Mr. TRANDAHL. And the other side is that we now have a formal venue where people can bring complaints against us at the Office of Compliance, which previously did not exist 6 or 7 years ago.

Mr. LIVINGOOD. Previously people served at will, and you never heard the complaint because they were gone.

Mr. TAYLOR. Mr. Sherwood.

NETWORK COMPUTER SECURITY

Mr. SHERWOOD. Mr. Eagen, you have asked for $500,000 for operation and installation of a new House fire wall to protect the Internet from unauthorized access. How would you rate our network computer security, and do we have any data on the amount of unauthorized access attempts and other malicious activities?

Mr. EAGEN. We do have data, Mr. Sherwood. Last year, we installed a new intrusion detection system in July. From July to the end of the year that system denied access to 1.7 million unauthorized access attempts to House networks. That is really just one small piece of the infrastructure that we have. We have, at the desktop level, antivirus-we just bought a new antivirus that has been installed.

Mr. TAYLOR. May I interrupt? You were hacked last year?

Mr. TRANDAHL. We were hacked several times. The Clerk's Web site was once intruded. As soon as the intrusion occurred, it was detected and we were able to disconnect the system. We left it down at that point and went through the process of trying to determine how they got in and if there were further vulnerabilities, and we were back up the following day.

Mr. TAYLOR. I was following up on Mr. Sherwood's question. I wanted to mention that and see if it covered all areas of access. Mr. Sherwood.

Mr. SHERWOOD. I think it is absolutely essential that we be in the forefront on this. It is unacceptable for us to lag. And I commend you for your efforts in that. But if we cannot have the best communication, where are we going?

And I was a little the chairman's questions earlier about hooking up our district offices to have the same level is right on target, because we often do not have that now; and our people things are too slow. And as you said, going from 54 to 250 is a huge step forward, but 54 is like municipal. We are making a huge step forward; that is important.

VENDOR SERVICE IMPROVEMENT

Is there anything that we can do to get a little improved service from our vendors? We just went through a big revamp of putting all of our new stuff in, and I guess that did not go as smoothly as we anticipated. Maybe that is unrealistic.

Mr. EAGEN. Your computer vendor?

Mr. SHERWOOD. Yes.

Mr. EAGEN. We issued a Request for Proposals to all the computer vendors late last year and have received bids. We are looking to convert the way the vendors do business with the House from individual contracts with the Members and committees to a formal contract with the House. And part of that would be performance

forming satisfactorily, we have some means to go after them; whereas it is presently a distributed responsibility environment, which is very difficult for us to enforce.

Mr. SHERWOOD. Being new and being woefully unfamiliar with how things are done here, I was accustomed to go out and get bids from the private sector; and my staff, they said, no, no, we have to do this in-house, and so we did. But that might take a little attention.

Thank you very much.

HISTORICAL SERVICES FOR THE HOUSE

Mr. TAYLOR. Mr. Trandahl, would you review the needs you have identified to properly provide historical services to the House of Representatives?

Mr. TRANDAHL. Sure. As you may be familiar, previously the House had an Office of the House Historian. In January of 1995, when there was a change in the organization here, the Office of Historian was eliminated and the functions, merged into the Clerk's organization. At that point, we absorbed those tasks with existing FTEs within the Legislative Resource Center.

In the Legislative Resource Center, in the last few years, we have redistributed people; and we have been able to put four positions in place in order to do a lot of the historical functions. In comparison to the Senate, they have a staff of about 12 people who do the functions of research and updating historical publications and keeping the official records and archives of the Senate. As well, they do the curatorial function. So in the Capitol building, on the Senate side, they have a very complete list and inventory of all the items, and all the artwork as well, within the Senate buildings.

What I am trying to do in the next fiscal year here is to expand our historical activities to be comparable to what the Senate is doing, because at this point in time, the House is somewhat lacking in its ability to inventory and care for its artifacts in the Capitol, as well as in the office buildings.

Mr. TAYLOR. I would hope to be superior to what the Senate is doing.

Mr. TRANDAHL. Me, too.

PROGRESS ON IN-HOUSE PRINTING

Mr. TAYLOR. You have been tasked by this committee and the House Administration Committee to improve our in-house printing capacity. Would you outline the progress you have made?

Mr. TRANDAHL. Absolutely. It ties in the printing also ties in with what we call our document management system process and our XML SGML process. As you are familiar, in 1994, the first Docutech was purchased by the Clerk's organization. At that point, there was a lot of controversy between the GPO and the House in terms of what we would use it for. Title 44 U.S.C. 501 clearly says that printing is done by GPO.

We then worked with the Joint Committee on Printing and came up with an agreement or an understanding between GPO and the House relative to us using the Docutech for administrative publications and, as well, would use it for our supplemental copying needs of bills and reports, while we would still rely on the GPO to be the

first printer of the official documents, rules, reports, and all the proceedings relative to the House.

That has worked very well. However, we would still like to see Title 44 amended and changed by House Administration to give us even greater flexibility, because we have now built up the talent and capacity in-house in order to be able to take on more of a role. Mr. TAYLOR. Well, I certainly want to tell each of you, I appreciate the work that has been done over the years, not just during my chairmanship of this committee, but the difference from when I came here in 1991. What we have found and what has been accomplished in the last several years is commendable. It is not as exciting as foreign policy or other things of that nature, so it does not get the great press, but I would say it was a revolution as far as management and direction for the House and, ultimately, the success of the people's Representatives.

Thank you very much.

Are there other questions?

PRIVATE FUND RAISING FOR CAPITOL VISITOR CENTER

Mr. HOYER. I have some.

Jeff, what is the status of private fund-raising efforts for the Capitol Visitor's Center?

Mr. TRANDAHL. The Architect will be appearing later today, but in summary, the Capitol Visitor's Center is estimated to cost $265 million. Of that, during the Supplemental Appropriations bill, $100 million was made available by the Appropriations Committee, as well as the Capitol Preservation Commission has on hand roughly $30 million.

The Pew Foundation came forward 2 years ago and signed an agreement with the Capitol Preservation Commission-specifically the Clerk and the Secretary of the Senate-in terms of setting up a 501(c)(3) fund that would go out and directly solicit private fundraising. They have raised $35 million to this date. Last week, they transferred the first installment over to the Capitol Preservation Commission of $5 million.

Mr. TAYLOR. The $35 million is in addition to the $30 million that you mentioned earlier?

Mr. TRANDAHL. Yes, $100 million, $30 million with the Capitol Preservation.

Mr. HOYER. There is a balance of $135 million; $35 million has been raised?

Mr. TRANDAHL. Thirty-five million dollars has been raised, so we still need $100 million to get to $265 million.

What has happened in the last month is that the fund itself and the board that oversees it have gone through dramatic restructuring. The chairman of the board has stepped down and a new chair has stepped forward. The president, who carries out the executive director functions at that fund, as well, has stepped down and we have a new one in place.

We have seen a lot more activity in the last month within the fund than we have in the last year and a half. And we hope to see a lot of promise and, hopefully, successful fund-raising effort come

At the same time, the agreement with them and the House and the Senate is that they will make a target of $100 million, hopefully by the point that construction begins.

CONTINGENCY PLANS FOR CAPITOL VISITOR CENTER

Mr. HOYER. Are there any contingency plans made so that we will not slow the construction of the Visitor's Center?

Mr. TRANDAHL. There have been discussions relative to, if there is a shortfall, are there ways to contract in increments instead of a single contract. Should additional appropriated money be made available and possibly paid back by private fund-raising? There have been a series of discussions.

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Chairman, just as an aside, I told the press this, and I mentioned this in the subcommittee.

This is a public project; I think it ought to be funded with public funds. It is going to be used by all Americans and, indeed, international visitors from all over the world. It is an extraordinarily important facility both in terms of visitor accommodation and education of the American people as to what the Capitol is; and in terms of security.

So while I do not object to the voluntary private-sector contributions, I think the progress of this project ought not in any way be contingent upon the success of private funding efforts.

NEW PAGE DORMITORY

What is the status of the dormitory for the pages?

- Mr. TRANDAHL. The pages' residence hall? Well, with great enthusiasm and thanks to this subcommittee, we are nearing completion of the renovation of the 501 First Street building, which will become the new pages' residence hall.

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Chairman, that is the former House child care center site.

Mr. TRANDAHL. Right. And we are set at this point, construction schedules, and with Jay's folks' help, we are looking to begin our move in the first and second weeks of August. There have been some delays due to some contractor issues and weather and everything else. But we hopefully have a time line that everyone can adhere to in the next month and get the building completed on time. Mr. HOYER. What is the completion date again?

Mr. TRANDAHL. The move-in week will hopefully be the first week of August. The next summer page class leaves on Saturday, August 4.

CAPITOL POLICE AT BOTANIC GARDEN

Mr. HOYER. I want to ask the Sergeant-at-Arms a question. There is talk of posting Capitol Police at the Botanic Garden, is that correct? What is your thought on that, particularly in light of the fact that we are not yet at the two officers-per-entrance standard that was recommended by our security people after the murder of Officer Chestnut and Detective Gibson?

Mr. LIVINGOOD. Yes, sir. I will speak from my feelings on that

The past history of the Botanic Garden is that we were running less than $2,000 a year property loss, and no crimes of violence committed and no crimes against persons committed. So it is my intention as one member of the Capitol Police Board that we will continue patrol, as we did in the past, of the BG Gardens-and that is the Patrol Division patrolling it, coming in and looking around and checking it out. And we will continue to monitor the situation at the Botanic Garden and make adjustments as nec

essary.

But right now, my strong feeling is that we need the two people at every door here.

Mr. HOYER. Again, are we at two-people-per-door?

Mr. LIVINGOOD. No, sir, we are not.

Mr. TAYLOR. We will be taking that up, and it raises some questions, whether we need two people on each door. Maybe some of the seven could be moved over. We will see how that goes.

Mr. HOYER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I know we have somewhat of a disagreement on that.

Mr. TAYLOR. We reserved a whole day for that.
Mr. HOYER. I look forward to it, Mr. Chairman.

FURTHER DISCUSSION ON FUNDING FOR CAPITOL VISITOR CENTER

Mr. TAYLOR. On the funding for the Visitor's Center, I was a strong proponent of that; and I know 3 or 4 years ago, I couldn't manage to see how it would cost $100 million. Now the cost has gone up almost 300 percent. I am not sure your fund-raising can keep up with the way the cost is going up. About 100 percent a

year.

Mr. HOYER. We better hurry and get it finished.

Mr. TAYLOR. That is right. But we will be asking the Architect about that.

Mr. LaHood, do you have any questions?

Mr. LAHOOD. No, sir.

Mr. WAMP. Before Mr. Livingood goes, are there any issues before we mark up this year? Does that require an Executive Session briefing for this committee like we have had in previous years? Is there anything pending that we need to air out before we pass the bill?

Mr. LIVINGOOD. There may be in the Capitol Police area, sir.

Mr. TAYLOR. We probably will have some, and security in the Capitol will be one.

Mr. LIVINGOOD. Yes, sir.

CONTRACTORS AND DEADLINES

Mr. TAYLOR. I was going to ask about the provision that we put in the bill last Congress about contracting penalties for failure to meet construction deadlines on contracts.

Have you noticed that or have you used that in any way?

Mr. TRANDAHL. I wonder if you are referring, Mr. Chairman, to the Architect in your construction contracting, and I would have to refer that back to the Architect. I know we have a penalty built in on the pages' residence hall, as well as sort of a bonus payment. Mr. TAYLOR. I was surprised a couple of years ago to find that