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and our intent to go out and lease and construct a building over 20,000 square feet in size, any building that we want to lease.

Mr. GRAY. A statement, but not a request for congressional authority. Have you ever had Congress deny or veto or circumvent your action in any regard in a lease project in this country?

Mr. LEHNE. Not to the best of my knowledge.

Mr. GRAY. How then, is Congress being sluggish in hampering the delivery of mail service when you have had 100 percent authority to build any building you wanted to in any center in this country, whether it is small or large?

Mr. LEHNE. Now, Postal Service did not have, Mr. Gray, any funds without Congress approving the funds.

Mr. GRAY. Yes, but you got all your money in a lump-sum appropriation. And you had complete control over every project you wanted to build.

Mr. LEHNE. We have four appropriations which have set up the Postal Service.

Mr. GRAY. But they were not line items. When you put a postal facility in, you did not get a number of dollars. You came into the Appropriations Committee and asked for overall appropriations.

Mr. LEHNE. At least, since the 2 years I have been down here, we gave to the Congress a building program which was backed up, as you well know, with prospectuses. Each one of the items has an estimated cost of the project.

If it turns out that due to delays or changes in concept, the building was going to vary more than 10 percent of the amount called out in that prospectus, we did not have the authority to go ahead with it. We had to come and ask Congress to revise the prospectus through GSA to do that sort of thing.

Now, I agree with you that Congress, as far as I know in most of the instances, I know of none specifically where they refused the go ahead.

Mr. GRAY. Well, how did we impede or slow up the delivery of mail by not providing adequate facilities?

This is what the Postmaster General said last Sunday on channel 4, NBC, that Congress has been sluggish. He said: "We now have the shackles taken off of us, and we are now proceeding to build the buildings for 'adequate mail service." "

I want you to know as the chairman that has sat hour after hour, week after week, month after month, for 17 years, approving these buildings, we would like to know how we have impeded or slowed up mail delivery.

Mr. LEHNE. There are two appropriations. One is the authority for the Public Works Committee to approve the prospectus. The other appropriation is to actually build the building.

Mr. GRAY. How many of those projects have been denied by the Congress?

Mr. LEHNE. The appropriations never fully substantiated the amount as required to build the building. We would give a list of the buildings. Mr. GRAY. Yes, sir.

Mr. LEHNE. And I know, in doing some research for this work, there were several occasions that the appropriations request was cut by 20

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or 25 percent of the dollars, and it was left up to the Postal Service to decide which of these specific buildings were more needed than the other.

Mr. GRAY. The gentleman was talking about construction.

Mr. LEHNE. I am talking about construction, too.

Mr. GRAY. In my district, out of 150 post offices, that have been built only one has been built with direct Federal funds. They have all been on lease back.

Mr. LEHNE. Yes, sir.

Mr. GRAY. With private capital, both in the former administration and this one, so I want to know, in my district particularly how the Congress has impeded or slowed up mail delivery.

This is the big charge that was made on the floor, that we want to have a free hand. We want to go build facilities. We want to improve. That word "improve" is so replete in the Congressional Record you probably could count it 10,000 times, improve mail service by having a free hand to build buildings.

I am again asking you, sir, in charge of the construction program, name me one building in this country that Congress has denied that would have improved mail service.

Mr. LEHNE. I cannot name you a specific building.

Mr. GRAY. Of course, you cannot. There are none.

Mr. LEHNE. I think what Mr. Blount was trying to do was to try to

Mr. GRAY. I know what he was trying to do. I know exactly. A big snow job on the American people.

You can give me your opinion if you want to.

Mr. LEHNE. Well, thank you, sir.

I think what he is attempting to do is to try to have the responsibility for delivering mail in a very few people's hands, and that responsibility for delivering mail also included the authority to make the decisions on what buildings ought to be built and what parts of the country needed the mail service improved the most.

Mr. GRAY. Sir, you made that decision before the Reorganization Act.

I again reiterate I do not know of one single request the Post Office has made of my committee, or the Appropriations Committee, that has not been approved. You have always had this power.

Mr. LEHNE. Mr. Gray, I think you know better than that.

Mr. GRAY. Name me one.

Mr. LEHNE. Procedures which have to go through any executive department are not such that those are completely in the hands of the particular department head.

Mr. GRAY. Would you like me to call out some specific locations where you have had authority for years and years and have not exercised that authority?

Mr. LEHNE. No, sir. I am sure you can point out examples and so can I.

Mr. GRAY. I just gave you one in Carbondale, Ill., which is 6 years old.

I can blame the former administration through 1969, but we are going now into 1971, over halfway through, and it still has not been built.

Who are we going to blame now?

Mr. LEHNE. Well, sir; I believe you are aware of the fact that the Corps of Engineers has awarded a contract for that building now. Mr. GRAY. After 6 years. But, if you will look at Mr. Kreger's testimony, the average completion time of a GSA project is only 52 years. Your record is worse than theirs.

You are going on now starting the seventh year on Carbondale, Ill., and it still has not been built, and you have had the authority since 1966.

What I am trying to do, Mr. Lehne, is point out that Congress has been the whipping boy. Any time anyone is on the air representing the Postal Service, it is always "that sluggish Congress"; it is always "the shackles imposed on you by Congress." That just is not so. Mr. LEHNE. I do not think that the Postal Service had the authority and the money to build Carbondale since 1966, sir.

Mr. GRAY. But you had the authority.

Mr. LEHNE. We did not have the money to build it since 1966.

Mr. GRAY. You did not ask for the money to build it. That is what I am saying.

Mr. LEHNE. Well, I disagree with you.

Mr. GRAY. So, it all boils down to the whole purpose of the Postal Reorganization Act being to circumvent the legislative processes and to get the money cutside the national debt and to fund these buildings separately, which is commonly referred to on the House floor as back-door financing.

You have said it all in one sentence as to the need for the Postal Service, but to have these witnesses come here and testify that Congress has not done this and has not done that, and "we want more authority and freedom"; you have always had that freedom, sir.

You heard me propound the question to Mr. Kreger. Have you ever asked for a building and had it denied?

Mr. LEHNE. The cooperation between GSA and the Post Office Department has been very exceptional.

Mr. GRAY. Is not the former Post Office Department and now the Postal Service willing to accept any responsibility for the fact that we may need additional facilities that have not been built?

I have not heard of them once saying that we did not go that last mile; we did not jump that last inch; we did not do this or that.

It is always we want a free hand, and someone else is to blame for poor mail service, mostly the Congress.

As Mrs. Abzug pointed out very vividly, we had a hearing in New York just recently, trying to get back some property taken away, and we cannot even get a response from the Post Office Department. People are aware these poor folks are homeless, they have no housing, and yet we are blamed, Congress is blamed for every single thing that is done.

The Post Office is never willing to share any responsibility or any blame for anything that happens downtown.

I, frankly, for one, am pretty put out about it, and I think the record ought to be clear with these individual cases which I will certainly ask unanimous consent to insert in the record, showing that the Postal Service has had ample opportunity to carry out a construction pro

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gram; has had ample opportunity to take every single project authorized by Congress and build it, and has not done it in most cases.

Mr. LEHNE. May I see those that are going to be inserted in the record? You just have inserted something, Mr. Chairman, that I have not

seen.

Mr. GRAY. You, sir, are not on the committee and it does not require your permission.

Mr. LEHNE. I know, sir; but if I am supposed to take exception for the Post Office Department about some of those buildings, I would like to know what I am talking about.

Mr. GRAY. Let me ask you this, Mr. Lehne.

Do you have any idea as to why the General Services Administration will not accept your offer to provide the leased back facilities?

Mr. LEHNE. No, sir. I can recognize the conflict that is existing. They have asked for broad legislation and, apparently, they intend to ask for some broader legislation.

Mr. GRAY. Well, that legislation is pending. It is pending before the House Committee on Government Operations and has been there for 5 or 6 months.

The reason that it has not moved out and Congress will not, in my opinion, pass it, is because every single one of those projects that they now want in leaseback has been authorized by my committee for direct Federal construction.

You, yourself, in a letter dated May 5, 1970, to the GSA, state in many instances it is not economically feasible to lease.

I am trying to find your exact wording. You recall the letter, having written it to Commissioner Sampson, stating, in your opinion, that it was not economically justified in many instances to lease?

Mr. LEHNE. Yes, sir.

Mr. GRAY. Would you have any idea as to why GSA now wants to deauthorize 40 buildings that Congress has authorized for direct Federal construction, and now refuses to either let you build them or go ahead with a request for direct Federal funding, especially since you told the Commissioner with your expertise and long experience in the field that you do not feel that it is economically feasible to lease all these projects?

Mr. LEHNE. Well, sir, the postal service has been given by Congress the authority to go out and raise some funds.

You know and I know that when you use other people's money, it costs you something more.

The postal service is going to be able to raise funds. They will be able to own more of their own buildings for the first time in many, many years.

Congress gave them this authority to use it, so we are trying to build the buildings in the most economical way possible.

The studies the GAO and others have made, that I have read, show it is much more economical for the Government to own their own buildings than it is to lease them.

Mr. GRAY. Yes. We have been preaching this to the committee for years, but this does not answer the question.

You state on page 2 of your letter of May 5, "In many instances, as you know, leasing is not the most economical method of obtaining &

new facility." Notwithstanding the fact that you told the GSA this, they are still asking Congress to deauthorize the direct Federal construction that you just supported and now you want to go to 100percent leasing.

I just wondered if you had any idea as to why the 180° change in position.

Mr. LEHNE. No, sir; I do not.

Mr. CONSTANDY. Mr. Lehne, could you suggest why that same rationale is not as appropriate for them?

You, in effect, became their landlord, and as far as they are concerned, this is in the nature of a lease of a construction project, is it not?

If you were to construct the 18 projects, they would pay rent to you?

Mr. LEHNE. That is right, but we are using the funds of the Federal Government. We are not going out and raising other funds on the private market to lease those buildings.

We are getting away from the leasing authority in the Post Office Department.

Mr. CONSTANDY. What funds did you anticipate using in the construction of the 18 buildings?

Mr. LEHNE. Funds that the Post Office Department would raise, but we are not having a private fund raising.

Mr. CONSTANDY. Where would they get it?

Mr. LEHNE. We are not having a private individual go out and raise funds and build buildings. We are getting away from that leaseback arrangement.

Mr. CONSTANDY. I just wanted to understand the spirit if GSA went to this lease-construction route, certain costs, and you recognized some of them here, the only one that is different is the lessor's profit. Is this what would make it acceptable to GSA to become your tenant and allow you to put up buildings in the same way the private owner would? Is there a difference in his profit?

Mr. LEHNE. I think it costs more money for an individual to raise money than it does for Government to raise it.

Mr. GRAY. Well, if I could comment on that, we know where the money is coming from. They just raised the postal rates. It is coming out of the pockets of the taxpayers.

The question is, are we going to take it out of the pocket of the taxpayer and put it into buildings or appropriate money for deficit financing and borrow from the people?

It is still coming out of the taxpayer's hide.

While you are using the guise of doing this so cheaply by having the money on hand through the sale of this property you are getting for nothing, at the same time you are doing this, my friend, you are only setting up GSA for duplication of management, duplication of maintenance of these buildings, duplication of facilities, and duplication of costs.

And, in many instances, and in each one of these projects where you pulled away from the GSA, GSA goes ahead and builds-in many cases millions of dollars will be squandered because the architectural and engineering work will be wasted and will have to be done over.

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