|
Chairman Steil's full opening statement as prepared for delivery:
Today, the Committee on House Administration is continuing our oversight of the Architect of the Capitol.
I want to welcome you, Mr. Architect, to our hearing today, and your first appearance before the Committee on House Administration.
I would also like to congratulate you on completing your first year as Architect of the Capitol.
As we both know, the Architect of the Capitol oversees facilities maintenance and operations of the historic U.S. Capitol and over 18 million square feet of buildings.
That's in addition to the care and improvement of more than 570 acres of grounds.
The Architect is responsible for the care of all works of art in the U.S. Capitol as well as the maintenance and restoration of murals, outdoor sculptures, and other architectural elements throughout the Capitol campus.
In total, the Architect manages a workforce of approximately 2,500 employees.
The Architect also serves on a variety of boards and commissions, including, importantly, the Capitol Police Board.
Throughout this past year, the AOC has been addressing staffing shortfalls and reduced vacancies from 11% to just over 6%.
At this time last year, over one third of executive-level positions were acting or interim staff.
Today, nearly all executive level positions have been permanently filled.
Over the past year, the AOC completed organizational restructuring to clarify the responsibilities of each office and avoid unnecessary redundancies.
Additionally, the CVC welcomed its 30 millionth visitor since opening in 2008 - an impressive number.
Keeping the Capitol campus both completely open to the public and safe at all times is no easy task.
The U.S. House is actually one of the few legislative bodies in the world that is fully open and accessible to the public.
I greatly appreciate the work that you and your team do every day to make this a reality for the American people.
Under your leadership, the AOC has launched a substantial update to the Capitol Complex Master Plan, or CCMP.
The CCMP is a document intended to be completed every 10 years as a 10-year look ahead for physical campus and project development.
The AOC, though, has not updated its CCMP in over 20 years.
The previous Architect failed to deliver a substantive update to the CCMP in his three years.
I hope to discuss the details of your update today.
An ongoing project that impacts almost everyone on campus, particularly on the House side of the campus, is the Cannon House Office Building Renewal project.
The renewal project has been ongoing since 2015 and has included extensive renovation of the interior of each wing and a partial facelift of the building’s historic exterior.
Once renewal is complete in late 2025, the Cannon Building courtyard will become usable green space for the first time since the garage below it was built in the 1950s.
I would like to note that the initial cost estimate for this project was $752 million.
The total estimated cost today is $971 million.
This is over $218 million, or 29% over the initial cost estimate, so we will have a bit of a conversation on that as well.
Initially, the project was scheduled to be completed by the end of 2024. It is now scheduled to be completed at the end of 2025.
Large projects like this require oversight not only from the AOC Inspector General, but also from Congress and us on this Committee.
The Committee was excited to see the selection of a new AOC IG announced last week, Mr. Luiz Santos.
Today, the AOC has 37 open recommendations from the Inspector General’s Office.
Six months ago, there were 89 open recommendations, so a significant improvement in that regard.
I look forward to your testimony on the status of the open recommendations, and your plans to proactively work alongside the Inspector General to continue AOC’s improvement and growth when he starts next month.
In a hearing last month, this Committee discussed the Library of Congress’ Visitor Experience Master Plan, or VEMP.
This project is a vast renovation of public space in the Library’s Jefferson Building.
While the project is managed by the Library, the implementation of construction is handled by you, the Architect of the Capitol.
VEMP has experienced serious setbacks, internal and external, causing severe cutbacks to the project and large increases in its cost.
Since 2019, VEMP’s budget has increased by $31 million, and its completion date has been delayed past the congressional deadline of July 2026.
This is the result of numerous failures of project management and coordination between the Library and AOC in years past.
I hope to discuss the AOC’s role in this project during today’s hearing.
In Fiscal Year 2025, the AOC’s combined appropriation was $820 million.
For Fiscal Year 2026, you've requested $1.28 billion, while the House Appropriations Committee has recommended $701 million, so a bit of a discrepancy.
Given size and scope of this agency, we have to make sure we're effectively and responsibly using taxpayer dollars.
We hope to explore all of these items discussed in my remarks with you today.
Before I close my remarks, I would like highlight that we’ll be test-piloting new closed caption technology again during today’s hearing.
This technology was approved by the Subcommittee on Modernization & Innovation, and will soon be available to all House Committees.
Once again, I offer my congratulations on completing your first year as Architect of the Capitol, and I look forward to our conversation today.
###
|
