Second Norton Hearing on GAO Report on FPS to Reveal Problems Requiring Immediate Action (6/17/08)

Second Norton Hearing on GAO Report on FPS

to Reveal Problems Requiring Immediate Action

June 17, 2008

Washington, D.C. î º The General Accountability Office (GAO) will present long awaited findings at a hearing tomorrow, Wednesday, June 18, 2008, entitled, Federal Protective Service: An Agency In Need of Rebuilding. The hearing will take place tomorrow at 1:00 PM, in Room 2253 of the Rayburn House Office Building. Norton said the GAO report is very damaging and must not be ignored by Congress.

Norton has held prior hearings on the Federal Protective Service (FPS) because of her continuing concern about the functioning and present capabilities of the FPS to carry out its mission to protect the more than 9,000 federally owned and leased buildings and sites in the United States. She was so concerned about GAO's preliminary findings on the FPS that she held a hearing on February 8, 2008 in order to alert Congress that serious problems, which may require attention this session, could be at issue.

"Particularly in this Post 9/11 and Oklahoma City climate, the report requires action now," Norton said. "It offers no confidence that FPS is capable of protecting federal workers and sites today. Congress did not act on FEMA in time to protect the Gulf Coast states from Katrina, and the GAO report gives fair warning that the same dangerous deterioration is underway in FPS." Norton noted the irony that like FEMA, FPS began its decline when that agency was moved to the Department of Homeland Security in 2002.

Although the findings are very serious, Norton said that she was not certain Congress would again move the agency back to the General Services Administration (GSA), which has jurisdiction over federal buildings, although these problems were not seen there. However, the report, Norton said, "is a virtual mandate for action now to protect federal employees and sites."