we need to 

go back and forth with that agency, and there are timeliness issues 

that are concerned with it. 

So let’s take, for example, we do the postal cards in-house for the 

Postal Service. That’s a repetitive job. It’s done on particular dedicated equipment. We believe we get the lowest cost and we get the 

security of this particular document for the Postal Service. They, 

obviously, believe the same thing. They have been with us for 

many, many years, and we have dedicated equipment to do that. 

We do the same thing for passports. That is a dedicated structure requiring high security, and we deal with the customer agency 

on that. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Now, what is the procedure now? I understand 

that the Vice President’s reports on the National Performance Review were not printed through GPO. Say I’m an agency and I decide I don’t want to go through GPO. Do they have to go through 

GPO? 

Mr. DIMARIO. That’s what the law requires. 

Mrs. MALONEY. The law requires it. 

Mr. DIMARIO. Yes. 

Mrs. MALONEY. And I understand now that you charge an agency 

a 6 percent fee for each printing job? 

Mr. DIMARIO. That’s correct. 

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Mrs. MALONEY. What would it cost an individual agency to run 

a procurement operation similar to yours? Could they do it for 6 

percent of the printing cost for the year, do you think? 

Mr. DIMARIO. We don’t believe so. The 6 percent encompasses an 

enormous range of services to the agency. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Yes, I can imagine. 

Now, if an agency procures with you, and then you tell them you 

have competitively bid it and Company X has gotten the job, what 

if the agency has had a bad experience with Company X and 

doesn’t like the quality of their work, can they reject that printer, 

based on quality of work, and ask for another one? 

Mr. DIMARIO. We look at the performance record of each contractor. And if the agency has expressed a negative view and they 

have documented all of that bad performance, that is considered in 

the issue of whether or not a contract gets awarded. 

We have a system of debarment that mirrors the debarment 

structure in the rest of Government. Contractors have property 

rights in contracts when they perform those things, and they have 

a right to contest issues. So we look at performance against a 

standard. And if the contractor’s performance is bad for a particular reason, we will note that in the awarding of contracts. They 

may not get the job, but we do not automatically debar them. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Mr. DiMario, how do you keep the performance 

record of a contractor? Do you computerize it? 

Mr. DIMARIO. Yes, it’s all computerized. 

Mrs. MALONEY. It’s all computerized? 

Mr. DIMARIO. Yes, job by job. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Job by job, but then is it central? 

Mr. DIMARIO. They are all computerized. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Job by job, or centralized, too? 

Mr. DIMARIO. It’s all centralized. We have a procurement information control system, and the data that we collect on individual 

contractors and contract performance is put into that. 

Mrs. MALONEY. So contract performance data is entered into a 

centralized, computerized system? 

Mr. DIMARIO. To the best of my knowledge, yes. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Now, I am interested in this. I would like to ask, 

and maybe we will put it in a series of questions, if you would get 

back to the committee on how you track performance data. I can 

understand how you can have one contractor, you’ve got it over 

there, but how do you put it into a centralized system that a procurement officer then can plug into to see what the performance 

data is in the past? 

Do you understand? 

Mr. DIMARIO. Absolutely. 

Mrs. MALONEY. I would like to see the paperwork on it. 

Mr. DIMARIO. And we do that for every contract. We have that 

data, and we look at it, but we cannot automatically debar someone 

simply because the agency has said they don’t like them. 

Mrs. MALONEY. I understand that. 

Now, I understand that, historically, one of the reasons that we 

started to use GPO was to make sure that we had copies of Government work for the library, for the history of our country. 

Mr. DIMARIO. That’s correct. 

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Mrs. MALONEY. And that this was really put into place to really 

control printing, make sure that documents were kept, so the history of the work of the various agencies was kept in a good way, 

centrally, for our country. 

Do you think it would work if we could just require that the various agencies deposit their work into the library? Do we have to go 

through GPO to make sure the work gets into library? 

Mr. DIMARIO. Well, I would submit, the current law requires 

that if an agency does not come through GPO, and has been granted a waiver to do their own work, that they are required now to 

supply the depository libraries with copies of their publications at 

their own expense. That is not being done, and that is one of the 

great problems that we have had over and over again. Agencies are 

not following the law as it exists. 

Mrs. MALONEY. That is a problem, if they are not following that. 

Mr. DIMARIO. And that’s the current law, that’s not a change in 

the law. If they come through us, we charge those publications that 

go to the depository libraries to our salaries and expense account 

for the depository libraries. That is some $30 million that the Superintendent of Documents administers to put publications into the 

depository system. But agencies that are not coming through GPO 

are still required to go to the depository structure, through the Superintendent of Documents, at their own expense. They have not 

done that. 

An accommodation of a number of years ago was for the agencies 

to give us two copies of their publications, which we would then 

catalog and index and turn into microfiche so we could distribute 

it to the libraries, and they would not bear the expense. That’s not 

what the law says; it was a pure accommodation, administratively. 

And we still can’t get them to do it. 

Mr. KELLEY. If I might add something here, we have, for depositories, they may select among some 6,000 classifications of documents. They do this every year. We put this into a computer. We 

have somebody in our procurement office, every time an agency orders printing, we immediately put into our system a requirement 

for the required number of documents to satisfy the depository system. 

If each agency dealt independently with each library, there 

would be millions of transactions that the agencies and the individual libraries would have to manage themselves. 

Mrs. MALONEY. My time is up, but I have one short, cost-saving 

question. 

Mr. DIMARIO. Sure. 

Mrs. MALONEY. I would like to ask the chairman if I can ask it, 

because my time is up? 

Mr. HORN. Certainly. 

Mrs. MALONEY. In your testimony, you indicated that a $30,000 

Department of Labor printing job could have been procured 

through GPO for $3,000, and that you could have saved the department another $2,500 through your cost-saving measures. 

Could you describe for us those cost-saving measures, and would 

the agency have been required to use those measures if the document had been printed by GPO? 

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Mr. DIMARIO. Well, had they come directly to GPO, GPO would 

not have printed the publication. It would have placed the contract 

out with a contractor around the country. And following their specific specifications, we would have gone and purchased that for the 

$3,000, the statement that you made. That was acquired through 

a quick printer somewhere in their area. The agency had an issue 

of how quickly they needed the turnaround on a document, and so 

they went to the local printer. 

The issue in the publication, in terms of measures that we would take to reduce it to this even lower level, this $500-level, it would 

still be a procured job. It would not be through GPO. It would still 

be on one of our contracts, but we would cut it down to one color, 

as opposed to a multiple-color document. We would use a different 

binding on it. We would have a longer lead time in order to meet 

that requirement. 

Had they come to us in a timely fashion, with a long enough lead 

time, and changed their own external requirements, not information requirements, not what was in the publication itself, but simply the use of single color as opposed to multiple color, you could 

change the cost of that publication dramatically. But even using 

their specifications, we could have purchased it for one-tenth the 

price. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Last year, when we were considering the reports 

elimination bill that passed out of the subcommittee, Representative Dunn proposed an amendment that would require any printing 

job of over 1,000 pages to go through the GPO. Some of us thought 

that was a little extreme, because very short seminar notice from 

each office would have to be printed by GPO. 

But could you explain to me what a reasonable page limit would 

be, and explain to me the purpose of Representative Dunn’s amendment and what a reasonable page limit would be? 

Mr. DIMARIO. I don’t know what page limitation is reasonable. 

You can deal in dollars. The limitation that I’m aware of that was 

being put into the law, or that people were attempting to negotiate, 

was one that was publications that cost less than $1,000. Well, 

$1,000 for printing buys an awful lot of printing. 

And we can buy, competitively, a much larger quantity of print- ing for that $1,000 than an agency simply going out on a sole 

source basis, and going out on the outside and buying that. There 

are printing contractors around that will come in—because we 

group these orders together. We would take that $1,000-job, and we 

might have $10,000-jobs that look the same in the various features 

to it, and we can group them together, put them out as a single 

contract, and a contractor will bid on that and give us a very, very 

low price. 

The agency will get its requirements, each of the agencies will 

get them, and they will save money on it. And the issue that we 

always have is timeliness of delivery. From an agency standpoint, 

many of them just simply want to go out and buy from the closest 

vendor. If they come to us and ask for a waiver, and they give justification for the waiver to go out and do that, and it seems that 

it’s not something we can buy more effectively than they can, we 

will grant the waiver and allow that to happen. 

Does that answer your question? 

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Mrs. MALONEY. Thank you. I thank the chairman for giving me 

a little bit of extra time. 

Mr. HORN. I thank the gentlewoman from New York. 

We are running a little behind. The rest of the questions will be 

submitted to you, if you don’t mind. 

Mr. DIMARIO. Yes, sir. 

Mr. HORN. You are still under oath in answering them. We will 

put them in the record following this insertion, which is the memorandum I sent members of the committee on May 5, including the 

attachment of Assistant Attorney General Walter Dellinger and the 

memorandum of May 31, 1996, ‘‘Government Printing Office Involvement in Executive Branch Printing,’’ so everybody can see 

that. 

[The information referred to follows:]

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Mr. DIMARIO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. May I say one thing? 

Mr. HORN. Yes. 

Mr. DIMARIO. I would like to invite you, Mr. Chairman, and all 

members of the committee and staff, any staff that you want, to 

come down and visit us at the Government Printing Office, and see 

what we do and how we do it, in terms of electronic products, what 

we do in-house. I think it might be revealing to you that we operate quite a modern facility, and we do act, in my judgment, for the 

benefit of the taxpayers. 

Mr. HORN. Well, I thank you very much, Mr. DiMario and Superintendent Kelley. 

Mr. Holstein, I’m sorry we didn’t call on you, but I appreciate the 

role you are doing there as the Chief Financial Officer/Comptroller. 

We have high regard for the Chief Financial Officers throughout 

the Federal Government, and that includes the legislative branch. 

So thank you for joining all of us. 

Mr. HOLSTEIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. HORN. Thanks very much for coming. 

If the next panel will come forward, we will begin the testimony 

on the panel: Daniel S. Jones, Robert L. Oakley, and Wendy 

Lechner. 

OK. If you would all rise and raise your right hands? 

[Witnesses sworn.] 

Mr. HORN. The clerk will note that all three witnesses have affirmed. 

We will begin with Daniel S. Jones, the president of NewsBank, 

Inc., appearing on behalf of the Information Industry Association. 

I might say to staff, all of the relevant re ́sume ́s will be included 

after we introduce each witness. And, of course, your full statement 

is put in after we introduce you, and we would like you to summarize it for us, so we can get down to questions and have a dialog. 

STATEMENTS OF DANIEL S. JONES, PRESIDENT, NEWSBANK, 

INC., ON BEHALF OF THE INFORMATION INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION; ROBERT L. OAKLEY, WASHINGTON AFFAIRS REPRESENTATIVE, AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF LAW LIBRARIES; 

AND WENDY LECHNER, LEGISLATIVE DIRECTOR, PRINTING 

INDUSTRIES OF AMERICA, INC. 

Mr. JONES. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and good 

morning. 

NewsBank is a mid-sized news information publishing company. 

My objective today is to bring you an example of the type of problem which occurs when an agency of the Government ignores the 

Paperwork Reduction Act. 

I’m not an expert on PRA, but I want to relate an injustice that 

has injured my company, that has occurred by an agency not adhering to PRA. The bottom line of my presentation is that the Government, in the form of an agency, specifically the NTIS, is competing with my business by republishing material which is not 

even Government information. It is copyrighted private information 

that is being sold by the NTIS to my customers, which are university libraries. 

94

Now, as you can imagine, this disturbs me greatly; also, that my 

taxes and the taxes of my employees are subsidizing my competitor, the Government. 

I am very much in favor of the public access to Government information, on the other hand. I have been a trustee of my local 

public library for 10 years. I have been a member of the American 

Library Association for 25 years. All of my customers are librarians, and a number of my products actually facilitate the further 

use of Government information. 

Now, since the passage of PRA, my fellow IIA members and I 

have witnessed a number of agency initiatives that fly in the face 

of both the language and the intent of PRA. I can best explain 

these problems by citing the experiences of my company. 

I began NewsBank 25 years ago and now employ 400 people in 

Connecticut, Vermont, and Florida. It may surprise you to learn 

that my company, whose primary mission is to provide access to 

news sources, is so concerned about Government competition and 

Government information policy. 

In fact, when I started my company, I certainly didn’t think that 

unfair competition for my business would arise from the Federal 

Government. Sadly, this is precisely what I have been battling for 

over a year now, with the World News Connection, a product published by NTIS. It is competitive because it contains much of exactly the same foreign news content that I publish with my business, and other publishers in our industry republish, exactly the 

same content. 

When NTIS created this competitive product about 2 years ago, 

it appears that they did not demonstrate any significant effort to 

comply with the PRA. As a result, much of its content, as I mentioned, duplicates the very same information which is found in my 

products and that of other publishers that are private. 

As I understand it, Congress intended NTIS to be subject to the 

PRA. In fact, the IIA and its members have consistently brought 

this situation to the attention of the officials at that agency and 

OIRA. Sometimes I wonder, however, if the agency’s only real 

knowledge of PRA is how to avoid the act, not how to implement 

it. 

Best I can tell, NTIS did not take adequate efforts to give public 

notice about its plans for its new product, the World News Connection. If they did, it was only to determine whether they could capture a profitable market share. 

Now, another significant point that I would like to make is that 

when I publish a product, I must cover the entire cost of that product to bring it to market. Apparently, this practice is not required 

of the NTIS. As the director of NTIS has stated, the translation 

costs for the foreign news content in his product are at least subsidized by the taxpayers. That’s a significant savings to NTIS, and 

one that I can’t match. 

Now, on top of the ability to avoid covering some of the costs of 

publishing its competitive product, NTIS doesn’t pay any taxes. 

About half of my profits are paid out to various Government taxing 

bodies. That means that I have to earn twice as much to improve 

my products for my customers as the NTIS. 

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Now, in addition to these points, I don’t know how a foreign news 

information product falls under the purview of the NTIS. It’s not 

scientific; it’s not technical; and it’s not engineering information. 

For over a year I have worked to resolve this issue. I regret to 

tell you that no progress has been made. The NTIS World News 

Connection product is on the market. The harm has been incurred 

by my company, in terms of lost customers and potentially future 

sales. 

If this trend continues, my company may have to stop investing 

in some of its information products, and a significant number of my 

employees may lose their jobs. My company’s case demonstrates, 

gentlemen, that unless a strong enforcement of the PRA is forthcoming, NTIS and other Government agencies will continue to compete with the private sector, to the detriment of private sector jobs. 

Now, is the loss of private company jobs the objective of an agency of the Department of Commerce? I certainly hope not. 

NewsBank’s experiences with the World News Connection are especially relevant to today’s hearings, in that NTIS has demonstrated 

the dangers that lie in not strictly enforcing PRA principles. 

I would also like to comment that, for the most part, the GPO 

seems to have been a responsible disseminator of Government information, but there is no guarantee that, in a rapidly changing information marketplace, tomorrow’s GPO may not be pressured to 

act more like a competitor, nor that agencies will use the GPO to 

avoid the mandates of the PRA. As I see it, one certain way to 

avoid these potential problems is to require enforcement of PRA. 

My point, therefore, is that I believe passage of the PRA is not 

enough, not enough without enforcement. We would recommend 

that the subcommittee review the efforts that OIRA has taken to 

ensure that agency officials follow the specific requirements of the 

law. And gentlemen, we are very much appreciative of your starting that process by holding this hearing here today. 

The information industry does not make this request lightly, but 

only after attempts to deal directly with OIRA and several other 

agencies that have proven to be unsuccessful. My case, as I have 

described to you, as well as that of other industry situations, indicate that there appears to be a general lack of enthusiasm for the 

PRA within the executive branch, and only congressional intervention would seem to be the way to overcome this condition. 

In closing, I would like to express my appreciation to you all and 

the subcommittee, and for the opportunity to appear today. My goal 

in being here is to find a way to stop the Government from competing with my product, my taxpaying business. I hope you can 

help achieve that goal. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Jones follows:]

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Mr. HORN. Well, we thank you. That’s a very interesting story, 

and we will followup on that and see if that publication is in line 

with the mission of the agency. It seems to me, if they are into generalized aspects that aren’t, as you suggest, in their scientific-technical role, I don’t know what justification they can have for it, 

other than to make a couple of bucks. 

[The information referred to follows:]

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Mr. JONES. That, and in addition, it’s not Government information. 

Mr. HORN. Yes. That’s right. So have you ever found where they 

have copied stories out of your own publication and just put it in 

theirs? 

Mr. JONES. No. They buy their information from the same suppliers of information that we do, exactly the same ones, and other 

companies in our industry also provide the same information and 

have for many years. 

Mr. HORN. OK. We will look into that case. It’s very interesting. 

Mr. JONES. Thank you. 

Mr. HORN. The next presenter is Robert L. Oakley, the Washington Affairs representative of the American Association of Law 

Libraries, appearing on behalf of a coalition of library associations. 

And you are the law librarian at Georgetown. Welcome. 

Mr. OAKLEY. That’s right, Mr. Chairman. Thank you very much. 

I am honored to be here today representing a coalition of about 

80,000 members of six national library associations. 

I would like to request that our longer written statement be 

added to the public record of this hearing. 

Mr. HORN. Yes, all of those are automatic, the minute we introduce you. 

Mr. OAKLEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Our statement covers three broad areas. First, we describe the 

library participation in the Federal Depository Library Program 

and the partnership role that these libraries play to make significant investment and provide the public with timely, no-fee, convenient access to Government information that they need in order to 

serve the needs of their users, in print and electronic formats. 

Second, our statement highlights the challenges and the opportunities presented by new technologies, about which we have spent 

much time this morning, and the need for central coordination to 

ensure that the life cycle of electronic Government information, 

from creation to preservation and archiving, is ensured. 

There must be a comprehensive, coordinated program to ensure 

permanent public access. We believe this is a natural and important extension of the public dissemination role of the Superintendent of Documents. Valuable Federal information disappears 

daily from the growing number of agency Web sites. 

Third, our statement discusses trends toward decentralization, 

privatization, and commercialization of Government information 

which, along with the increased use of electronic technologies to 

produce and disseminate information, have led to the growing crisis of Government information eluding the depository library program and therefore being less available to the public. The result is 

increased fugitive information and reduced public access, which we 

have talked about this morning. 

Our statement lists a number of specific publications that have 

eluded the depository library program. It also notes agencies, such 

as the National Technical Information Service and the National Library of Medicine, that currently do not provide access to their 

data bases for no-fee public access in depository libraries. We believe that information created at Government expense rightfully belongs in the Federal Depository Library Program. 

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Mr. Chairman, we appreciate the opportunity to be here, and I 

want to summarize five additional issues that are addressed in our 

written testimony. 

First, the Depository Library Program is the most efficient system to provide the American public with Government information, 

and libraries have invested a great deal to provide the technological infrastructure necessary to help meet the information needs 

of their users in this electronic age. 

Second, there is a strong need for a central coordinating authority whose functions should include the development of much needed finding tools and the setting of standards for preservation and 

permanent public access to Government information. 

Third, some agencies, as we have heard this morning, currently 

do not fulfill their responsibilities under Title 44, thereby depriving 

Americans of information created at taxpayer expense. 

Fourth, Congress should provide a meaningful method of enforcement so that agencies will understand their obligations under Title 

44 and will comply with the law. 

Fifth, moving to a ‘‘cybergovernment’’ is replete with challenges 

and requires additional costs, both for the Government to produce 

and disseminate information and, in addition, for libraries and citizens to be able to locate and use it. 

Mr. Chairman, we appreciate the opportunity to appear before 

you today, and we would be pleased to answer any questions you 

might have. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Oakley follows:]

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Mr. HORN. Well, we thank you very much. You have a very full 

statement that I have read, and I think that’s very helpful to the 

dialog. 

Our last witness on this panel is Wendy Lechner, legislative director of the Printing Industries of America, Inc. 

Ms. Lechner. 

Ms. LECHNER. Thank you. 

Mr. Chairman, members of the subcommittee, my name is 

Wendy Lechner. I am the legislative director of the Printing Industries of America. PIA is the Nation’s largest graphic arts association, with 14,000 members. We appreciate the opportunity to testify. 

I would like to say at the start that there is no printing job performed at GPO, or elsewhere in the Federal Government, that cannot be contracted out. Such privatization could be done without 

sacrificing timeliness, quality, or security. We are totally confident 

that such contracting out would also save the Government money. 

Despite our belief that GPO can be closed and work contracted 

out, we do not believe it should be done without looking to the future. Congress needs to make a thorough evaluation of its printing, 

publishing, and information management needs, to ensure that it 

is getting the most bang for the buck and to ensure that the public 

has access to information produced with taxpayer funds. 

At present, printing services are fragmented to the point where 

it is impossible to determine how much and what type of printing 

and publishing services are underway. As a result, the Government 

cannot plan how best to carry out its information dissemination 

needs, nor can it determine whether more cost-effective methods 

can be used in the future. 

PIA has several recommendations to provide a road map to ensure that both the Government and the public are getting the information they want, in the formats that are most useful, for the best 

price, in terms of dollars and efficiency. My written testimony outlines these recommendations in more detail, but I would like to 

briefly highlight several of them. 

First off, Congress should implement a strategic planning process 

to evaluate the printing, publishing, and information management 

needs of Congress and the public. It is Congress’ responsibility to 

ensure that Government information is published and properly distributed. However, without a business plan that determines current and future needs, with respect to formats, quantity, equipment, and the like, Congress cannot possibly make sound decisions. 

Second, Congress should implement appropriate controls over 

Federal agency activities in printing, publishing, and information 

dissemination to ensure that the public is informed. Over the decades, we sometimes seem to have forgotten that the primary mission of the Government Printing Office, as well as Federal agency 

printing plants, is to produce public information. 

If Congress does not control the presses, or at least have a system of determining how public information is produced and disseminated, the public information network cannot properly function. 

And last, every Federal agency should be required to submit an 

annual plan as part of its budget request. The plan should indicate 

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how the agency will fulfill its responsibilities to inform the public 

and how it intends to produce the work, whether in-house or by 

contract. If the work is to be performed in-house, the report should 

indicate the equipment required for the work and the cost of the 

work. 

Currently, no one has information about printing or duplicating 

equipment or facilities owned by any Federal agency. However, 

since some have speculated that Federal printing and information 

expenditures may exceed $3 billion, it would appear that significant budget savings may result if better information and management techniques were instituted. 

In closing, I would like to point out that we continue to believe 

that the best way to provide information services is through the 

private sector. GPO has successfully operated a centralized procurement system that should continue to evolve and improve. Contracting out printing services works, both in terms of providing taxpayer-financed information to the public and in terms of cost savings to the Government. 

Thank you for letting me testify today, and I would be happy to 

answer any questions. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Lechner follows:]

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Mr. HORN. Well, we thank you very much. That’s a helpful perspective. 

Let me ask one general question. I think most of you were here 

when the Public Printer and the Superintendent of Documents testified. Do any of you have a reaction to anything you heard in the 

exchange between members of the subcommittee and the witnesses? And if you would like to make some particular perspective, 

please go ahead. 

Mr. Oakley. 

Mr. OAKLEY. Yes, sir. Thank you for the opportunity to comment. 

I did have a number of reactions, but one that struck me most 

forcefully was what seemed to me—and I spoke to Superintendent 

of Documents Wayne Kelley about this at the break—to be an understatement of the impact of the transition to electronics, that Mr. 

Owens had asked about, on libraries and on their users. I think the 

impact is indeed significant, and it is creating a significant burden 

on both libraries and on their users. 

First of all, there is a great deal of information that is only available electronically, or at least only available in a timely manner 

electronically. One specific example that came to my attention in 

my library was the annual report of the U.S. Sentencing Commission. I had a faculty member who—in her own words—was ‘‘tearing 

her hair out’’ trying to find this particular publication. 

Indeed, we checked, and the latest was not available through the 

Government Printing Office; the latest we had in our library was 

a 1994 version in microform. But I went to the agency’s Web site, 

and sure enough, there it was on the Web site. And I thought, OK, 

the 1995 is available. But, unfortunately, it was probably about 500 

pages long. Well, we weren’t going to sit there and print out a 500-

page document so that a faculty member could get access to this 

document. 

In the end, we didn’t have the microfilm; we didn’t have the latest edition. It was only available on the World Wide Web. I did call 

the agency, and I requested a copy directly through them, but it 

was not available through the depository program. 

There are other problems that are created by limitations of technology. How many computer work stations does the library have? 

Some libraries are more well-endowed than others and can afford 

access to the World Wide Web; some cannot. So the impact of this 

transition is significant. 

And you, yourself, alluded earlier to the issue of the Congressional Record, and, indeed, I must add the U.S. Congressional Serial Set, which is creating a significant problem, as well. So I think 

that just needs to be emphasized. 

Mr. HORN. Let me ask you, since you live in the most libraryrich resource area in the world, namely, Washington, DC, and the 

great Library of Congress, are you a Federal depository also, at 

Georgetown? 

Mr. OAKLEY. Yes, we are. 

Mr. HORN. How about the other universities in the area? Are you 

the only one? 

Mr. OAKLEY. I think most of the universities in the area are, as 

well as all of their law schools. 

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Mr. HORN. See, in the State of California, I think the only full 

depository is the California State Library. And maybe there’s one 

in the south; I’m not sure where it is. Now, there are various Federal depositories. I’m not sure they get everything that they ought 

to get. 

Mr. OAKLEY. I must add that we are not a regional depository, 

which would be a full depository. We only get a very select number 

of publications. And indeed, the Congressional Record and the Serial Set are only available to the regionals now, and therefore we, 

as a law library, cannot get those. That, as you might imagine, for 

a law library, is a serious problem. 

Mr. HORN. Yes. I agree with you, and I don’t know why we’re so 

skimpy on that. It seems to me any basic university conducting research, at the undergraduate or graduate level, needs those basic 

tools of our major institutions. 

Mr. OAKLEY. You would think so. 

Mr. HORN. So we will try to prod around here, either Appropriations, Joint Committee on Printing, as the case may be. 

You had a question, I think, Ms. Lechner. 

Ms. LECHNER. Yes, I did. In fact, one thing I wanted to mention, 

when the issue was discussed about security and timeliness, with 

respect to using private sector printers, it is odd that Boeing, 

Microsoft, and Wall Street can rely on our timeliness and security, 

but the Government cannot. So I would like to point out that we 

think that we do a pretty good job. I’m not aware of any security 

violations our industry has ever been accused of. 

On the other hand, I would like to mention the fact that Mr. 

Davis had brought up the question of small business contracting. 

I would like to point out that we think GPO does the best job of 

all the agencies in ensuring that small businesses get a huge, lion’s 

share of the work. And we think that they are doing an excellent 

job in that area. 

Mr. HORN. Thank you. 

Mr. Jones. 

Mr. JONES. Just very quickly. I believe, and my industry association does, that the underlying Government information should be 

available to everybody with no restrictions. Our job is to add value 

and enhance that information. That’s what we are all about. We 

are, however, very much opposed to exclusive contracts which remove this information from the public’s access. 

[The information referred to follows:]

Much criticism has been leveled recently against arrangements between Federal 

agencies and private sector companies which, by giving one company exclusive 

rights to government information, remove the underlying government data from the 

public domain. 

In his testimony, Mr. Jones very succinctly articulated IIA’s position on this issue 

and we simply want to restate it for the record. IIA has long held the position that 

underlying government information created or collected by federal agencies and 

meant for public inspection should be available to any and all users on an equal 

and timely basis for the cost of dissemination. The Association is opposed to arrangements which place any restrictions on the collection or use of the information, 

including exclusive arrangements.

Mr. HORN. In other words, you would let anybody that wants to 

add their version of value-added in indexing, in content analysis, 

and all the rest of it? 

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Mr. JONES. That’s what our industry is all about. 

Mr. HORN. Yes. That’s very interesting. 

Does the gentleman from New York wish to question the witnesses? 

Mr. OWENS. Do any of you think that the GPO should be part 

of the executive branch and we should dispense with the Joint 

Committee? Have you found the Joint Committee adequate to addressing your grievances? 

Ms. LECHNER. From our perspective, there are any number of 

ways to make sure information is disseminated. However, I think, 

in hearings of this committee in past years on the issues that have 

been brought forward, that even Thomas Jefferson indicated it 

might be wise that public information be in the hands of Congress, 

because you are elected Representatives, and therefore you are 

more closely linked to the public who have the right to the information. 

We believe that there will always be a role for Congress in dealing with public printing. 

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Jones. 

Mr. JONES. Personally, I feel it should stay where it is. We will— my industry association—I will submit a written comment on that 

question, as well, Mr. Owens. 

[The information referred to follows:]

IIA has not taken an official position regarding the transfer of GPO to the executive branch. However, for many years, IIA has advocated that the legislative branch, 

in which GPO is located, adopt and comply with information dissemination policies 

similar to those included in OMB’s circular A–130 and now codified in 44 USC 

3506(d). Transforming GPO to an independent, executive branch agency would automatically make it subject to the same dissemination principles. Regardless of where 

GPO is located, IIA believes it and the other legislative branch entities including 

Congress should, in general, be subject to these dissemination principles.

Mr. OWENS. Your particular problem, though, what due process 

have you had with respect to NTIS publishing material? 

Mr. JONES. What have I done, specifically? I have worked primarily through my congressional delegation to try to get to the Department of Commerce. We have a number of letters that we have 

submitted through—that our Senator, Senator Pat Leahy, has written to NTIS—actually, to the Department of Commerce, which then 

passed them on to NTIS. 

I assume that OIRA has also seen those, but I have no evidence 

of that. There has been never any comment along those lines of the 

enforcement being looked at. 

Mr. OWENS. So you have not gotten any satisfaction from your 

appeals to NTIS? 

Mr. JONES. No action whatsoever. 

Mr. OWENS. Is there another level? Where do you go next, to the 

White House? Would the White House be able to help? 

Mr. JONES. I don’t know. That might be a good suggestion. 

Thank you. 

Mr. OWENS. Should we not have some other way of handling it, 

so that some power to deal with your problem would be somewhere 

else? 

Mr. JONES. I really cannot answer that question, because I don’t 

know the ins and outs of the Government well enough. Personally, 

I’d like to see anything that can be done, done. I can understand, 

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however, that Congress, with its funding responsibility, as I understand it anyway, seems to be an appropriate place to control that 

sort of thing. 

Mr. HORN. Without objection, we will put in the record at this 

point the exchange of correspondence that you have had, or others 

have had in your association, with the Office of Regulatory Affairs 

and the Office of Management and Budget. 

And staff will pursue trying to bring this to a head as to what 

are their policies in this area, and is this a violation of the memoranda that the directors have issued over time, and what is the 

basis for using the Paperwork Reduction Act as an excuse for this, 

if that, indeed, is their basis? 

So, if you have those and staff can work it out with you, we 

would like an exhibit at this point in the record, without objection. 

Mr. JONES. We will. Thank you very much. 

[The information referred to follows:]

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Mr. HORN. The gentleman from New York. 

Mr. OAKLEY. If I might add? 

Mr. OWENS. Go ahead. 

Mr. OAKLEY. I was just going to answer your question, but if you 

wanted to pursue this other issue, that’s fine. 

Mr. OWENS. There’s a larger problem of a great amount of mushrooming messiness with respect to policy. Who can deal with fugitive publications, for instance? The law is supposed to require that 

they funnel the publications in a certain way so that they eventually get into the depository libraries. 

If they are not doing that, if agencies are not doing that, if electronic publishing formats allow them to flout the regulations even 

more or ignore them, then who can get a handle on this? Do we 

need a stronger Joint Printing Committee? Do we need some other 

body to supersede the Joint Printing Committee? 

Who should make the policies with respect to NTIS suddenly deciding it wants to do a certain kind of information product? The 

Census Bureau will only produce its information in electronic format. 

I mean, Congress has obviously allowed them to proceed on that, 

but if it does not work, and if it does what I think it’s going to do, 

continue to deny census information to people who very much need 

it, continue to put our libraries in a very bad position, because 

many of them cannot handle electronic formats, and they very 

much need information about the census, who is it who is going to 

be able to respond to the grievances and the inadequacies, and be 

able to adjust it with some kind of authority, is the question? 

Ms. LECHNER. Mr. Owens, we believe that it is Congress’ role, 

and we would support anything that Congress did, in terms of legislation, to rein agencies in. Frankly, we think that GPO has done 

a good job with the publications that go through it. We think that 

agencies need to be reined in, and we believe that only Congress 

can do that. 

Mr. OWENS. Well, ‘‘Congress’’ is too general. Congress ultimately 

creates some body. You need something which is closer to the situation, that has the authority of Congress behind it, which will keep 

up. These are changes that are taking place quite rapidly. For Congress to try, as a body, to stay on top of it, is insufficient. You need 

something beneath it, something with some real authority and 

power. 

Yes, Mr. Oakley. 

Mr. OAKLEY. Mr. Owens, we don’t have an answer to the specific 

question as to who should do it, but we certainly agree with the 

general notion that was just expressed that there certainly needs 

to be greater attentiveness to the enforcement problem. 

Some have spoken about some kind of punitive chargeback to the 

agency when they fail to comply with the requirements of the law, 

but it is clear that stronger efforts need to be made in terms of enforcement. More and more documents are falling through the 

cracks and not getting into the depository system. 

Mr. OWENS. What do you consider the long-term impact of the 

Census Bureau deciding it’s only going to publish information in 

electronic format? What impact will that have on libraries, in your 

opinion, Mr. Oakley? 

193

Mr. OAKLEY. A lot of the data was already distributed in electronic format. For some researchers, that’s fine, but for many 

users, that’s just not enough. They need the kinds of paper documents that they have received in the past. They are not in a position to be able to, as we described earlier, download lengthy documents. 

This is really a cost-shifting kind of function. If people are being 

asked to print out lengthy documents at their terminals, instead of 

printing costs being borne centrally, at a relatively modest cost to 

the Government, it is being borne individually throughout the Nation, when documents are downloaded and printed time and time 

again, taking many hours to do that. 

It is not efficient, it is costly, and it is cost-shifting. I think it’s 

a serious problem. 

Ms. LECHNER. Mr. Owens, if I could followup to your earlier 

question with a little bit more detail. One of the things that we’ve 

often recommended is that Congress should make sure that the 

agencies who do their own printing have their authority rescinded. 

It could be done over a period of time, like sunsetting over 18 

months. Then they can review to see whether they really need to 

have those facilities. 

We think that the problem with fugitive documents is that they 

are being printed in places where GPO has no control over them. 

Congress has given that authority, over the years, to these agencies 

to do this printing. It’s time to reel them back in and say, if they 

are not going to abide by the requirements of Title 44, that they 

should not have the right to be printing. And we think that that 

would be a good start in clearing up some of the problems of documents getting away from the system. 

Mr. OWENS. Yes, Mr. Jones. 

Mr. JONES. Yes. In our case, as I mentioned in my comments, my 

specific case, as I understand it, OIRA is there to enforce the Paperwork Reduction Act, and that, at least in my case, does not appear to be happening. And I think that that would be the opinion 

of many in my industry that there is an enforcement facility there, 

but it isn’t working. 

Mr. OWENS. What do you think, Mr. Jones, of the idea of requiring all operations, such as the census, if they insist that they are 

going to produce only in electronic format, becoming self-sufficient, 

in terms of they must pay their own costs? 

Mr. JONES. That’s interesting. 

Mr. OWENS. American taxpayers are being denied information in 

certain formats. It’s only electronic format; it’s no longer really 

public, as it was before. What would happen if we say, you must 

become self-sufficient, and charge people who are using it, and pay 

your own way? 

[The information referred to follows:]

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Mr. JONES. Well, I think it depends on what’s the cost involved. 

The cost of dissemination, I can certainly agree with: the cost of 

printing, the cost of producing a tape, the cost of putting it up on 

the Web. But the cost of producing the data, that’s the Government’s job. The cost of dissemination, I think, is fair to pass on. 

Mr. OWENS. American taxpayers make a tremendous investment 

in the census data. We pay for it. 

Mr. JONES. Right, and they should get that. 

Mr. OWENS. And it’s outrageous to have a result where we can’t 

even get the information because it’s only in a format which relatively few people are able to utilize at this point. Let’s not kid ourselves, we are not yet—the telecommunications revolution is really 

not taking place yet. We only talk about it. 

There are large numbers of places in the country that don’t have 

the capacity, and it is costly. We ought to look at depository libraries and see what obligations Congress has to make funds available 

to guarantee that that cost of downloading and printing at the receiving end is borne partially by the Government. Otherwise, we 

are distorting the original mission of the Government depository libraries. 

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. OAKLEY. May I address that last question? 

Mr. HORN. Please. 

Mr. OAKLEY. Mr. Owens, the trend, and there has been something of a trend in recent years for the Government to charge for 

various information products, is a bit of a slippery slope. And like 

Mr. Jones, we accept the notion that sometimes there need to be 

charges, perhaps the marginal cost of dissemination or something 

like that, but the danger point comes when it erodes the Depository 

Library Program. 

So, for example, you have the NTIS, which has all of its publications, but they are not generally made available to the depository 

library program. So if you do move in that direction of some kind 

of low-fee access to that information, you do need to carve out an 

exception for depository libraries. 

Mr. OWENS. Thank you. 

Let me clarify what I really was trying to say. The private sector 

could pay. At the same time, fees realized from the private sector 

should be utilized to guarantee that the public sector, like depository libraries, are available and kept available. That’s where I was 

really heading. 

The private sector is going to use the data, repackage it, and sell 

it; they can pay a fee, and some of that fee can be used to offset 

the cost of the Government depository libraries having the same information available, in the usual formats, to everybody through the 

Government depository system. 

Mr. OAKLEY. Sounds good to us. 

Mr. HORN. This has been a very interesting dialog. I think we 

delude ourselves sometimes in that we think electronic access is 

going to solve the problem. And I think your example of that sentencing report is a good one, that somebody might be paying for 

those pages I don’t know how many times. Usually, the poor student that is gouged by the university library, I might add. We 

196

would think that maybe you could get those rates down to 5 cents 

a page, not 10 and 25. 

You can see this is the professor in me talking, and I’m also the 

one that is the great user of the library. So I just have a strong 

feeling that, when you look at the economics of something like that 

Sentencing Commission report—and I’m going to ask the staff to 

followup on that—why we can’t still issue those reports. If they 

also want to have an electronic data base, great, but somewhere 

the student should be able to touch it, see it, feel it, and find it. 

That’s what I feel is sometimes missing. The wonders of electronic storage are great. And in terms of searches, they are certainly much better than the indexes I’ve seen in most Government 

publications. But what gets me is that, when an agency such as the 

Sentencing Commission only makes it available electronically, yet 

they do have them printed somewhere—and I guess that’s where 

you get them. 

Did they print their own editions on this? 

Mr. OAKLEY. As near as I can tell, it was printed by GPO. 

Mr. HORN. A limited edition. 

Mr. OAKLEY. Yes, and it was being distributed in microform, and 

must have been caught up in some sort of backlog in the production of the microform product. So the depository libraries would, we 

presume—it’s not in my library—yet—eventually get the microform 

version, but not the paper version. 

But in the course of the backlog, the material had been published, it had been printed, but researchers didn’t have access to 

it. 

Mr. HORN. I think Government documents should be immediately available, and anybody who wants to tap in and print them 

out on their own computer, that’s wonderful. We shouldn’t have to 

pay $500-an-hour lobbyists to get documents that the business or 

labor union or Government agency, local or State, and universities, 

and the individual want to read. I think that’s a real encroachment 

on freedom of information. 

So you’ve been a very helpful panel. If you have some more 

thoughts on any of these as you drive home, or fly home, as the 

case may be, please write us. We will put those notes in the record. 

We keep the record open for a number of weeks, and any other exhibits you think would be useful so we can understand this and ultimately write an oversight report on the issue, we would appreciate. 

If there are no further questions by members of the committee, 

I am now going to thank the people that put the hearing together. 

J. Russell George is the staff director for the subcommittee, seated in the back, observing all; without him, it doesn’t happen. The 

gentleman to my left and your right is Mark Uncapher, the counsel 

to the subcommittee, who was particularly responsible for this 

hearing. John Hynes, professional staff member, was in the room. 

Andrea Miller, our clerk, very helpful in putting these together

197

and picking up the pieces afterwards. David McMillen, on the 

Democratic side, Mark Stephenson, both professional staff members on the Democratic side. Jean Gosa, the clerk for the minority. 

And Barbara Smith, our court reporter today. 

Thank you very much. With that, this hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 11:55 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

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