Norton's GSA Investment & Leasing Hearing Serves Notice of Necessary Comprehensive Reform (7/10/08)

Norton's GSA Investment and Leasing Hearing to Serve Notice of Necessary Comprehensive Reform

July 10, 2008

Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, chair of the Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings and Emergency Management, will hold a hearing on Friday, July 11, at 10 a.m., in Room 2167, Rayburn House Office Building. "I am particularly pleased that an amended prospectus to increase funds for the new Homeland Security Headquarters at Saint Elizabeth's in Ward 8 is included," Norton said. There also are 20 leases for a large variety of agencies. However, Norton expressed deep concern that GSA is, "not moving into the 21st Century of leasing and construction."

She said, "I see an agency with skewed priorities, no strategy for retaining and building the expertise necessary to accomplish its mission, needlessly burdened with redundant and lengthy processes that waste taxpayer dollars, oblivious to the wasted costs resulting from its processes to the private sector both before and after the appropriate completion, and unmindful of the needless delays and costs that leave both the taxpayer and the private sector to pick up the tab."

Norton, who became Subcommittee chair for the first time last year, said the Subcommittee and GSA have their work cut out for them. "The GSA needs top-to-bottom agency and subcommittee engagement in reform," the Chair said. "As the GSA brings its annual capital investment program to us this year, the Subcommittee serves notice that the complicated challenge of agency reform can no longer be avoided. However, the Subcommittee is here not only to criticize and prod, but also to assist GSA in retaining and upgrading old, unexamined processes and assuring the expertise that is vital to the Federal government." However, she warned that the agency must get to work and engage in the indispensable process of self-criticism necessary for renewal.