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JOINT COMMITTEE ON PRINTING

STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN WARNER, CHAIRMAN

ACCOMPANIED BY ERIC PETERSON, STAFF DIRECTOR

Senator BENNETT. Chairman Warner.

Senator WARNER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Your wonderful staff instructed me to submit my testimony and answer one question. The answer to the question is, I hope in a few weeks we will be able to.

Senator BENNETT. We would not instruct you to do anything, Mr. Chairman. We would respectfully request.

Senator WARNER. You see that picture on the wall behind you? I have had to deal with him for 19 years, a little longer than you. Why is it your witnesses sit down on the floor so that they can barely look over the table? Did we not give you some good chairs for this room? [Laughter.]

Senator DORGAN. Mr. Chairman, it was a fast shutter that caught him smiling. [Laughter.]

He is a good guy, but that is an unusual pose. [Laughter.]
Senator BENNETT. I will not comment on any of this.

Senator WARNER. You should have been with us last night to fin

ish up the highway bill. Oh, boy. That is about it.

This is Mr. Peterson, our wonderful staff director, and we are moving to disestablish the committee. It has been in existence a long time. How long has it been in existence?

Mr. PETERSON. Over 150 years.

PREPARED STATEMENT

Senator WARNER. Oh, really, over 150 years, so a little progress is being made. Title 44, I hope we will be able to move that. My distinguished ranking member, Senator Ford, indicates that he is working through some problems on his side. We do not have any problems on our side, so there she be.

[The statement follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR JOHN WARNER

Mr. Chairman and members of the Subcommittee on Legislative Branch Appropriations, thank you for the opportunity to present testimony on behalf of the Joint Committee on Printing.

Last year, when I came before this committee, I outlined four key initiatives the Joint Committee would undertake. Those initiatives included:

-Improved compliance by Executive Branch agencies with Title 44 of the U.S. Code;

-The development and implementation of a standard generalized markup language to facilitate electronic creation and retrieval of legislative information and documents;

-An accommodation on a privatization study requested by this subcommittee from the Government Printing Office; and,

-The writing of legislation to reform Title 44.

Today, I am pleased to inform you that real progress has been made on each of these initiatives. By the end of my tenure as chairman of the Joint Committee on Printing, I am confident that all these initiatives will be complete.

As part of the effort to reform Title 44, the Committee has devoted much attention to preparing the Government Printing Office (GPO) for the day when there will be no Joint Committee on Printing to oversee GPO operations, or to run interference for the agency with its customers and potential customers.

The management review, which was ordered in GPO's fiscal year 1998 appropriation, is an important part of this transition. On behalf of the members of the Joint Committee, thank you for your support of that important undertaking.

I believe that when the General Accounting Office and its contractor complete their work, the GPO will have a sound plan which will enable it to successfully operate in a business-like fashion, providing for the printing needs of Congress, procuring publishing services for Executive and Judiciary branch agencies, and assuring permanent public access to the Government's publications.

Over the past year, the staff of the Committee, working closely with the staff of the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration, has labored to craft a proposal reforming Title 44. As advertised from the outset, this effort has been a consensus building process in which all interested parties have been invited to participate.

With much patience and determination, the staff has listened carefully to the suggestions, comments and concerns of all who sought input. As a result, a solid, workable proposal which offers something for everyone concerned has been developed.

The measure will solve the Constitutional issue of separation of powers raised by the Justice Department.

It will provide a transition to enable the government to take full advantage of the rapid evolution in electronic publishing and dissemination technology.

It will ensure that the Government's publications are produced and disseminated in the most cost effective manner possible, placing heavy emphasis on giving the private sector full and fair opportunity to compete for the government's printing and publishing needs.

And it will ensure that the Government's publications continue to be permanently accessible to the American public.

It is my hope that in the next few weeks this proposal will be unveiled. Following a hearing, markup, and Senate passage, and consideration and passage in the House of Representatives, I have confidence the President will sign this reform measure into law.

The Congress has a unique opportunity to complete the work of hundreds-if not thousands of people who, for at least three decades, have labored to reform Title 44. With good will and honest intentions, I believe the job will be done this year.

Senator BENNETT. We appreciate your desire. Do you have any questions, Senator Dorgan?

Senator DORGAN. No; whatever works for the Senator works for me. He is one of the more distinguished Members of our body, and we are pleased by the numbers we see in the request. It is a very responsible budget request. We are very pleased with it. Senator WARNER. Hopefully, we can return it all back.

TITLE 44

Senator BENNETT. It is my understand that you plan to introduce your bill to revise title 44 in a couple of weeks?

Senator WARNER. Yes, that is correct, Mr. Chairman.

Senator BENNETT. That is the one question we were focusing on. Thank you very much.

Senator WARNER. Thank you, and I thank your staff for working with us in preparation for this hearing.

Senator BENNETT. Your full statement will be included in the record.

Senator WARNER. Thank you. We will all stand, salute, and depart. [Laughter.]

Senator BENNETT. With Senator Warner's unsenatorial dispatch we have not eaten up the time that would normally keep us occupied until Senator Roth appears.

Senator DORGAN. Let us skip ahead. What do you think?

Senator BENNETT. Shall we move ahead to the Sergeant at Arms, with the understanding that when Senator Roth appears you would give way to the distinguished chairman of the Joint Committee on Taxation, not to mention the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.

U.S. SENATE

OFFICE OF THE SERGEANT AT ARMS AND DOORKEEPER

STATEMENT OF GREGORY S. CASEY, SERGEANT AT ARMS AND DOORKEEPER

ACCOMPANIED BY LARRY HARRIS, ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT

SUMMARY STATEMENT

Senator BENNETT. Our next witness is Hon. Greg Casey, Sergeant at Arms of the U.S. Senate.

Mr. Casey has been very busy this year reorganizing his operation, like everything else it needs to be reorganized from time to time and brought up to date. This is not a criticism of past Sergeants at Arms, but Mr. Casey has been very vigorous in accepting the responsibility that comes with this position, and we are grateful to him.

Mr. Casey, I understand you found some additional savings in your budget. This is always good news, and we look forward to hearing from any witness who thinks he can help save the Senate

some money.

Senator Dorgan, do you have any comment, or should we go directly to Mr. Casey's statement?

Senator DORGAN. Why don't we proceed to the testimony.

Mr. CASEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a very brief statement that I will make even briefer. You are correct that we have been working over the last year to basically enact what we told you we were going to do last year. As I said last year, we had about 20 years' worth of consultant reports saying we had to change things. We appeared here last year and told you what we intended to do to make that change. I am very pleased to be able to come before you today and tell you that the reorganization of the Sergeant at Arms office is complete. We think what we have structured now is going to be able to provide excellent customer service, the kind of support that we need for our mission-critical systems we will talk about in a moment, and to assure you that these systems are secure from threat, available on demand, and year 2000 compliant.

Senator BENNETT. Very good.

Mr. CASEY. It is worth remembering, though, that we are building this reorganization on three basic management principles. One is, understand our customer needs and keep in touch with those expectations, two, develop and maintain a motivated and skilled work force, and three, use best management practices and rigorously evaluate what we do against those beset management practices. To do the first, which is dealing with our customers, we have developed a customer relations department which is now in place,

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