LEGISLATIVE BRANCH APPROPRIATIONS FOR 2006 TUESDAY, MAY 3, 2005. ARCHITECT OF THE CAPITOL WITNESSES HON. ALAN M. HANTMAN, FAIA, ARCHITECT OF THE CAPITOL ACCOMPANIED BY: AMITA POOLE, CHIEF OF STAFF BOB HIXON, PROJECT EXECUTIVE, CAPITOL VISITOR CENTER WILLIAM WEIDEMEYER, ACTING DIRECTOR, PROJECT MANAGEMENT OPENING STATEMENT BY CHAIRMAN LEWIS Chairman LEWIS. Good afternoon. The committee will come to order. Today we begin our hearings on the budget request for the various agencies of the legislative branch for the fiscal year 2006. The total appropriations request that was submitted to the committee is $3.1 billion ($3,139,565,000). The amount requested is $379 million ($378,915,000), or 13.7 percent over fiscal year 2005. In accordance with comity between the two houses, we will not consider the budget of the other body. The Senate will consider its own request. If the Senate items are included in the total legislative branch request, it is just over $4 billion ($4,028,195,000). The budget increase requested by the legislative agencies is 13.7 percent above fiscal year 2005. The budget received from the President for fiscal year 2006 caps discretionary increases at 2.1 percent, including increases in defense and homeland security. Therefore, it will be impossible to provide the funding requested by the legislative branch agencies. I might mention as an aside, there is a great tendency in what is a very, very small portion of the total cost of our government to find the legislative branch often wallowing in self-flagellation as we go about trying to make sure everybody knows how tough we are in the budgeting process. We will go forward by way of this meeting to discuss this in many a forum, but I tend not to be a flagellator in this process. ARCHITECT OF THE CAPITOL Chairman LEWIS. We will first move to the Architect of the Capitol. I welcome our witness, the Honorable Alan Hantman, Architect of the Capitol. Mr. Hantman, would you care to introduce your staff who is accompanying you today? Mr. HANTMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. To my right is Amita Poole, our Chief of Staff. To my left is Bob Hixon who is our CVC Project Executive. In the audience we also have our Chief Financial Officer, Gary Glovinsky and his staff, and Bob Gleich, our Deputy Superintendent of the House office buildings, is here, with several other staff as well. Chairman LEWIS. We appreciate that and I will take the opportunity to introduce you to my colleague and friend, David Obey, our ranking member, who may or may not have remarks but will participate fully in this discussion. Mr. Obey. STATEMENT BY MR. OBEY Mr. OBEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do want to say some things, because I know that I have been the person agitating for this hearing, because I have been agitated about a problem with respect to what is known as the Congressional Visitor Center. And let me simply follow up on what I said in the conference on the supplemental bill last week. And I want to make clear to the Architect, Mr. Hantman, I think you are a fine man and I think you are a fine professional. This is not a personal issue, and I am not trying to find any scapegoats, but I think we have a serious problem with this Visitor Center. If we start with the cost, just again, not by way of criticizing, but simply by way of reciting history, in 1995 we had an original estimate of about $95 million. That was supposed to be for 350,000 square feet for the Visitor Center and 150,000 square feet of unspecified space. By 1999 that had been changed to 330,000 square feet for the Visitor Center, 175,000 feet of unfinished House and Senate space. The cost had been adjusted to $265 million. After September 11, a number of actions were built into the proposal which raised the estimated cost to $303 million. By 2003 that estimate had grown to $344 million, then to $351 million. And then the General Accounting Office estimated that the costs would be between $380 and $390 million just for the Visitor Center. And if we added the House and Senate space, the estimate was $456 million. The GAO has indicated very recently that there exists no integrated schedule for this project. We still don't have, as far as I know, a completion date, and I recognize this happens on many projects. The completion date has moved from-the first target of the Inauguration for January 2005, now to September 2006. That does not include the finished expansion space. As far as I understand, it does not include ready exhibits or the fire systems. My own guess is that I would be happy if this thing were open by Labor Day of 2007, and the cost is over $500 million. That is just by way of history. My concern in addition to—and as you know, we have had considerable disputes in the past. As you know, a number of years ago, my office raised significant concerns because we were told by the GAO then that the Architect's Office could not pass an internal financial audit on this activity at that time. So it has been in trouble CVC WORKING SPACE Now, the problem is that we are very far along, and as I review the situation, I question very much whether we are getting the amount of working space that we need and we ought to get for the money. As I pointed out in the conference on the supplemental last week, the space that we are getting seems to be almost all show and very little work space, and I question that mix. If you take a look at the floor plans, if I can first see the chart for the lower floor. I am not talking about the Visitor Center portion, but the House space. The lower floor is essentially taken up by the new space for the Intelligence Committee, as you know. I know it is much needed. I take issue with that. I just have two more points to make. 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