incrementally like that. there are a lot of people who aren't eligible for obamacare because of their immigration status. that would be an enormous number of people who would have the opportunity to buy insurance if they were eligible. there are about half the states who did not expand medicaid. that was an enormous boone to people. if the states expanded there would be a lot more low income people covered without any cost to them. >> and bernie sanders, senator from vermont ants to do the same thing. in addition to a federally administered single-payer health care program, would give coverage to anyone, including undocumented immigrants. remove co-pays and deductibles and paid for through changes in income tax rates. what do you make of these different proposals. >> i tell you what greta, what

is it with people that don't understand -- and i plead to these people to open their eyes, open their ears, all right? bernie sanders has got the right idea. i don't want to hear about the republicans this and the republicans that. what we need to do is we're america. we need to have health dr case for all. it's very important. we don't have healthcare for all. if you go in the hospital -- >> can we afford health care for all? >> caller: did you hear what i said, greta. if we don't have healthcare for all, the ones that don't have it, the hospital ain't going to turn them away. who pays for that, we all pay for it. what's point in going through all this? and these drug companies, what

hypocrites, putting 5,000% increase on the drugs. they ought to be shot. >> well, i don't know if they ought to be shot. but he's got a good point in terms of the high cost and the rising cost. it's drowning a lot of people. it's very hard to overcome. when you talk about can we aforit? right now people are taking money out of their paychecks every week, every two weeks to pay for their own health insurance. companies are spending as much as 15% of their payroll on health insurance. i don't know if anybody has done the math, but if you look at that total spending and were to turn it into a government program, bernie sanders says he can cover it with 2.5%, or 2.2% tax on individuals and a 6% tax on companies. we call them premiums. that that would basically create the equivalent government program. i' not sure the numbers work

out. there's a lot of debate among liberal economists whether they do. but people are spending a lot of money already. >> so also to the caller's point about cost of drugs, this is "the washington post's" front page this morning. drug defies a rare form of ka cancer and logic. it was $26,400 a year and it went up to $120,000. it soared. the u.s. wholesale list price for a year supply of that little orange pill has soared to more than $120,000. >> glrt. so glevec is season interesting case. it really made a difference in adult forms of leukemia. in the last several years, the price has gone up dramatically, however, they went off patent last month. and a generic went into -- on to the market literally the beginning of february. so what we're seeing is a lot of companies, as they face the idea

of going off patent, they start jacking up their price in hopes of making all the money they can before the drug goes off patent and facing competition. i'm expecting glevec's price over the next year or so will start to fall again as these generic forms of the drug come on to the market. >> johnny in houston, texas, independent. >> caller: yes, ma'am. i'm calling concerned about the schools back in the days like the truck driving schools and stuff, back in the 1980s and '90s. there were very, very crooked. they got people, they put in the schools, they get a loan from the bank or so and then the government gets involved. it's like a government loan or whatever it is, and they turn around when the school is right there, they close them down and the they squeeze the people in them schools and you can't even

get into jobs or anything. then they come back 25 years later hunt you down, trying to take you to court saying that something that you supposed to p pay, they filed bankrupt. so they turn around and taking money for me for yields. every time i file, i couldn't get the money. so to say the claim went into defauld default. now they hunt you down 20, 25 years ago and try to take you to court for something you couldn't afford then and can't afford now. >> i think he's talking about for-profit colleges. >> okay, talking about health care this morning with health policy reporter allison kojac who works for npr. >> caller: hi, good morning, thank you for taking my call. i'm glad you're talking a little bit about this. i've always wondered in these debates that no one really has

talked about the pharmaceutical companies, how they've really abused their powers. many of them certainly get grants from the u.s. government to do their research. they're being funded by taxpayers' money, and yet they turn around and charge people extravagant prices on these drugs. and like, as your guest was s saying earlier, they even jack up their prices when they realize that the patent is going to be fading away. so we all call for transparency. i think that these politicians, they should ask that from pharmaceutical companies. what is the basis for charging people such horrendous amounts, the high cost of drugs? >> so what is this doing, if anything, about prescription drug costs and what are the candidates proposing? >> there's a lot going on in congress right now. there's been a lot in investigations and hearings

looking into why companies are raising the prices of their drugs and what is the justification behind it. there have been a lot of different -- though some is r&d. some is a hedge fund buying the drug company and raisesing prices just to get profit. one thing a handful of congress is looking into is something called in the reach-in rule. basically if a company has gotten a lot of its funding for basic research that leads to a drug from the federal government, then the government can go in and say we're taking away your patent protection or exclusive marketing if they think they're being abused. it's never happened before. there's some members of congress who are really pushing for this right now. as a way to -- it would be like the nuclear option. it's a big hammer and they never used it. there are people talking about it pretty publicly. >> what does donald trump want to do? >> he's look for transparency in drug prices, which i think would

be helpful. if people knew what they were paying and what other people were pay, the retail prices are never really what people pay. then hillary clinton is looking at removing the ability of these companies to remove their marketing and requiring that a certain percentage of their revenue goes back into r&d, which would reduce the amount they could make in profit and spend on marketing. right now it's about 20% of their revenue goes to r& d. 80% goes elsewhere. >> whatever goes to marketing they can deduct off their taxes. does marketing matter? >> it matters quite a bit. there's marketing to doctors. and that is probably quite effective in terms of going to doctors, spending money, telling how great your drug is, paying them for speaking fees, that kind of thing. and then there's direct consumer marketing. we all see the ads on tv. you can't even figure out what

they're about. and people go to the doctor and say i want this drug, i don't want the generic version. or they would say i didn't even know that was an illness. but i have that kind of pain and i want something for it. it's very effective. >> patricia, republican, you're next. >> caller: good morning and thank you for taking my call. i always had on my mind for several years now a way that everybody in the united states could be covered with insurance. when you would go to work when you graduate from high school, when you go to work, you have to pay social security. so why wouldn't we have a situation where every employee would be paying into medicare from the time they started working instead of waiting until they're 65. this money would go into their own account and then if they got sick, they would be covered and

it would not be this kind of worry that goes on all the time in this country. when i was 18, i came down with pneumonia and pleurisy and i had no insurance. if it had not been for my employer after three weeks of me working continuing to pay for my wokely allowance that i got at work, i would have been in debt for many, many years. so that's my idea. and i just wondered if anyone has ever thought about or even mentioned anything like this. >> in fact, they have, actually. right now in your paycheck you do have a deduction for social security and a separate deduction for medicare, but it does not go into an individual account for you. it just goes into the whole program. so it was time in the '90s, decided to break it out so people could see. it would be a transparent

percentage that goes to the medicare fund. but that is not an individual medicare account or an insurance for your own health care. >> daly city, california, kent, kra the. welcome. >> caller: good morning. good discussion. i've got a question here. a lot of these shows on tv, why do we never hear about our neighbors to the north who have a health care system single-payer health care system up north. they seem to be doing fine. are canadians smarter than us? or is it that they don't have the same pressures from defense contractors who spend trillions, with a t, a trillion is a thousand billion dollars. on wars. what's the deal. why can kaubd canada do it but not as smart as canada.

>> i want you to hang on the line and show you and the others what's happening on c-span3 right now. coverage of the first official visit of the new prime minister of kund justin trudeau. he has arrived at the white house for the arrival ceremony on the south law. you can see the prime minister there along with the president. there will be an official dinner to flight also for the prime minister and several other events as the two will be talking about several different issues. i'm not sure if health care is on the agenda per se, but as we watch, allison, why don't you talk about the difference between the canadian system and america's. >> if you listen to bernie sanders' speech you are going to hear a bit about canada. canada does have a single payer system. i don't know how much they pay per capita, but it's less than the united states. part of this whole reimportation of drugs debate, the exact same medications sold in the u.s. are sold at a much lower price in canada.

i don't know that they're smarter than we are. we've thought of this. but the political reality is that in the united states there is a large, probably half, of the population that truly believings in the free enterprise private system and not in a large government system. eand to move to a single-payer health system, we would have to actually eliminate an entire industry, and that is the medical insurance industry. and there are a lot of people who don't want to do that. they think that the government shouldn't be that deeply involved in your health care. and so, canada's system works very well. canadian people are as healthy or if not more healthy that americans. they spend less per capita on health care, which are all true. but we have a system in place that works and a lot of people and industries make their livings of this system. and there are a lot of people who want to keep it in place. >> rhett, you're on the air in pennsylvania. independent.

>> yes. thanks for taking my call, greta. what i'm going to say has been mentioned by a few previous callers. number one, yes. if there are other advanced and functioning societies that are able to do it, we should be able to do it also. it's a human right, not a business opportunity or a profit motive where stockholders are thought of before the people that need health care. a developed society needs health care. we also have, as individuals, a great responsibility to look after ourselves. i mean, if you're going to eat junk food, if you're going to eat way too much soda, if you're going to drink too much alcohol and smoke cigarettes, well, there's consequences to that. and the companies that profit off of those industries should be very, very, very heavily taxed so that that tax money can

go to help the people that sicken themselves. >> those are let's comments. joe in mississippi, independent. what do you think this morning? >> i just think that he should for the care act that obama already has in place. i listened to bonnie. bonnie has a lot of things. they are not going to pay for all this stuff a bunny are trying -- we can see the congress and senator we have up there, they're not going to pay for all the stuff that bern 23450e is tabernie is talking about. >> allison? >> what he says about bernie's plan, it's a little unrealistic perhaps politically. and also there's a lot of debate on how much it's going to cost. he says it's -- the numbers are just enormous. like $13 trillion more a year. others say it's $25 trillion more a year. he thinks he can cover it with

those taxes. but if the estimates are a higher level, then those taxes wouldn't cover it. >> lonnie in texas, independent. you're on the air. what's your question or comment? >> i was curious if your guest has read "america's bitter pill." >> i haven't. i'm sorry. >> why do you ask. >> i haven't read the book myself, but i go on youtube and listen to some of the interviews he's had and it's very interesting. he said the affordable care act has made healthcare available for more people but it did not lower the cost of health insurance due to lobbyists from pharmaceutical companies, medical device companies going in and saying do not lower the cost of health insurance or health care. >> well, there are things definitely that happened during the affordable care act's passage that evented the government from being able to play hardball and really negotiate with some of these companies. medicare can't negotiate on drug

prices. they just have to go with what's the average price. they depend on private companies to negotiate lower prices and then get the benefit from that. there's a lot of things that are true in that sense of in order to get the law passed they had to take away a lot of the power of the federal agencies that are some of the biggest spenders in health care in the country. >> john, republican. hi, john. >> caller: hey. hi. i just want to enlighten people. i'm a 40-year insurance broker here in central illinois. the gentleman made a comment and bernie goes around making comments about single-payer and all that. part of the reason why the canadian system works as well as it does, and it's not the greatest, is because 70% of the people in canada live within 100 miles of the border of the united states. i've gone to mayo clinic and had some treatments done. and i can tell you, it's filled with canadians up there because

the waits in canada are long. for things that we consider to be needed, they consider them to be, well, you can wait. they're routine. i agree we've got a lot of fat in the system, but i will tell you this, the affordable care act has been one of the biggest mistakes. customers cannot stand it. it's been basically a medicaid system and then everybody else gets to pay a heck of a lot more and horrible deductibles. >> john i'm going to get suzanne as well into this conversation in new york. a democrat, excuse me, alice, a republican in signal mountain, tennessee. then i'm go to suzanne. go ahead, alice. >> caller: hi. i have a friend in england who found a lump on her breast so she went through the national insurance medical care and the wait period to look at that lump was nine months.

so luckily they have money and they went, what they call, they went private. she was in to a doctor within two weeks and it was the same doctor she would have seen in nine months. i don't call that a really great system. >> two very similar calls there about waiting. in other countries that have universal health care. >> there's definitely a lot of evidence that people don't get the care immediately that they want or need in some other countries. i don't have statistics on this, but generally overall the research shows that the u.s. population is not healthier than populations in england or canada because of our greater spending on health care. that's not to say that this woman who had a lump in her breast and couldn't get -- she couldn't get a mammogram for

nine months wouldn't have been worse off than she was because she could pay for her own. our population isn't measurably healthier because of our extra paying. >> suzanne, new york, democrat. >> caller: i just have a comment about the canadian health care system real quick because i am from long island and my brother who was living in canada playing hockey when he was younger wasn't a citizen there, but during a game discovered a massive, massive lump. and within 24 hours, it was out. and the doctors in canada coordinated with the doctors in new york and i mean, there was no waiting. you may have to wait every once in a while if you need knee surgery or elective surgery. sure, there might be a wait in line because everybody needs to be taken care of, but there is definitely a systemic way of doing things. if it's serious and if this is a life-threatening situation, they will take you when you need to be taken. and, you know, the difference is

i've seen the treatment of his cancer in canada and in new york and the stress that you get from just dealing with the insurance companies in new york, it adds to the sickness. your whole family gets sick because of that stress. in canada they take care of you. they take care of you on one, two, three who's more important basis. and i think the american people really have a false idea about how it works. they say oh, it's terrible up there but it's not. >> and take a look at this map. the u.s. stands alone among developing countries, nations that lack universal health care. just take a look at that map there as we go to jim in cookville, tennessee, a democrat. >> caller: good morning. i believe we should have sing single-payer. i don't know if your guest is familiar with a program called office of attending physician. and this is something that the congressman and senators and the

supreme court and other people have that work in government and they pay $503 a year for the best health care on the planet. if they get -- you know, they come down with a little problem, they can go to the mayo clinic and spend months up there and not pay a dime. >> jim, do they have better insurance coverage, better medical coverage than others? >> well, they did. they had very good insurance. now many of the congressional offices actually have insurance through the obamacare exchanges. members of the senate and members of the house may -- i'm not familiar with the office of attending physician, but they may have better insurance themselves because of this

office. but many of the congressional offices now get insurance through the exchanges. john, springfield, illinois, independent. >> yes. this is sort of like what happened with the azt and the avrs over there in india offered them. eventually offered them for free. and then in retaliation, the big pharma companies came back from their trip and reinforced the patent laws you were opening up earlier. and then to the second point between bernie sanders and hillary clinton, i think when clinton comes back out and says, well, we don't want to have this argument, well, i don't think there's going to be too much of an argument when bernie sanders wins and gets the money out of politics and the legal bribery from big pharmaceuticals so that -- it might be a lot easier to pass certain amount of

legislation than hillary clinton is leading on to be. >> okay, all right, john. we'll go on to paul. good morning. welcome to the conversation on health care. what do you think? >> our people are misinformed about prescription drug prices. >> why? >> caller: well, i worked for 35 years for major pharmaceutical company and they have no idea what the costs are to get your drug online versus a vaccine, hepatitis a vaccine takes 57 weeks to get it onka market.

>> so paul is talking about research and development and what goes to putting out these life-saving drugs. is there a correlation to increased price in prescription drugs and timing when companies started advertising directly to consumers. >> i wish i knew the answer to the second question, i do not. it also correlated to a lot of great drugs coming out on the market. we all talk about the rising prices of prescription drugs and theorizing. it's still cheaper than being in the hospital and getting surgery or long-term care. if you had, you know, high blood pressure and were constantly dealing with hospitalizations or getting stents or any number of things, your quality of life would probably be worse and shorter. and that care is more expensive.

so there's a tradeoff. we make these companies into villains. but there are some miracle drugs out there that are doing wonders for people. let's just put that on the table. one of the things with r&d is it does cost a lot to get a drug on the market. there's actual research and development, the studies you have to do and the application. that's because we don't want drugs on the market that end up having crazy side effects and that's .haed in the past. just several years ago, there was the whole issue with viox causing problems. we need to be sure that the drugs are safe and that they're not going to cause other problems. the industry cost about $2 billion to put a drug on the market. that is an average that includes all the failures. >> one last phone call here. lansing, michigan, a democrat. >> caller: i'm wondering whether

or not the affordable care act really mae the drug costs go up or did the insurance companies because they could raise the rates? >> i don't think there's any evidence the affordable care act caused drug prices to go up. i think the affordable care act, actually even before that, the medicare drug benefit made it clear the government wasn't in a position to negotiate lower prices. but drug prices are going up because they can. i believe, and because it's expensive to come up with new drugs. >> allisonkojak, you can follow her on npr@twitter. thank you very much for being with us for this conversation. appreciate it. >> c-span takes you on the road to the white house as we follow

the candidates and c-span, c-span radio and c-span.org. >> mario rubio on the march? joining us is david sherfinski following all of this for the washington tiels. thank you for being with us. a lot of polling in florida showing trump has a double digit lead. some polls showing that marquee rubio is slice into that lead. what can you tell us? >> the thing i can tell you about the poll today is that it was conducted monday through wednesday. it's very recent. some of the other polling that's been done showing donald trump with a larger lead has been older. either way, it seems like marco

rubio is going to have an uphill climb as he has pledged to do. he plans to win florida. at this point, i think his camp is more of the mind b that it's sort sort of a 7, 8, 9-point race, which is doable but not great right now. >> according to this suffolk poll, donald trump at 36% and marco rubio at 27%. the rubio super pac has a new tactic, telling voters that if you vote for senator cruz or governor kasich you're essentially voting for donald trump. explain. >> that's the message that's going out. because in the winner take all states of ohio and florida you won't have these proportional distribution of delegates that we've seen so far in the campaign. march 15th is the first date

where states can move to winner take all format. so if there are still four candidates and donald trump is at 30% and the other three are all at 20, it's likely that donald trump would win all of florida's 99 delegates. so basically, what senator rubio and his allies are saying is if you -- if there's a vote that's not for me it's effectively going toward donald trump and helping him. >> let me ask you about tonight's debate because you know senator rubio is going to be asked maybe the first question, are you going to stay in this race. so how does he get his message out there? there's a big cloud as to whether or not he will even stay in through tuesday? >> sure. absolutely. i mean, he and his team have had to beat back reports of sort of unnamed advisers, sort of

hinting that he might be thinking about dropping out before tuesday, before florida even votes. i think he has to sort of come out and be as aggressive as he can without sounding desperate, if you will. because that's been the storyline this week. every single day it's been rubio camp beats back rumors of dropping out. i think if he gets out of the way quickly, and as you say, that could be a question that's asked very early on in the debate, and pivots to something else it could work for him. he has a home court advantage tonight, with the debate being at the university of miami. so it could be a friendlier crowd than the past few times. >> and with regard to that cnn debate, david sherfinski, what

do you think the tone will be tonight? any difference from what we saw last week in the fox debate? >> that's a really good question as well because you've seen donald trump in these evening press conferences on election nights start to adopt not necessarily a more conciliatory tone but you can see him try to pivot to a general election type tone. he said he hopes it can be sort of a softer debate, a nicer debate because as we saw in houston last month when marco rubio really started getting aggressive in his attacks on donald trump, i'm not sure that donald trump wants to see that happen again. he just wants to sort of play out the string, he is the front-runner, the status quo benefits him.

so if he isn't forced to defend questions about trump university or, you know, his past support for abortion rights, things like that, it's better for him i think that marco rubio knows this is sort of his last stand. might be in a more aggressive mode than he has been on the campaign trail recently. ted cruz will probably mix it up a little bit with donald trump and marco rubio. john kasich, you know, really has kind of been in his own debate in a certain sense the past few times, sort of staying out of the mud and talking up his own record. so it should be interesting. >> finally let me ask but today's developments in florida. endorsement by senator mike lee, republican of utah. the first sitting senator tone doris ted cruz, his colleague from texas. this follows the carly fiorina endorsement yesterday.

how significant is this for the cruz campaign? >> that is a big gut for the cruz campaign. especially doing the announcement in florida. head of the debate tonight. marco rubio's turf. possibly assuring it will come up at the debate because donald trump has frequently said, you know, here's ted cruz, here's a guy who hasn't won a single endorsement from any of his colleagues, how can he get along with anybody. and that talking point is kind of over now. inasmuch as it will sway votes ahead of tuesday, i'm not sure how much of an impact it will have. but certainly, i mean, michael is close to ted cruz and marco rubio. certainly sends a signal that he thinks cruz is the guy to take on donald trump one on one. and marco rubio's campaign might be coming to an end soon.

>> david sherfinski, political reporter for the "washington times." his work available online at washingtontimes.com. thank you for being with us. >> thank you. >> last year a terror attack in paris killed 130 people. the french interior minister will be in washington, d.c. to talk about the fight against terrorism at george washington university. live at 9:30 a.m. eastern here on c-span 3. the zika virus and u.s. preparedness is the focus of a discussion friday hosted by the bipartisan policy center. we'll have live coverage at 11:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. >> the head of the general services administration, denise turner roth, visited capitol hill last week to discuss her department's 2017 budget request. she met with members of a house

appropriations subcommittee, who asked her about the relocation of the fbi's headquarters and information technology updates. this is an hour and 15 minutes. [ room noise ] >> well, we're going to get started. the hearing will come to order. welcome to everyone. i'd like to welcome the general

service administrator, denise roth. the hearing today. last year you were here after just a month on the job. now you've been on the job for over a year. so we're happy to welcome you back. everybody knows this is a leap year, right? so today is leap day. and with that in mind i think we should jump right in. i wanted to see if mr. serrano was paying attention. >> can you say that in spanish? >> no. the budget request today is for $10.18 billion for the federal building fund, which is less than 1% below enacted. so that's less than last year. but while your request appears to be flat, it spends $371 million more in rental income from agencies than it did last year. so i caution the gsa from growing overzealous in its request. in the 2016 omnibus gsa received

an unprecedented 215% increase for construction and acquisition for numerous construction projects, and this was a significant increase, but this level of spending should not be viewed as the new norm. therefore, i look forward to discussing gsa's request for -- 1 million-square-foot facility in the greater washington area. it was my understanding when gsa started to pursue such a complicated property exchange of unprecedented size that gsa was convinced that the value of the hoover building would be more than enough to pay for a new fbi headquarters. however, as we all know, the value of anything is whatever the market will bear.

the value has spoken so far and the val yoouft hoover building is $1.8 billion less than what gsa expected. so today in addition to the $390 million provided in the omnibus the administration is asking the subcommittee for 759 million and another 646 million from the commerce, justice, science subcommittee. so that concerns me a little bit about the size of the request and i still wonder whether the gsa has the expertise to execute such a complicated transaction. we'll have a frank discussion about that today. today the congress has appropriated 1.6 billion in full consolidation -- for full consolidation of the department of homeland security headquarters at saint elizabeth. that request includes another 267 million for 2017. as gsa moves forward with its

enhanced plan for saint elizabeth i hope to hear more about the gsa's continued effort with the dhs to decrease construction cost and increase efficiency. the budget also seeks to establish a $3.1 billion information technology modernization fund within gsa to replace legacy i.t. systems all across the government. now, as the subcommittee that oversees the office of personnel and management, we know as well as anyone about the numerous cyber security and operational risks that using an old system poses. we have been continually supportive of funding i.t. upgrades as part of the agency's annual budget request. however, i question the proposed 3 billion in mandatory funding and 100 million in discretionary funding. for what exactly, we don't know because the administration has not formally transmitted legislative action to the congress. what i do know is that agencies

should be requesting funding for -- to refresh their i.t. systems on a regular basis as part of their regular budget request. the irs is a good example of an agency that chooses to spend less and less on rudimentary i.t. and is experiencing more and more hiccups. so now in the fiscal year 2016 omnibus the committee provided gsa with construction funding to address long-standing needs and dire conditions at federal courthouses all around the country. the funding provided is important to maintain an open, accessible and well-functioning judicial system. today i hope to learn more about how gsa will work with the judiciary branch to ensure the court's needs are best met while also safeguarding the investment of the american taxpayer. and finally, i want to emphasize this committee's commitment to shrinking the federal footprint through reductions in gsa's inventory of leased and owned space. over the past several years this committee has provided

significant funding for gsa consolidation activities, and i hope to hear today how gsa is using those resources to reduce space, lower rental costs, serve your customers, and ultimately save the taxpayers' dollars. once again, welcome administrator roth. appreciate your service. i look forward to your testimony. but first let me turn to the ranking member, mr. serrano, for any opening remarks he might make. >> thank you. and a happy 29th day of the month to you. so somebody who's been today celebrates yesterday or tomorrow? >> don't ask me. but i do know it takes 365.2926 days to go around the sun. >> mr. yoder, you should have warned me not to ask. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i'd like to join you in welcoming the administrator of the general services administration. before our subcommittee.

you were confirmed by the senate last year after our hearing with you. so i want to congratulate you on transitioning to this role more permanently. gsa placed a critical role in making sure our government is running efficiently and effectively, that it is open and transparent to our citizens, and that our federal agencies have the resources they need in order to succeed. you combine a variety of roles in one agency, landlord, project manager, procurement specialist, real estate agent, i.t. specialist, the list goes on and on and on. although you don't see the gsa's name mentioned as much in the media and the press, this variety of roles shows just how critical you are to our government -- how our government operates. i think the subcommittee recognizes that as well. last year, this subcommittee,

this committee included significant new funds for the construction of new federal buildings, including several courthouses. i'm interested to know how these projects are moving forward and whether the large increase has been a problem in terms of ensuring appropriate personnel to oversee project management. your budget request this year is slightly smaller but really only in comparison to last year's final numbers. your budget includes funding for several construction projects as well as numerous important repairs and alterations which will help reduce the federal backlog in both areas. you also include funding for several new initiatives, two of which i imagine we will spend some time discussing today. one project the gsa has completely changed positions on is the fbi headquarters. last year the subcommittee was told that the general services administration planned to use their exchange power to raise funds to purchase a new fbi campus in either maryland or virginia.

we were specifically told at last year's hearing that no appropriated funds would be needed for this project, that this committee had no role to play. well, something has clearly changed since your budget request this year includes a request for $759 million in appropriated funding for the construction of a new fbi building. combined with the fbi's request of $646 million for the same project we are facing the exact problem that chairman crenshaw and i mentioned last year. the expectation that the appropriations committee is going to clean up the mess when the exchange authority doesn't raise the funds that are necessary for this project. the building hasn't even been sold yet and this request already tells us that whatever the proceeds are, they won't be near enough. on top of that, it has not been made clear to this subcommittee

what the scope of this project is and whether the funds requested this year are sufficiently -- sufficient to fully construct the project. it is also somewhat troubling to receive this request when we appear to be years away from potentially breaking ground unless there is an imminent announcement that we are unaware of. i expect we will have a lot of discussion about this issue today. a new initiative requested is the i.t. modernization fund. i fully support efforts to modernize our government i.t. systems but this request has not yet been authorized leaving us with requests for money the gsa cannot do anything with if we actually appropriate. i would be very open to conversations about how to make our i.t. procurement system more nimble in response to changing technologies but i'm not sure if this particular request is the

way to do it. that said, i support by and large numerous efforts gsa is making to ensure the federal agencies are accountable and effective organizations. i look forward to discussing these and more details with you today and this should be a very interesting hearing. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you. now, i would like to recognize administrator roth for your statement. if you could keep it in the neighborhood of five minutes. your full statement will be inserted into the record. so the floor is yours. >> good afternoon, chairman -- [ inaudible ] . thank you for inviting me to today's hearing on the -- pardon me. should i start over? good afternoon, chairman crenshaw, ranking member serrano, and members of the committee. thank you for inviting me to today's hearing on the president's fiscal year 2017 budget request for the general services administration. first, i would like to thank the

committee for the robust funding provided to the general services administration in the fy '16 appropriations bill. we will continue to ensure that gsa utilizes these funds wisely and efficiently as befitting the trust you have placed in our agency. overall, the president's fiscal year 2017 budget builds on last year's progress of prioritizing agency real estate consolidations and infrastructure investments to maximize space utilization, improve security, expand trade, and spur economic development within communities across the nation. in addition, this budget request seeks to enhance the cyber security and efficiency of the federal government's i.t. infrastructure by modernizing i.t. legacy systems. within the federal buildings fund, i would like to highlight three important projects that will strengthen our national security infrastructure and benefit the american taxpayer.

first, gsa seeks $759 million to support the construction of a new headquarters facility for the fbi. this new facility will consolidate fbi employees from 13 lease locations across the national capital region within a new, modern, and secure facility. gsa's fy17 budget request in conjunction with the fbi $646 million request will allow gsa to award a contract for design and construction of a new fbi headquarters by the end of this calendar year. second, gsa is requesting $267 million to continue executing the enhanced plan for the consolidated dhs headquarters, which will bring fema to the st. elizabeth's west campus, completing nearly 80% of this project. the enhanced plan for st. elizabeth's when completed will reduce the federal footprint by nearly 10 million square feet and save more than $4 billion through avoided lease costs. third, gsa is requesting $248 million for the second and final

phase of the calexico west land port of entry modernization which will improve the security of our nation's borders as well as promote expanded commerce and trade and support local economic development. all of these investments have a significant impact on the communities in which these projects are located. gsa recognizes its role as an economic catalyst in these communities and works with stakeholders to align investments with community and economic development efforts. we also must use the federal buildings fund for our partner agencies and combat the growing costs of real estate. through consolidation and innovative space solutions, we have reduced the lease inventory by more than 3 million square feet, rentable square feet since 2012. with the projected reduction of 3 million additional rentable square feet by the end of fy 2017. gsa has also partnered with agencies to accelerate the disposal of excess property in

fy-2015 we helped agencies dispose of 172 properties, generating $56 million in proceeds. beyond our brick and mortar infrastructure is our information technology infrastructure in which the government and the global economy depends. reliable i.t. is vital to all of the services the government provides. however, many agencies are not able to effectively have i.t. infrastructure, emission writ call systems due to large upfront capital investment needs and increasing share of costs that maintaining these older systems occupy in technology budgets. to address these issues, the budget includes requests to establish a $3.1 billion information technology modernization fund, which would be used to retire and modernize legacy and information technology systems to improve cyber security and the delivery of services as well as reduce costs. in closing, gsa has made significant progress in fulfilling our mission to

deliver the best value and real estate acquisition and technology services to government and the american people. the president's fy-2017 request will enable us to move forward along this trajectory of providing more efficient and effective services at a lower cost so that agencies can focus on their crucial mission. thank you for this opportunity to be with you today and i look forward to answering your questions. >> thank you very much. and let me start the questions. i think you probably figured we would ask questions about the fbi. mr. serrano mentioned in his opening statement, as did i, when we met last year, we had a pretty lengthy discussion about the whole concept of this exchange swap. and a couple of questions, i guess to start with, what were you thinking last year was going to be the value of the hoover building? did you have any idea what that might be?

and did you have any idea what it might cost to build 2.1 million square feet? >> sir, we did have ideas that we have been working from. we've been avoiding talking about specific costs related to both the value of hoover as well as the project overall. primarily because we're in an active procurement process currently. >> how did you find out the hoover building is worth $1.8 billion less than you thought it might be? >> let me say, just in stepping back, the project itself and what we have before both this committee as well as the other committee from fbi is really a reflection of where the project is in terms of trying to achieve the full consolidation as well as fbi's requirement. and i would say that over the past year, we've gotten a better understanding as the project is coming into its maturity of what the costs reflect. so we believe with the funds we

received from this committee in fy '16, as well as the requests that's pending as well as any costs we receive from its value would be reflective of what's needed for the project. >> last year when we talked, there was indication, i think $291 million was appropriated for the omnibus. was it 391 million or 291? i can't remember. but anyway, i think we were told that that would be it from the appropriations standpoint. that would get things started, whatever. now it's like you add up those two, it's about $1.4 billion. so i guess you can understand why we're a little surprised, can't you? >> absolutely. this has been an evolving project. and the part that i would point back to, in particular, is really what we're going to learn

both from how the market values this project, but as well as the further understanding of the requirements of the project. we received clear indication that full consolidation for this project was supported in something that we needed to ensure was a priority as we brought this project to bear and the requests are really reflective of that. >> how confident are you that now the valuation has been put on the hoover building? how confident are you that that's correct? >> we have worked very closely with fbi in terms of just -- and this is really going to the requirements overall, but in terms of the valuation, itself, we are really looking forward to what the market responds to. and we have the responses due back from the developers by this summer. that's really going to be the first indication of how they're valuing the project. and we're going to -- >> i mean, how do you know today that it's, like, $1.8 billion less than you thought? >> really because of the requirements. as we start to build out what

the cost of the requirements are, and the way we've worked very closely with fbi over the past year, that really has given us a sense, as well as -- >> do you have an appraisal of the hoover building? >> we have -- the appraisal we have on record is actually an older appraisal. we will likely do appraisals as we go through the process this year. really what we're looking for, what we've stood up is compared between the requirements we have today from fbi and having worked closely with them what we know about the sight themselves and having gone through the environmental evaluation of them then what will see see in june as we get those responses back from the developers. that's really what we're lining up. >> were you not sure -- i guess there's two sides of the equation. if you're going to do a swap or exchange, you say what's the hoover building worth, right? >> yes. >> and how much is it going to cost to build this new 2.1 million square feet? it sounds like you didn't have a

very good idea of what that was. if you missed it by almost $2 billion, right? >> i believe that what -- the effort was really about an exchange to offset any requests for appropriations. i mean, ultimately to use the tool of the exchange and to be able to give the full project would have meant we didn't have to have an appropriations request. i think really having a full consolidation on the table, as the requirements as we understand them to really meet the mission of fbi, is reflective of the change that you're seeing. >> did you ever think about just selling the hoover building? >> sure. and one of the things that we know is with the exchange, we can ensure that the proceeds from that project go into the new hoover location. >> you're not going to -- you're going to do an exchange, right? >> yes. >> do you think about the fact that if you're going to exchange the building, then the developer is going to have some carrying

costs while he builds the building which might -- did you think about whether you should just sell the building, put the money in the bank, then go ask somebody to build a new one? and use part of the proceeds for that from what you -- i mean, how did you decide it was better to do a swap or an exchange than just sell the building and then hire somebody to build you a new space? >> oftentimes we have sold the properties and used then our budget requests to go forward with a new project. ultimately, there's a couple of aspects of this proposal that are different and unique. one of them is the fact that we're talking about the hoover, which is on pennsylvania avenue. a rare place to get an opportunity to develop. i think that that was part of bringing developers to the table and being interested in this project. ultimately, if we were to do a typical disposal, we would have to come back and ask for a larger appropriations request, certainly, as well as then go through the process of a new building overall. and really, having the exchange as a part of this can offset what we have to ask this committee for.

>> is this the biggest exchange you have ever done? >> this would be the largest. >> has gsa ever done any other exchanges? >> we have done other exchanges of varying scales. i think the exchanges we've been talking about in the recent past are the largest that we've seen in some time. >> you got any idea how many exchanges you've done the last ten years? >> in terms of this scale, we have not done any exchange of this scale. >> are you still comfortable -- last year we questioned whether or not -- this is pretty complicated. is this something that you have in-house capabilities to do? or is this something you're contracting with some outside folks? how are you handling this? >> sure. as a part of our projects, we'll definitely bring in expertise to help with various aspects. anything from evaluating the requests -- the proposals themselves, to doing traffic studies -- >> for instance, last year had you brought anybody in to kind of give you an idea what numbers

we might be talking about? because, again, we missed it by at least $2 billion. for instance, and along that line, i mean, how do we know you asked for another $1.4 billion, how do you know what this new $2.1 million of office space is going to cost? i mean, do you know that yet? where do those numbers come from? and why is half of it from gsa and half of it from fbi? >> what we do know is having worked with fbi much closely -- very closely over the past year, having a good sense of their requirements, that's giving us a sense of what the costs are. just really how they're programming the space and how they plan to utilize it. and this really has been very much a shared effort between us and fbi. we worked intensely over the past year and it's part of the reason you're seeing the requests come from both. because this is a shared effort. as well as the number, itself, would be large overall and definitely didn't want to overburden either budget

request. but at the end of the day, what's really going to tell us what we have for the project are those various pieces. what the requirements are and really setting the cost, ensuring we're receiving a full consolidation as part of this request and trying to both with the appropriations and the '16 funding and the offset of the value of hoover really bringing the project to bear. >> so do you have -- where do you get the $1.4 billion for the appropriation request this year? >> part of it is set by the requirements of the full consolidation. >> and who looked at that and decided it was going to cost $1.4 billion? >> we do use a team of experts to support our efforts. >> you got that laid out. is it 2.1 million square feet, is that right? >> yes. yes. >> now somebody said that's going to cost a little bit more than we might have thought. either you missed it on that side or missed it on the value of the hoover. i mean, i hope you'll appreciate

our concern is, when you come in and say look, if we had $300 million, we've got a very valuable piece of property downtown, we can exchange it, somehow build us a building and that's going to be great. and then still ask you what's the value and nobody seems to know yet other than the new estimate is we missed it by $1.8 billion. it's going to be $1.8 billion less than we thought or somehow the office space is going to cost more. i think as stewards of the taxpayers' dollars, we have to have a better handle from you on where the hundred is going to go. so that's -- i mean, other members might have questions as well, but i did want to bring that up because i think that's something that we're going to have to really work through. >> sure, mr. chairman. and it's not that we don't know what the project scope is. it really is a reflection of not wanting to overburden our request. ultimately, if we had a project for full funding, full consolidation as we do now, it will have a large burden on our other projects as this will. but it's still a high-priority

project. the idea was for the exchange to offset the cost overall and offset what we would have to request and how we were actually staging the project. but we're talking in terms of where we are today full consolidation and requirements very much reflective of where fbi and where this project is today. >> and last -- just that was your idea, it was a great idea, but it wasn't based -- doesn't sound like it was based on reality unless we can find out more about where these appraisals are and all those kind of things. i think we're concerned about that. mr. serrano? >> thank you, mr. chairman. you know, administrator, some pundits would say it's very easy to confuse members of congress. well, this may be an example of one where we're innocent of being easily confused. it's just very confusing. we're trying to get to the bottom of it. based on your budget request it

seems in addition to the $1.5 billion in appropriations, gsa will still need to give the hoover building to the developer. in last year's hearing, you would not tell the committee how much the hoover building was appraised for. but there is no way for us to analyze your appropriation needs without knowing what you and the developer are assuming the hoover building is worth. can we get the current appraised amount today? >> the current appraised amount is actually from an old appraisal. as a part of this process, we will do an appraisal of the project. but in terms of both the estimates and costs that are going -- the estimates that are going into the project, it is much better situation for the government to be in to wait for responses from the developers. before we are talking about any of the numbers and getting through awards. i mean, ultimately we have three developers that are competing. they're running estimates on the various sites, as well as the overall project, as well as the value they will give us on hoover and to talk about those

numbers as a part in an open setting really will undermine our efforts. >> okay. except for the military, an open setting is a public hearing and we usually like to get the information. i'm not going to press you on that. could you at least give an idea of the appraisal value to our staffs at the minimum? i mean, they're sworn to secrecy. >> we'll definitely follow-up with the staffs. and again, it really is just the integrity of the procurement process that i'm focused on. we are right in the middle of the procurement and really just want to make sure we get the best deal out of it that we can. >> i understand that, but you know, the chairman has to respond to people, to members who for their own reasons and

for their beliefs don't believe in spending certain amounts of money. i, on the other hand, want to be helpful in investing in the future, as they are too. so you don't help us by telling us i can't tell you that in public. i'm trying to be helpful here by saying can you at least tell us in private so that we have an idea what we're dealing with? because that's what we do as appropriators. we appropriate. but we're not going appropriate in the dark. no party's going to do that. and it doesn't matter who the administration is, we're just not going appropriate in the dark. we need to ensure that we're getting the best price for the government for the hoover building, administrator. is there a chance the building is being undervalued as part of

this exchange and would bring in a higher price if sold on its own? >> i think what's unique about this exchange in this process overall and part of what's brought the interests to the table is the fact that hoover, itself, is on pennsylvania avenue and, you know, it's america's main street. and ultimately to be able to have access to that property, i think it's part of what makes the package overall attractive. so taking the exchange out would have an effect, i think, on the project overall. >> well, there's one part i totally don't understand, and it might be that i didn't pay attention to what the chairman was asking. why is the developer getting the building? i come from a city where the developer are always getting -- people think the developers are getting more than they should. why is the developer getting the building? why is the developer -- refresh us again.

what is the developer giving us in return for getting the building? >> part of utilizing the exchange tool, we're giving the building itself, the hoover building in exchange for a new building that will service as the headquarters for fbi. >> all right. are the fbi and department of homeland security headquarters being treated the same? specifically, i want to know what the gsa request is going to be used for, versus the agency's request. my understanding is that gsa provided, and gsa appropriation was used for the interior. is that the same with the fbi's headquarters? >> it is the same. the requests that are before you and fbi's request is for construction. >> okay. i'm sure mr. yoder has some questions. i did learn something, mr. chairman. i thought america's main street was river avenue where yankee stadium was located, but i guess not. michigan and chicago? i should have stopped while i

was ahead. >> i'll turn to mr. yoder now. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i do represent the heartland which is the main street of the whole country. you're welcome to come at anytime. welcome to the committee. appreciate your testimony today. i wanted to ask you about your understanding of the gsa's role of the banister federal complex in kansas city, which is a former facility that's closed. i want to know about where it's going. i first want to talk about where it's been. if you are aware, the banister federal complex in kansas city made a variety of things. made airplane engines during world war ii but later they began making components for nuclear weapons. and after many folks dedicated their career there, it became aware they were exposed to significant amounts of radioactive material. there's been some $55 million paid out to these workers at a former gsa facility. but the vast majority are

frustrated and they haven't been paid. some live in my district, some live in emanuel cleaver's district where the facility's located in kansas city, missouri. the types of claims that have been uncompensated are pretty significant. you have hundreds of people with skin cancer, beryllium sensitivity, female breast cancer, asthma, kidney cancer, bladder cancer. the list goes on and on and on. so i know this is a real tragedy that's occurred here, and these constituents are coming to me asking why their claims haven't been paid, only a fraction have been paid. i'd first like to know, can you provide me information about what the gsa's role was in that situation in terms of informing them what they might be exposed to and what are the general policies on that today for workers who may be being exposed to materials that can affect their health? >> yes, congressman, thank you

for the question. this has obviously been an ongoing item for the agency and one that we will continue to address as concerns are raised. my understanding, and i spent just a little bit of time with this item, is that we did have situations in which there were individuals who were concerned about illnesses related to the environmental health of the location. at this point, we have not made -- gsa has not found that there's a connection between the environmental health of the footprint that is gsa. obviously there was another activity on this site overall. we continue to be open in listening to any requests that are brought forward. but at this stage, we don't have any that we have identified where there was an illness and relation to the illness that it was connected to the

environmental health of the footprint managed by gsa. >> so you're saying the facilities weren't managed by the gsa? >> no, the footprint that is part of gsa's footprint. there's another agency -- >> so what was the portion that the gsa was responsible for? >> i can't -- i don't know the property well enough as i sit here to talk about specifics of the separation of the site, itself, but there is a portion of the envelope that is gsa and a portion that's managed by another agency. >> and to your knowledge, there's no overlap in terms of individuals that would be exposed to radioactive material that would be gsa employees or gsa-controlled space? >> not to my knowledge, as i sit here, but we will definitely work with your staff and work very closely with any concerns that have been raised to your attention as well. i would like to deal with those. >> i just have hundreds of constituents in my district that feel like their claims aren't being heard. many of them suffering from devastating cancers. 554 people are deceased. some of their claims have been

denied. the approval rate for cases involving former workers at the plant is particularly low, 23%, less than half the national average. so it's a problem that, you know, my heart breaks for these folks and i want to make sure the government is doing them justice and doing them right. i would like your help to advocate for these workers to ensure that they were -- are being property compensated. i guess my follow-up is, two follow-ups. one, what are the measures the gsa is going to take going forward to ensure these types of things don't occur in the future for properties gsa manages? what are safety measures? then there's a timeline for clean-up of the facility for disposal and cleanup. can you clarify your agency's involvement in that process? >> sure.

just to be clear, there were items that needed to be investigated by gsa and we have done so and we will continue to investigate any items that are brought to our attention. there has -- there's a number of things happening at that site because of the size of the footprint. we actually are expanding some presence there. on certain parts of the site. and it would probably be worthwhile for us to come back to the committee staff and talk through the aspects of the site. but overall, we take the environmental concerns of our properties very seriously. obviously we have a number of properties that we manage in really the environmental health of the employees that work there and the safety of those employees is something that is of high concern to us, so we will continue to -- and we do with each of our sites, watch and monitor closely, try to ensure that we have an understanding of vulnerabilities there and follow up as appropriate. whatever steps here are necessary here to respond to your constituents specifically and the project overall that we continue to do that. >> i appreciate that. we need to make sure we do

everything we can to make sure that doesn't happen and make sure they're aware of it. protect them and then when things do go wrong and we do have health outcome, we do everything to compensate them and make it right. i yield back, mr. chairman. >> thank you. mr. quigley? >> thank you, mr. chairman, i strongly agree with mr. yoder's remarks. ms. roth, i understand your concern about sharing the appraisal numbers with the 17 people watching on c-span right now. let's talk about something we perhaps do want the public to know about. the federal real property profile. i saw that gao had found the issues with the database, questions of reliability. i understand, huge database and conflicting information coming from different sources, but it

also raised questions about the property reductions and the associated cost savings being overstated as a result of those inaccuracies. can you talk about that? just how serious that problem is and what you're trying to do to overcome it? >> sure. just to separate the two and the real property database as you point out, congressman, does have a lot of sources that it pulls from, and there are steps we've taken to work with our federal partners in terms of improving the integrity and quality of that data to the extent of ensuring that very senior level individuals in those agencies are seeing the data as it's being submitted as well as doing some mandatory drop-downs as well as smart assessments of information that is entered into the database

from year to year. this is something we're rolling out this year if they -- square footage, for example, on a property is drastically different from one year to the next. the database would actually flag the agency to deal with those discrepancies. when it comes to disposal, itself, however, we have more accuracy around the actual activity that's occurring. so when we're actually going through a disposal process with an agency, we're spending more time hands-on with that property, itself, so it can confirm the dispose l activity and what we're actually disposing and the savings, therein. >> but the data available in the federal real property profile is not available to the public, not available online. i guess there's summary reports which are kind of excel spreadsheets. you know, several of us have been trying to address these issues of excess property. it's hard to know what we have. i'm not sure anybody in the government can put a summation on this and what their value is. i think we need to get that in order and begin to talk about how to make it more available to

the public. >> yes, sir. wholeheartedly agree. we have been works with a lease of properties that are under gsa's management to enhance how we're making that data sets available even to the extent that we have now a website that shows a map where you can sort of hover over the locations and get a pretty good snapshot of data as well as click into it and get more information. we want to be a resource for federal agencies as they work to make data more available and have formats and platforms that they can pull from pretty quickly. >> let me ask you to touch on one more thing quickly. gsa has some responsibility or helps to a degree helping federal workers gain access to childcare facilities. especially here in d.c.

we're hearing the availability, especially on the hill, is long waiting list for such things and exorbitant costs of this sort of thing. to the point we actually hear people making career decisions and family decisions based on the fact that there is no affordable childcare. your thoughts on this? >> well, i will be happy to follow-up with your office regarding what role we play and if there's anything we can do to support even to the extent of information. as a mother of a young child myself, the idea of not having childcare that is affordable or easy and accessible is, i can understand, very problematic. so we will do everything we can to support that effort. >> in the meantime, have you heard at all from staff, workers, other people in gsa just about what the lists are, the cost and so forth here? especially on the hill from my own staff, for example? >> i can't say that i have directly but i will definitely follow up. >> i appreciate that. thank you, mr. chairman. i yield back. >> thank you. i want to ask you about the $3.1 billion fund for the i.t., but

let me just finish up with the fbi. just so you'll understand, we're -- we're pretty much, as said, in the dark, if you come in and say we have a building that's worth "x" dollars and we're going to build a new building that's worth "x" dollars, that sounds like a fair trade, but i don't know, somehow we got to know where you got the numbers and where you get the number to say we missed it by $1.8 billion. if you say it costs $2 billion to build a new building but we got a building that's worth $2 billion, then that works, right? >> we. >> but if somehow there's almost a $2 billion discrepancy, that means either "a," that the building you had wasn't worth what you thought it was or the building you're going to build, you can't build what you thought

it could build. we got to know that. in particular when you walk in and say we need another $1.8 billion to finish our project but we don't have any other numbers. so somehow we got to work through that. want you to tell all the free developers what the numbers are, but everybody's got an idea of how much it costs to build a building and everybody has an idea of how much a building's worth. so as soon as we can get that, it will make it a whole lot easier for us. >> and i appreciate it, mr. chairman. we want to work very closely and we'll continue to work very closely with the committee. obviously we are asking for your support and want you to feel confident about this effort. so we'll definitely look forward to continue to follow up with you and have discussions. obviously, this is a different project with a different scope at this stage in terms of a full consolidation and understanding of the requirements and is really having the impact. absolutely, sir, i understand the position the committee is in. >> thank you. now, the $3.1 billion, you got $3 billion in mandatory, $100

million in discretionary. how's that -- where did that idea come from? did the agencies request i.t. upgrades every year? $3 billion is a lot of money. all of a sudden. how does that work and why is that mandatory versus discretionary? >> well, let me say this effort overall, the i.t. modernization fund, really is a -- grew out of the cyber security national action plan that the president presented. you're aware, last year we had the cyber sprint, and out of that discussion and out of that evaluation it was clear that part of the major vulnerability or major need for federal agencies was in the area of i.t. legacy and supporting the replacement of i.t. legacy. and so as such, the idea of this modernization fund, specifically, is to support thattest.

as agencies look to replace legacy systems, the highest costs is really in that initial upfront cost. the ideas for this fund to be a revolving self-sustaining fund that agencies can apply to payback over a five-year period, the cost of the investment overall. but it also has the benefit of helping us see across government. sometimes agencies are trying to deal with a legacy issue in a silo in terms of its agency, itself, when actually the solution actually may be something that either multiple agencies can utilize or multiple agencies have already involved for. so we are seeing it both from both perspectives, both the business enterprise perspective of how do we rationalize and have smart investments around our i.t. that can support everyone, as well as helping to see and support what agencies are faced with on a regular basis. the reflection in the request will reflect that, and as you

pointed out earlier, the legislation involving this request should be to you and your other members in the next couple weeks. next few weeks. >> there will be some authorizing language, i assume. are you going to have to hire some more staff to administer this fund? >> yes. there will be additional staff. it would have a programming office. the staff and the focus of the office would be really to evaluate the investments themselves, to give -- >> is that all included in the $3.1 billion? >> yes. >> the omb oversees all the computers of everybody in the federal government. i can't remember what the number -- billions of dollars we spend on computers all across the federal government. we had mr. donovan say if they coordinated all the, i guess, buying of computer equipment, they might be able to save as much as 50%. so is that something you've talked to omb about about how all of this would work?

>> absolutely. this is actually an effort we've been working very closely with omb. this is an outgrowth of the federal cio. obviously a part of the senior team at omb. so this is very much in conjunction with them. gsa's role is really, obviously, as an administrative arm, it makes sense for this to be coordinated through gsa, but we've worked very closely with other agencies on their i.t. bo. mr. serrano? >> it's amazing, mr. chairman, how we always end up talking about computers and i.t. i don't know if i was being sarcastic or profound when i suggested doing the rollout of obamacare and all they had to do was go to a college dorm and get a couple kids who would have taken care of the problem in about 30 seconds. you know, instead of doing everything else that happened. you know, one of my issues on this committee for years has been purchasing versus leasing. i think our government spends too much money leasing. and at the end of the day, owns nothing. maybe there are people much smarter than me, i'm not being sarcastic, who can argue that leasing is much better.

has that changed at all? because this committee made an effort to get people to say stop leasing for so much money and purchase some of the places that we need in our government. pretty soon the government will be leasing and leasing and leasing and no purchases at all. has that changed at all? >> yes, sir. i will say that the committee support of consolidation funds has been a tremendous effort for our portfolio overall. we have been able to see savings year over year since the support of that effort as well as the reduction of our footprints in particular. we have very much a value on the owned property. we believe the owned property is the best use of the american taxpayer dollars and want to maximize our presence in the properties that are owned by the federal government. so the funding that the committee has given us, i think

over the past three years, in particular, we had -- i had it written down, 1.4 square feet of savings -- reduction in square footage. over $100 million in savings on lease avoidance. that's having a definite impact on the bottom line. >> okay. let's -- let's move on to another area that's also of great interest to me. and it is our territories. it seems that the territories always get left behind, and i take personal interest because i was born in one of them and i represent the bronx, which has a lot of folks that were born in the territories. does gsa make a special effort through staffing patterns and progr programmatic patterns to make sure that the territories are being treated as fairly as the

constitution allows which is thoroughly fair? because in many cases, you'll hear where they're waiting for a building but, you know, three or four times the amount of time that one of the states has to wait. you wonder, you know, they're federal buildings, they're being used to render services to american citizens, so why not the same time or something close to it? >> yes, congressman. i know that you've had discussions and we've had discussions over the recent past regarding projects in particular in puerto rico and we have -- we've needed to ensure, and we have, we're at a much better place now, that we have boots on the ground as well as hands-on efforts with any of the projects in the territories. and i think what we've seen in the turnaround in the projects, in particular, we're doing that. and that we're keeping the same

discipline across our portfolio, expectation of turnaround as well as project management and schedule. >> well, i would appreciate that, and you'd be not surprised, but you'd be happy to know that this committee does not disagree, that we want people treated equally and that sometimes because they're not a state, they don't get treated equally. let me ask you a question here. the omnibus bill -- in the omnibus bill, gsa is requesting 17% less for construction, acquisition that was provided in the fiscal year. i'm sorry, i got it wrong. you're asking for 17% less than was provided in the omnibus for 2016. that may be understandable given you received over a billion increase in construction in fy 2016.

there have been concerns from some about your ability to handle such large increases in one year. how are you managing that many projects in the fy-2016 bill? and did they impact what you requested in 2017? i believe we must invest in infrastructure across the country and the territories, but i also don't want to set you up for failure by not giving you the staff to manage all of your projects. >> sure. i thank you for that observation. i would say -- first, let me start by saying we very much appreciate the committee's support in the fy-16 budget. that has been a tremendous opportunity especially in the area of courts that was mentioned earlier for us to meet some of our partnering needs. we are gearing up, we're working very closely with the courts in terms of evaluating their projects, the timing of those projects and ensuring we're able

to move forward and execute on time and under budget. across the board, we have a volume of needs that really exceed our resources and so what we try to ensure is that we are able to articulate to the committee where the needs are and what's driving our programming going forward and to ensure that we have the staffing lined up to manage what we can see coming forward. so your support has been a tremendously important and we are doing everything from our perspective to line up, we have staffing and support in places where that funding is focused. >> thank you. i know we've touched on it, but how is your i.t. modernization program going? >> the i.t. modernization for gsa overall has been a tremendous opportunity for us as an agency in terms of really rationalizing how we're managing i.t.

in terms of having had a consolidation that we did internally as well as establishing what we refer to as an investment review board to look at large-level i.t. investments really is allowing for us to support other agencies who are moving in the same direction especially as the outgrowth of atar, which was an important effort this committee was involved with. so we are seeing the dividends from that consolidation activity as well as being able to support other agencies as well. >> thank you. and i apologize, mr. chairman. i was looking at my clock and i thought it was going down. it was actually going up. i know, it sounds like the federal budget, but i don't want to hear that comment. >> no comment. mr. yoder is recognized. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i'm going to not take that lay-up that my colleague, mr. serrano, gave me there and i'm going to go back to the administrator. i note in your biography that you have a history of being sort

of tech savvy. and i think you were top 50 women in tech at one point. and i actually noticed the interview you did at one time where you said you had an early commodore 64 and you actually used to code your own video games. >> yes. >> that's pretty neat. you have a tech background. obviously you have a love of tech. so i want to talk to you about the real property profile. and i want to associate myself with comments from my colleague, mr. quigley. he and i have long been bipartisan in our efforts to try to resolve the concerns we have, and that continues to be that there is no -- we have struggled to find ways to quantify the property that the federal government owns both in the gsa and all of the property which is a secondary issue that not all the property's with the gs, so you've got two separate problems there. and we really don't have the ability to tell our public what we own, what's vacant, what isn't vacant. what's idle, what's owned in their community in a way that is usable.

so i was just sort of looking at the realpropertyprofile.gov. is that the site? i was pulling it up on my phone. immediately i note it's password protected. user name and password. there's really no instructions on how someone would go about getting a password or user name. when i go through something like this -- you know, first of all, as mr. quigley brought up, there's billions of dollars of property, tens of thousands of pieces of property that the gao has said before are idle. we would really have no way to verify that. my check box would be is there public access, is there a mobile app that would allow people to, you know, constituents to drive around once they have it and look at things? i don't know because it's not accessible. is it user-friendly? is it comprehensive? is it fully implemented in a way that people are using it today to make decisions that are informed that will allow taxpayers to save money? i guess, first of all, are there

other standards i should be looking at? but in terms of those standards, have we met those standards and when will we, if not? >> we have been working diligently to ensure we're meeting those standards with the data that we're putting forward for gsa in particular because of the dynamic nature that you refer to in terms of making it easy accessible, being able to pull it up on your mobile device. if that's not working i will definitely -- >> you can pull it up. it's user name and password protected. there's no description on here. it doesn't tell you. i guess you'd e-mail chris kinneany or stephanie klause and ask them how. it doesn't say. it just says have you forgotten your password, are you a gsa employee? it doesn't say to members of the public on this, at least, how you do it. i completely could be missing something you might pull up on a desktop. >> and that's not -- that's not as productive as we want to be, right? we want people to be able to access our data in the way that they're used to with all other data in the private sector.

>> why is it even log-in password protected? the whole idea is to make this accessible to the public. right? >> yeah. >> when does that happen? >> the idea it's password protected is surprising me as i sit here. i could be thinking about two different places where the data resides, which would be a challenge as well. so i will ensure that we -- >> this is realpropertyprofile.gov. >> yeah. we have a -- we have, in particular, what i'm used to seeing is a place where you can see both, especially for gsa's data, the data itself, as well as, like you said, a map that is interactive. the database that is utilized by -- or that is a representation of all of government, i don't know if that's private password protected. we want to make it as accessible as possible. >> i brought this up i think three years ago and brought it to up i think yourself last year, your predecessors, every year we're bringing this up on the record and we're still not getting there. one thing i think that would help is if we engage the private sector. you know, if this was a google

project, you know, i think this would be -- or any company out there that was trying to do a mapping project, i bet it would move more swiftly. so i guess what has gsa done to bring out the best mapping and geospatial knowledge base and expertise from the private sector to help with this? >> we actually have been able to achieve geospatial mapping with our data, in particular. it's really the data that is the rest of the federal government which is included in the real property database that we -- that is currently not available in the same format. >> just in general, has the gsa sought advice and worked with the private sector to build the best mapping system? or is it doing this internally and not using private -- >> we have consulted with private sector. i'm not sure to what extent the break happens. we did meet with some members at your recommendation from our last hearing. there was a sit-down with a team there as well. so we have engaged a private sector from an expertise perspective where needed and are also managing internally as well.

>> well, it seems like we have a long way to go and i just know given your tech background if you're on the outside of this looking in, you would say not acceptable, private sector would have created an app for this years ago and we'd be able to look at every piece of property, be able to compare it, policymakers could utilize it, the public could. the public could assist us by finding property that are unutilized and maybe trying to repurpose them saving us money. whether you're a liberal or conservative, none of us hopefully like to see idle property that could be put to use or sold.