You have no regard for the money, and there is no use beating the horse any further.

It is my understanding that you are leaving the service, but I want to make the record crystal clear on behalf of my Subcommittee on Public Buildings and Grounds that we resent the effrontery that Congress has been receiving.

We have been asked for no comment. We were never consulted about our feelings in regard to using the Army Corps of Engineers in constructing buildings. If that had been injected in the floor debate, that would have killed the proposal, and I have a great regard for the Corps.

I have served on the committee for 17 years, but if you think, my friend, you are slow in your department in trying to build the buildings, wait until you get through with the Army Corps.

The first year I came to Congress, we started a reservoir in my district and it is just now filling with water, 17 years later.

If you think you are encumbered with red tape, wait until you get through with the Army Corps of Engineers.

Were we consulted? Not one bit. The attitude has been like when you walked into my office with the news release, we are a free agent. You can do what you want to do.

I resent it very much, and unless there is any further questions, we do have a roll call vote, and I am about to miss it.

Mr. Lehne, I am very serions when I say this. I have had personal injury over this Carbondale facility. I hope I have an even temperament. I do not like to conduct hearings in this manner.

I remember a passage from the Bible that says "Cast your bread upon the waters and it shall return."

For 17 years I have cooperated with the Post Office Department and the GSA. There is not one single prospectus pending before my subcommittee asking for authorization.

I have acted in good faith, and since the day you people knew that you were going to be fully autonomous, you have had a complete and callous, willful disregard for this committee and this Congress.

I can tell you this, my friend, it will not be long until the Postal Service will be wanting some aid from the Congress.

The Postal Service, in my opinion, will never be a self-sustaining operation, and from the day of Beniamin Franklin, it was never meant to be a self-sustaining operation. It is a service. Why not make the FBI, the Army, the Navy and Air Force and everybody else bring back to the Government what it costs to sustain them? This is ridiculous, and if you are going to go out there and spend $10 billion on buildings and try to make this a self-sustaining operation, you are defeating your own purpose.

I want that as one man's opinion in the record, because I feel that, as long as we have this alienation of affection between the Congress and this new Postal Service, it is never going to succeed.

We cannot live without you. You cannot live without us. And, so far, it has been a one-sided romance.

As chairman of this subcommittee, I have not been consulted about one single thing. I have tried in my most consistent way in my 17 years

to help better the Postal Service and build facilities, and I have not had the same cooperation from the people downtown.

I understand you are leaving the Postal Service, but this is directed to the people downtown. If they want some cooperation from us, they are going to have to give some.

Any other questions or comments?

If not, the subcommittee will stand adjourned until tomorrow morning at 10 a.m.

(Whereupon, at 4:50 p.m., the subcommittee adjourned, to reconvene at 10 a.m., Wednesday, July 14, 1971.)

IMPACT OF POSTAL BUILDING PROGRAM ON FEDERAL

AGENCIES

WEDNESDAY, JULY 14, 1971

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON INVESTIGATIONS AND OVERSIGHT

OF THE COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC WORKS,

Washington, D.C.

The subcommittee met 10:15 a.m., pursuant to recess, in room 2253, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. James C. Wright, Jr. (chairman of the subcommittee), presiding.

Mr. WRIGHT. The subcommittee will be in order.

Our first witnesses for today are Mr. Elmer B. Staats, the Comptroller General of the United States-Mr. Staats, I believe you are accompanied by Mr. Gregory J. Ahart, Deputy Director, Civil Division, General Accounting Office, and Mr. Milton J. Socolar, Deputy General Counsel, General Accounting Office, and Mr. Michael Zimmerman, who is Supervisory Civil Engineer for the General Accounting Office.

Would you stand at this time and be sworn?

Do you solemnly swear the testimony you are about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?

(The witnesses heretofore named answered in the affirmative.)

Mr. WRIGHT. Mr. Staats, you have prepared quite a compendium of material at the request of the committee, for which we are grateful.

In addition to an exhaustive report which you have directed to the questions that we posed to you, I believe you have a summary statement. If you would care to proceed at this time with the presentation of the summary statement, we would be very glad to hear it.

TESTIMONY OF HON. ELMER B. STAATS, COMPTROLLER GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES; ACCOMPANIED BY GREGORY J. AHART, DEPUTY DIRECTOR, CIVIL DIVISION, GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE; MILTON J. SOCOLAR, DEPUTY GENERAL COUNSEL, GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE; AND MICHAEL ZIMMERMAN, SUPERVISORY CIVIL ENGINEER, GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE

Mr. STAATS. I do have a statement, Mr. Chairman, and I will be very happy to read it, and be responsive to questions either during or after the reading of the statement.

We are pleased to be here, at your request, to discuss the policies and practices followed by the Postal Service in leasing and constructing facilities. The specific points raised in your letters to me of April 6 and June 2, 1971, Mr. Chairman, refer to, among other things, the development of the Post Office Department facility acquisition authority; events leading to the 1966 delegation of authority by the General Services Administration to the Postmaster General for the design and construction of postal facilities; certain aspects of the management of the leasing and construction of postal facilities; the recent agreements entered into by the Department and the Corps of Engineers concerning postal facilities; the effect of the agreements on GSA; and a comparison of land acquisition and lease construction procedures followed by the Department, Corps, and GSA.

We understand, however, that of primary interest to the subcommittee this morning is information on certain issues relating to relationships between the Department and the GSA, and between the Department and the Corps. With this understanding, my statement this morning will concentrate on certain aspects of the delegation of authority from GSA to the Department to construct buildings, and on certain aspects of the agreements between the Department and the Corps whereby certain responsibilities for the Department's facility acquisition program were transferred to the Corps.

On the other matters referred to in your letters, Mr. Chairman, we have prepared rather detailed comments. With your permission, we Iwill submit them at this time for the record. This is the statement to which you just referred.

Mr. WRIGHT. Without objection, this entire statement will be incorporated into the record at the conclusion of the summary statement. Mr. STAATS. I will, however, comment briefly on some of the issnes regarding the administration of the Department's facility acquisition program.

Since 1962 we have issued several reports which have dealt with the issue of leasing versus Government ownership of postal facilities. In these reports we pointed out the economies achievable through Government ownership of facilities and recommended that the Department determine. on an individual facility basis, whether to acquire postal space by leasing or through Government ownership, rather than follow a general policy of leasing.

The Department agreed with us some vears ago that it was advantageous to construct major postal facilities for Government ownership. For smaller facilities, however, the Department stated that if construction funds were available and it was not required to construct postal facilities to GSA's design and construction standards, decisions to construct or lease would be based on economic evaluations of individual facilities. Because the Postal Reorganization Act vests the Postal Service with broad real property acquisition and financing authority, it is now practicable for the service to make these evaluations. We believe that decisions made on that basis will result in a better managed facility acquisition program.

We have also reported on improvements that were needed in the Department's practices for acquiring control of sites for leased facilities, and in the course of our work at the Department in recent years,