[House Hearing, 113 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
GAO REVIEW: ARE ADDITIONAL FEDERAL COURTHOUSES JUSTIFIED?
=======================================================================
(113-11)
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON
TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
APRIL 17, 2013
__________
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COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE
BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania, Chairman
DON YOUNG, Alaska NICK J. RAHALL, II, West Virginia
THOMAS E. PETRI, Wisconsin PETER A. DeFAZIO, Oregon
HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of
JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee, Columbia
Vice Chair JERROLD NADLER, New York
JOHN L. MICA, Florida CORRINE BROWN, Florida
FRANK A. LoBIONDO, New Jersey EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas
GARY G. MILLER, California ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
SAM GRAVES, Missouri RICK LARSEN, Washington
SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West Virginia MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts
CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan TIMOTHY H. BISHOP, New York
DUNCAN HUNTER, California MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine
ERIC A. ``RICK'' CRAWFORD, Arkansas GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California
LOU BARLETTA, Pennsylvania DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois
BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota
LARRY BUCSHON, Indiana STEVE COHEN, Tennessee
BOB GIBBS, Ohio ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey
PATRICK MEEHAN, Pennsylvania DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland
RICHARD L. HANNA, New York JOHN GARAMENDI, California
DANIEL WEBSTER, Florida ANDRE CARSON, Indiana
STEVE SOUTHERLAND, II, Florida JANICE HAHN, California
JEFF DENHAM, California RICHARD M. NOLAN, Minnesota
REID J. RIBBLE, Wisconsin ANN KIRKPATRICK, Arizona
THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky DINA TITUS, Nevada
STEVE DAINES, Montana SEAN PATRICK MALONEY, New York
TOM RICE, South Carolina ELIZABETH H. ESTY, Connecticut
MARKWAYNE MULLIN, Oklahoma LOIS FRANKEL, Florida
ROGER WILLIAMS, Texas CHERI BUSTOS, Illinois
TREY RADEL, Florida
MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina
SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania
RODNEY DAVIS, Illinois
VACANCY
CONTENTS
Page
Summary of Subject Matter........................................ iv
TESTIMONY
Mark L. Goldstein, Director, Physical Infrastructure Issues, U.S.
Government Accountability Office............................... 9
Hon. Michael A. Ponsor, Judge, United States District Court for
the District of Massachusetts, and Chairman, Committee on Space
and Facilities, Judicial Conference of the United States....... 9
Dorothy Robyn, Commissioner, Public Buildings Service, U.S.
General Services Administration................................ 9
PREPARED STATEMENT SUBMITTED BY MEMBER OF CONGRESS
Hon. Jim Cooper, of Tennessee.................................... 39
PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY WITNESSES
Mark L. Goldstein................................................ 41
Hon. Michael A. Ponsor........................................... 54
Dorothy Robyn.................................................... 84
SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD
Hon. John L. Mica, a Representative in Congress from the State of
Florida, request to submit the following:
Exhibit A: List of excess Federal courthouse space created in
Florida between 2000 and 2010.............................. 6
Exhibit B: Miami courthouse complex--Wilkie D. Ferguson, Jr.
United States Courthouse................................... 8
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GAO REVIEW: ARE ADDITIONAL
FEDERAL COURTHOUSES JUSTIFIED?
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WEDNESDAY, APRIL 17, 2013
House of Representatives,
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:36 a.m. in
Room 2167, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Bill Shuster
(Chairman of the committee) presiding.
Mr. Shuster. The committee will come to order. I first want
to take the opportunity to welcome everybody here today,
especially our distinguished witnesses: Mr. Mark Goldstein, who
is the director of Physical Infrastructure, Government
Accountability Office--good to see you, Mr. Goldstein, again;
the Honorable Michael Ponsor, judge of the United States
District Court for the District of Massachusetts and Chairman
of the Committee on Space and Facilities of the Judicial
Conference of the United States--welcome; and Dr. Dorothy
Robyn, the Commissioner of Public Buildings, General Services
Administration. Welcome.
And also, a special welcome to my Federal judge, Brooks
Smith from Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania. And I understand he is
slated to become the Chairman of the Committee on Space and
Facilities for the Judicial Conference of the United States.
Welcome, Judge Smith. Good to see you.
The purpose of today's hearing is to prevent the future
overbuilding of Federal courthouses and to save billions of
taxpayer dollars, and I think that is something that we are all
very, very focused on in Congress today and across the United
States, is saving taxpayers' dollars. Today, we are releasing
GAO's most recent report on the Federal judiciary's 5-year plan
for new courthouses.
And, essentially, the committee asked GAO a basic question:
``Keeping in mind that we could administer justice in a
warehouse with two milk crates and a piece of plywood, the
judiciary and the GSA have learned the lessons of past
overbuilding, and can Congress rely on the 5-year plan to
authorize the highest priority and necessary courthouse
projects?'' That is the question.
Unfortunately, GAO's response is ``No.'' In fact, GAO's
written testimony today recommends a moratorium on new
courthouses until the projects on the plan can be re-evaluated.
The 5-year plan lays out the judiciary's priorities for
courthouse construction in the coming fiscal years, and the
current plan includes projects representing more than $3
billion in costs to the taxpayer.
So what were the mistakes of the past and what did they
cost the taxpayers?
In 2010, at the request of the committee, GAO reviewed all
33 courthouses built between 2000 and 2010. And the GAO found
that over 3.5 million extra square feet were built, costing the
taxpayers $883 million in construction costs and $51 million in
annual operating, the extra space. And that figure doesn't even
count the space abandoned by the courthouse, such as the old
Dyer Courthouse in Miami or the Dillon Courthouse sitting
vacant right now in downtown Buffalo, New York.
The GAO gave 3 reasons for this waste of taxpayer money:
the judiciary overestimated the number of future judges by as
much as 50 percent; the judiciary's policy to not share
courtrooms, requiring new courtrooms and chambers for every
projected judge; and GSA simply built larger and more expensive
courthouses than Congress authorized.
Let me give you one example here in Washington, DC. Two
days ago Chairman Barletta, Ranking Member Norton, and I toured
the Federal courthouse on Constitution Avenue. It consists of
two buildings: the original 1950s courthouse and the large
annex that opened in 2005. When GSA proposed the annex in the
1990s, the judiciary projected they would be 36 district judges
when it opened. Today there are only 24. As a result, there are
about 600 people working in almost 1 million square feet. To
put that in context, that's about the size of 500 2,000-square-
foot homes.
To avoid making the same mistakes in the future, it appears
we can't rely on the projections of future judges, we need
courtroom sharing, and GSA has to follow the law and build
courthouses within the authorized limits.
Eight years ago, when I chaired the subcommittee I
requested a judiciary study--courtrooms--how often courtrooms
are used and adopt courtroom sharing. The courts' own report
showed that courtrooms across the Nation sat unused for most of
the day, and they adopted a courtroom sharing policy for new
courthouses.
In addition, the judiciary revised its planning process for
when to recommend new courthouses for construction. Today, we
will hear testimony on GAO's review of this process and the
judiciary's 5-year courthouse plan. This plan is critical in
helping GSA and Congress determine what projects are justified
and cost-effective. The accuracy of this plan and how it is
developed should ensure taxpayer money is not wasted.
However, as we will hear today, there are serious questions
as to whether the projects on the most recent 5-year plan,
submitted to the committee last month, are even needed. Despite
developing a new assessment process to evaluate the need for a
new courthouse, the judiciary has not applied the process to 10
of the 12 projects on the plan. As I said earlier, GAO
recommends a moratorium on new courthouses until the projects
can be re-evaluated using the new assessment process.
Right now we are running trillion-dollar deficits, we have
a $16 trillion debt, and agencies are furloughing staff and
shutting down air traffic control towers. In homes across the
Nation, families are worried about the economy, their jobs, and
balancing their own budgets. They expect the same from us here
in Washington. And we must save taxpayer dollars and we must
ensure new projects are truly needed and fully justified.
And it has been brought to my attention that our colleagues
across the capital, in some cases, don't apply the same
standards that we or the GAO or the judiciary do in picking
courthouses. So that is something we have to make sure, in this
body, are standing up to those folks on the other side of the
Capital.
I look forward to the testimony of our witnesses, and I
hope we can--you can help Congress to decide what, if any,
courthouses should be approved in the future.
So, again, thank you. Welcome. And with that, Ranking
Member Norton is recognized.
Ms. Norton. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. You will
recall that the overbuilding and resistance to sharing
courtrooms has been one of the pet peeves of this committee for
many years now. I was pleased to accompany the chair of our
full committee, Mr. Shuster, and Mr. Barletta, to our own
Federal courthouse here just the other day, this week, where we
saw a courthouse that was built before there was any sharing,
where all the judges can have her or his own courtroom, and
where you have a very lovely courthouse, but where you don't
meet the standards that have since been set by this committee.
Now, that courthouse was authorized in 1999. So we are more
than 10 years out from that. And it is our obligation to see to
it that all courthouses follow the directions of this committee
that have now been made plain.
So, we are pleased to convene this hearing about the GAO
report on the Judicial Conference of the United States 5-year
construction plan. Today's hearing has, as its necessary
context, a 2010 GAO report that the Economic Development,
Public Buildings, and Emergency Management Subcommittee
commissioned in 2008 to examine courthouse planning and
construction, including management and costs. The GAO report
found astonishing--made astonishing findings of mismanagement
by GSA and the judiciary of the courthouse program, and
documented wasted funds and space.
The GAO determined that the 33 courthouses constructed by
GSA since 2000 included 3.56 million square feet of space above
the congressionally authorized specifications and frequent
overestimation of the number of judges that courthouses would
need to accommodate, and failed to implement courtroom sharing,
despite the committee's mandate. The GAO also found that the
total value of the extra space was $835 million in construction
costs and $51 million annually in rent and operation expenses.
Following the GAO study in August of 2010, the leadership
of the Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings,
and Emergency Management submitted a bipartisan letter to
President Obama highlighting the concerns about waste, stating
the committee would withhold authorizing new Federal courthouse
construction until the committee was satisfied that appropriate
reforms to the program were in place.
We then requested a GAO study of the Judicial Conference's
5-year courthouse project plan to determine whether the
courthouse current construction schedule had been evaluated in
the context of new courtroom-sharing guidelines and best
practices in capital planning. The findings of the latest GAO
report on the 5-year courthouse project plan are stunning, yet
unsurprising.
The judiciary has rightly made some adjustments to the
capital planning process in light of the continued urging and
oversight of this committee, by developing the asset management
planning, or AMP process, in 2006 that more accurately
represents the administrative office of the U.S. courts'
current policies on judicial sharing, projecting judges,
security deficiencies, and facility conditions.
Unfortunately, the judiciary has rejected GAO's
recommendations to re-evaluate the 12 projects that are
currently on the 5-year courthouse project plan, and would like
to proceed with nearly $3.2 billion worth of projects on the
list without the benefit of the AMP process.
As of October 2012, the judiciary has conducted AMP
evaluations for about 67 percent of all Federal courthouses. As
a result of the AMP process, two projects that were on the
prior 5-year courthouse project plan were removed, and the
judiciary determined that the needs of those courthouses could
be addressed through repair and alteration projects that
reconfigure space.
The judiciary, however, has not agreed to re-evaluate the
other 10 projects on the 5-year courthouse project plan, and to
make adjustments based on the AMP process being applied now to
the entire inventory.
I will withhold my support of the authorization of any
courthouse construction on the judiciary's 5-year project plan
until I am assured that there will be real savings and steps to
control spending in the judiciary construction program, and
that planning of new courthouses is consistent with the actual
needs of the judiciary, based on the AMP process. We intend to
work with GSA and the judiciary to ensure that good asset
management decisions are made in the courthouse construction
program.
We appreciate the testimony of our witnesses, and we
welcome your thoughts, suggestions, and insights. And I thank
you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Shuster. Thank you. And with that I recognize the
subcommittee chairman, Mr. Barletta, for his opening statement.
Mr. Barletta. Thank you. I want to thank Chairman Shuster
for his leadership and work to reduce costs in the Federal
courthouse program.
In 2005 Chairman Shuster chaired the subcommittee I now
chair, and began to look into whether we need all of the space
the judiciary and GSA were proposing. The committee did not
make a knee-jerk reaction. Ensuring the proper administration
of justice for our citizens is critical to the Nation. Chairman
Shuster insisted on thorough reviews and studies. Years later,
we now have the benefit of that work and we can act on it.
We now know, from numerous GAO studies and judiciary's own
space usage report that, in fact, significant money can be
saved in the courthouse construction program. And, as part of
this work, today GAO has recommended that we take a step back
and wait for the judiciary to properly evaluate the $3 billion
worth of projects on its 5-year courthouse plan before we act
and spend more taxpayer dollars. That seems to be a logical
conclusion.
With today's budget deficits, the growing national debt,
and people expecting Government to be a better steward of the
tax dollar, we must ensure waste is minimized. I appreciate the
work of the judiciary to take--that has taken to improve the
process it uses to evaluate the need for new courthouses.
While, as GAO points out, the new process is not perfect, and
there could be further improvements to the new process, it is a
step in the right direction.
However, knowing that at least 10 of the 12 projects
currently on the 5-year plan have yet to be evaluated under the
new process, we must ask the question: Are these projects still
urgently needed? Are they justified? I hope we can address
these issues today as we hear from our witnesses. Thank you,
Mr. Chair.
Mr. Shuster. Thank you. With that I would recognize a brief
statement from Mr. Mica, the former chair of the full
committee.
Mr. Mica. Well, thank you. And thank you, Chairman Shuster,
and also Chairman Barletta, Ranking Member Norton, for
conducting this hearing. I think this is an appropriate time to
start again refocusing--Mr. Shuster has done it in the past, we
have done it in the committee--and looking at the Federal
Government's bulging inventory of judiciary overbuilt Taj
Mahals is long overdue. I think that what you are going to
accomplish today, and when we are facing these huge deficits
and looking for ways to save taxpayer money, we can have a
``lessons learned.''
I conducted a little inventory, Mr. Chairman, of Florida in
the last 10 years. And we have Tallahassee, Jacksonville,
Orlando, Miami. The Federal courthouses built there, the excess
space that was constructed was over half-a-million square feet,
551,000. This is Exhibit A I would like to submit for the
record today of Florida's history, if we could do that, Mr.
Chairman. I would like to submit Exhibit A.
Mr. Shuster. Without objection, so ordered.
[The information follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 80438.006
Mr. Mica. Then I want to take--drill down to one example.
In Miami they built a Federal courthouse to replace the Dyer
Building, and that particular building was built with 97,000
square feet more than they needed, and it was authorized by
Congress. Now, you have, basically, in building the temples of
justice you have people violating the Federal law. How the hell
are they building these things exceeding the guidelines
established and what is set in law?
So, this is Exhibit B of what has taken place in Miami. I
would like that submitted.
Mr. Shuster. Without objection, so ordered.
[The information follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 80438.007
Mr. Mica. Then, finally is the court--when we build these
courthouses, we know there will either be vacant space or what
are they going to do with the space? The Dyer Building, we did
a hearing under this committee, I just did one chairing the
Government Oversight Subcommittee in Miami. That building has
been vacant for nearly 6 years, probably $20 million worth of
remediation now required because it sat idle with mold, costing
the taxpayers in excess of $1.2 million to sit idle. And when
we finished the hearing I got a letter from Miami-Dade College,
which is across the street, telling me for 5 years they have
been trying to get the building and couldn't get the building
and would utilize the building and take it off the taxpayers'
roll.
So, today I am introducing a bill to transfer that, and
working with the south Florida and the Florida delegation to
transfer the damn building and get it out of, again, the
deficit column of the taxpayers.
I thank you for coming. I do have a competing hearing, and
wanted to get that in. Yield back.
Mr. Shuster. I thank the chairman for his statement and for
his hard work over the years.
I again wanted to welcome our witnesses; thanks for being
here today. I ask unanimous consent that our witnesses' full
statements be included in the record. I would ask--without
objection, so ordered.
And since your written testimony is in the record, I ask
you to keep it to 5 minutes and then we will go to asking
questions after you have--all three of you have completed. So,
with that first, Mr. Goldstein, you may proceed.
TESTIMONY OF MARK L. GOLDSTEIN, DIRECTOR, PHYSICAL
INFRASTRUCTURE ISSUES, U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE;
HON. MICHAEL A. PONSOR, JUDGE, UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR
THE DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS, AND CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE ON SPACE
AND FACILITIES, JUDICIAL CONFERENCE OF THE UNITED STATES; AND
DOROTHY ROBYN, COMMISSIONER, PUBLIC BUILDINGS SERVICE, U.S.
GENERAL SERVICES ADMINISTRATION
Mr. Goldstein. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the
committee. A pleasure to be here this morning. I am pleased to
be here to discuss the Federal judiciary's capital planning
efforts for new courthouses.
Since the early 1990s, the judiciary and the GSA have
undertaken a multibillion-dollar Federal courthouse
construction program. To date, this program has resulted in 78
new courthouses or annexes, and 16 projects that are currently
in various stages of development. However, rising costs and
other budget priorities that you have mentioned this morning
have slowed the construction program. In addition, we have
previously found that almost all courthouses built in the last
10 years have been constructed larger than necessary because of
poor planning, inadequate oversight, and inefficient courtroom
use.
In 2008, the judiciary began using a new capital planning
process called the Asset Management Planning process, AMP, to
assess, identify, and rank its space needs. judiciary officials
said the AMP process addresses concerns about growing cost and
incorporates best practices related to capital planning.
Today we are releasing a new report that addresses the
extent to which the judiciary's capital planning process aligns
with leading practices, and provides information needed for
informed decisionmaking related to new courthouses, and the
extent to which courthouse projects recommended for funding in
fiscal years 2014 to 2018 were assessed under the judiciary's
AMP process. My statement highlights the key findings and
recommendations. Our findings are as follows.
First, the asset management planning process represents
progress by the judiciary in better aligning its capital
planning process with leading capital planning practices. But
its 5-year plan for fiscal year 2014 to 2018, the document the
judiciary uses to request courtroom construction projects,
lacks transparency and key information on how projects quality
for new construction, alternatives the judiciary considered,
and their cost.
For example, the Plan lists costs for the next phase of the
12 recommended courthouse projects, which have several phases.
But it does not list previous funding or ongoing annual costs
for these projects. As a result, the plan lists about $1
billion in costs for the 12 projects, but the projects would
actually cost the Federal Government an estimated $3.2 billion
over the next 20 years.
Congress has appropriated a small share of the money needed
for the projects, and most will need design changes before
construction can begin. As a result, there is a risk that
congressional funding decisions could be made without complete
and accurate information. However, with this information,
decisionmakers could weigh current-year budget decisions within
the context of projects' expected future costs, and spur
discussion and debate about actions to address them and put the
judiciary's requests in context with other Federal spending.
Second, 10 of the 12 recommended projects were not
evaluated under the AMP process. judiciary officials said they
did not want to delay the current projects, or force them to
undergo a second capital planning process after they had
already been approved. Two courthouse projects from a previous
5-year plan that were assessed under AMP were removed from the
list, and are now ranked behind more than 100 other courthouse
construction projects.
Furthermore, 10 of the 12 recommended construction projects
do not qualify for a new courthouse under the AMP criterion,
which requires that new courthouses need two or more additional
courtrooms. These conditions call into question the extent to
which the projects remaining on the 5-year plan represent the
judiciary's most urgent projects, and whether proceeding with
these projects represents the most fiscally responsible
proposal.
While 10 additional AMP evaluations would involve some
additional costs, not conducting those evaluations could
involve spending $3.2 billion over the next 20 years on
courthouses that may not be the most urgent projects. As a
result, we have made several recommendations, including: the
judiciary should provide more information to decisionmakers
related to how projects qualify for new construction; any
alternatives the judiciary considered, and their cost; and
impose a moratorium on the projects currently on the 5-year
plan until they are evaluated under AMP.
Mr. Chairman, that concludes my oral statement. I would be
happy to respond to questions that you or other Members have.
Thank you.
Mr. Shuster. Thank you, Mr. Goldstein.
And with that, Judge Ponsor, please proceed.
Judge Ponsor. Thank you. My name is Michael Ponsor. That is
spelled P-o-n-s-o-r, in contrast to this morning's Washington
Post article, which spells my name P-o-s-n-e-r. Judge Richard
Posner is much richer, taller, and smarter than I am, and I am
proud to be confused for him. But my name is Ponsor, P-o-n-s-o-
r.
[Laughter.]
Judge Ponsor. It is an honor to appear before this
committee again in my role as chair of the Judicial
Conference's Committee on Space and Facilities to discuss the
GAO's draft report. I want to make two points, preliminarily.
First, I want you to know that we do appreciate this
committee's assistance with the courthouses that have been
authorized and built over the past decades, including the
courthouse in Springfield, Massachusetts, where I work. These
buildings do allow the judiciary to perform its mission for the
people of this country, the administration of justice, in a
safe and well-functioning physical environment.
Second, I want to confess an error in my submitted written
testimony. Page 12 addresses certain inaccuracies in the GAO's
report concerning numbers of courtrooms in some of the
courthouses in the judiciary's 5-year plan. There are
inaccuracies in the GAO report, but my summary of these
inaccuracies also contains inaccuracies, and I only realized
that last night. We will be submitting a replacement page with
the correct numbers.
There is no higher priority for my committee, especially
these days, than reducing the cost for space for the judiciary.
Among the many steps we have taken at the urging of the
committee is the implementation of courtroom-sharing policies
for senior judges, magistrate judges, and bankruptcy judges. We
also adopted a recommendation from GAO's 2010 report that we
not plan for courtrooms that are projected as necessary, but
not yet approved by the Congress. Let me address the draft
report's two recommendations.
With regard to the first recommendation, the need to
provide additional information, the report does overlook or
disregard not only the extensive documentation generated by the
judiciary's long-range planning process, but also the primary
role that GSA plays in the planning and cost estimating for new
courthouses. The judiciary's 5-year plan has never been
intended to be a long-term capital investment plan as the
report mistakenly assumes. The 5-year plan is simply intended
to encapsulate the judiciary's priorities for new courthouse
projects. In fact, the information which GAO suggests be part
of our 5-year plan is already provided to decisionmakers
through GSA on behalf of and in coordination with the
judiciary.
For each project proposed for funding, GSA produces a
lengthy feasibility study evaluating all alternatives to new
construction. If the product is approved, GSA provides a
detailed prospectus for site and design and another for
construction. These prospectuses summarize the need for the
project and its scope, alternatives considered, and costs,
prior funding, and the project schedule. It would be a waste of
limited resources, and would be unnecessary, for the judiciary
to replicate the fine work that GSA is already doing.
Of greatest concern in the draft report is GAO's second
recommendation, stating that the judiciary impose a moratorium
on projects on the current 5-year plan until AMP evaluations
are completed for each of them. The proposed re-evaluation
would also likely require a subsequent repetition by GSA of its
feasibility study. The effect of this recommendation on
projects which Congress has already supported with $188 million
in funding would risk further extensive delays.
While the AMP process does feature significant refinements
and improvements, the prior process accurately identified
courts where the need for new facilities was most urgent.
Significantly, both processes require GSA feasibility studies
and require prospectuses. Both protocols are detailed and
comprehensive and require years to complete. Because of this,
no reconsideration of the 5-year plan is necessary.
Further evidence of this comes from the fact that 4 of the
12 projects on the current plan--I emphasize, 4 of the 12
projects on the current plan--have gone through the AMP
process: Chattanooga, Des Moines, San Antonio, and Anniston
have already been reviewed through the AMP process, and their
degree of urgency is confirmed. The other eight projects have
been updated to reflect the judiciary's courtroom sharing
policies, and the determination not to plan for projected
judgeships.
For 8 of the 12 projects, sites have already been acquired.
In two instances there is a swap with municipalities: San
Antonio and Charlotte, North Carolina. In 10 of the 12
projects, the courthouses have been on the plan for more than
10 years. It would be brutally unfair to make these
communities, after so long, endure further unnecessary delay
for additional analysis and review. The projects on the current
5-year plan deserve to remain where they are.
It is especially disturbing that the GAO report ignores
ominous security deficiencies that have been identified in the
courts on the 5-year plan. All these courthouses lack essential
security features, such as secure sally ports for unloading
prisoners, holding cells for defendants in custody, secure
corridors, and separate elevators for court staff. These
courthouses have become, in the words of the U.S. Marshals
Service, ``disasters waiting to happen.'' The security concerns
are real. They are not hypothetical. It is dangerous, as well
as unfair, to expect these communities to endure further delays
caused by needless additional analysis and data collection, as
the draft report recommends.
Apart from the absence of any discussion of potential
security risks, the report omits any reference to the
deteriorating physical condition of the facilities on the plan.
The report notes that the GAO team visited two courthouses on
the 5-year plan and observed that keen insights were obtained,
as a result. Unfortunately, the report nowhere reveals what
these insights were.
The letter and photographs of Chief Judge Lisa Wood, which
are attached to my written testimony, whose Savannah Courthouse
was built in 1899, was visited by GAO. This letter and these
photographs vividly detail the serious structural defects that
plague her courthouse. These deficiencies in building systems
and structures are typical of shortcomings existing in various
ways in all the courthouses on the 5-year plan.
In sum, the recommendation that this judiciary treat its 5-
year plan as a long-term capital investment plan misconstrues
the purpose of the 5-year plan and ignores the wealth and data
of analysis provided by the GSA that already accompanies each
building project. The recommended moratorium would be
devastating to the 12 communities that have waited so long and
would prove dangerous, expensive, and unnecessary.
I would be glad to answer questions you may have.
Mr. Shuster. Thank you, Judge, for your testimony. And it
doesn't surprise any of us that the Washington Post got the
facts wrong.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Shuster. And with that, I recognize Dr. Robyn. You may
proceed.
Ms. Robyn. Good morning, Chairman Shuster, Chairman
Barletta, Ranking Member Norton, other members of this
committee. I am Dorothy Robyn, Commissioner of GSA's Public
Building Service. I appreciate being invited here today to
discuss GSA's investment in U.S. courthouses, and GAO's latest
report on courthouse construction. I want to make four points
this morning.
First, GSA is committed to meeting the needs of the courts
in the most cost-effective way possible. Over the last two
decades, GSA and the courts have continually and significantly
refined the process for selecting, managing, and overseeing
courthouse construction projects. One key example is the
judiciary's recent policy of requiring judges to share
courtrooms, which has allowed the courts to significantly
reduce their requirements.
For its part, GSA has shifted its focus to the renovation
and improvement of existing courthouses wherever possible, both
to limit the need for all new construction, and to preserve
buildings that are historic landmarks in many communities. We
have also developed controls such as the use of Building
Information Modeling, or BIM, to ensure that our projects come
within budget.
Second, although GSA has not sought or received
appropriation for any new courthouse construction project since
2010, we have worked with the judiciary during that time to
implement the new approaches to the projects on the 5-year
plan. For example, in San Jose, California, GSA worked with the
judiciary to reassess proposed new construction in light of
courtroom sharing. As a result, the courts were able to remove
San Jose from the 5-year plan. We are, in turn, developing a
revised prospectus to pursue selected upgrades to the existing
building, rather than all new construction.
Likewise, GSA worked with the courts to rethink the
proposed annex at the U.S. courthouse in Greenbelt, Maryland.
Congress approved and appropriated $10 million for what was
envisioned as a $100 million, 263,000-square-foot expansion.
Based on the judiciary's courtroom sharing policy, GSA
developed a new prospectus for a comparatively modest $15
million renovation, and we have submitted that prospectus to
you.
And let me note that both San Jose and Greenbelt came off
of the 5-year list not because of the new AMP process, but
because of the ongoing application of courtroom sharing to
projects on the list.
A third example is Mobile, Alabama, which tops the U.S.
courts' most recent 5-year plan, and where cooperative efforts
between GSA and the courts to reduce space requirements and
increase courtroom sharing have resulted in significant
projected savings. The 5-year plan originally had proposed a
stand-alone new courthouse estimated at $190 million. We are
now proposing instead to modernize the 1932 courthouse and
expand it with an annex that enhances the useful and symbolic
meaning of the original historic building.
GSA is currently working with the courts to revise and
reduce the requirements for every courthouse on the 5-year
plan, and we look forward to keeping this committee apprised of
our progress on these efforts.
The third point I want to make is that GAO's latest report
on courtroom construction largely ignores the central role that
GSA plays in analyzing the court's requirements and evaluating
alternative options, including our detailed feasability studies
and prospectus submissions to Congress that provide
comprehensive project cost estimates. The GAO report uses some
questionable cost figures, figures that in some cases fail to
reflect the very right-sizing of proposed projects that I just
described.
The analysis is flawed in other ways, as well. For example,
GAO faults the court's 5-year plan for omitting the long-range
projected rent costs for proposed new courthouse buildings.
Capital plans do not normally include such costs. Rent costs
should inform the capital plan, but they are not normally part
of a capital plan. But leaving that issue aside, GAO looks at
only one side of the ledger, ignoring the savings in rental
costs to agencies now housed elsewhere that would backfill a
new courthouse or Federal office building.
The fourth and final point I want to make this morning is
that while GSA is very supportive of GAO's efforts to encourage
more efficient management of the courthouse program, and we
have incorporated GAO's recommendations from--in past reports,
GSA does not support the moratorium that GAO calls for. The
projects on the court's 5-year plan have been subjected to
extensive planning and analysis by GSA and the courts,
including our ongoing efforts to downsize these proposed
projects to improve their efficiency, to meet courtroom sharing
requirements, and to utilize existing buildings. It would be
imprudent to postpone these investments. A moratorium would
undermine GSA's ongoing maintenance of the Federal inventory,
and our mission to provide the courts with safe and secure
courthouse space.
In closing, GSA will continue to collaborate with the
courts to reduce the cost of courthouses, while maximizing
their functionality and civic benefit. On behalf of GSA and the
Public Building Service, I welcome the committee's oversight of
this essential program.
I appreciate being here this morning, and I am pleased to
take your questions. Thank you.
Mr. Shuster. Thank you, Dr. Robyn. With that, I will start
the questioning off.
Mr. Goldstein, I think it is important that we understand
the context of why we are here. We have the ability of
hindsight, which they say is 20/20. And so I would like to know
what the GAO found out when you looked back over the last 33
courthouses that the GSA built, what did the GAO learn from
looking at those that had been built in those--and again, I
think the number is 33 that you looked at.
Mr. Goldstein. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As you indicated a
little bit in your opening statement, sir, we issued a report
in 2010 that looked at the 33 courthouses built since 2000, and
we found that, of those 33 courthouses, they were overbuilt by
3.56 million square feet for 3 different reasons.
The first reason was that the GSA had built many of them
beyond their authorized square footage. That authorization is
provided by the United States Congress in the authorization.
The second reason is that because a lot of the judgeships
had been projected improperly over time--and, in fact, they
built space for over 119 judges that never materialized. And so
you have courtrooms--119 courtrooms, for the most part--and
chamber space for those judges, as well.
And the third reason is because, despite admonitions from
this committee and others, the judiciary had not agreed to
share courtrooms at the district level for judges. They do, to
some extent, at the bankruptcy, magistrate, and senior judge
level today, but we found that you could have built 40 percent
fewer courtrooms--40 percent fewer--had you allowed a sharing
scheme. And so those were the main reasons.
If I may add one point, sir, which goes to the Commissioner
of Public Building Service's comments, I am quite surprised.
The Public Building Service and GSA had 30 days, as did the
judiciary, to return to us any comments they had on our report.
We received only a couple of very technical comments. This is
the first time GAO has heard any of the comments criticizing
our report. And, frankly, in the years that I have been doing
this job, I have issued about 500 reports. This has never
happened before, in my experience.
Mr. Shuster. Dr. Robyn, can you respond to that? Why didn't
the GSA respond to the GAO?
Ms. Robyn. Well, I believe we did give them cost--correct
cost figures--what we thought were better cost figures. And
they did not--and GAO did not use them, they used numbers that
they got from the courts. There is a little bit of an apples
and oranges issue there, in what they are using, what is on the
5-year plan, and is the total cost of a construction project.
But, for example, in Mobile, the GAO report uses the
figure, the construction cost, of $219 million. That is a very
old number. That reflects the size of the project that was
authorized by this committee 10 years ago. We have right-sized
that project so that it will be an annex, rather than a new
courthouse, substantially smaller, and about half of that cost.
That isn't reflected in the GAO report.
Mr. Shuster. Does the GAO have those, that plan?
Mr. Goldstein. Whenever we--we have, obviously, disputes
about numbers all the time with the judiciary and with GSA. For
many years, the GSA--the GAO has been doing this work. We
always received--these are not GAO's numbers. We always get
courthouse numbers from GSA and judgeship numbers from the
judiciary. The only thing we did to the numbers we had, which
were provided by them, was to amend them for inflation
purposes. But we do not derive our own numbers. Whatever
numbers they give us are the numbers we use.
Mr. Shuster. And, Dr. Robyn, the third problem that GAO
identified was that cause the overbuilding was that the GSA
often exceeded congressional authority. I know you haven't been
there for the last 10 years----
Ms. Robyn. Right, yes.
Mr. Shuster [continuing]. But we really need to understand.
Why did the GSA, over the past several years, past decade or
so, exceed congressional authority, when under the Public
Buildings Act the administrator is not able to exceed
authorized cost by more than 10 percent?
Ms. Robyn. Let me make two points in response to that.
First of all, I want to distinguish what we have been doing in
the last couple of years, where there has been a strong effort
to right-size the projects on the court's list, to work with
the courts to reduce requirements in light of the court's new
courtroom sharing policy, and our desire to take advantage of
existing courthouses.
I feel passionately about the need to preserve our historic
courthouses. And I think GSA and the courts were too quick to
embrace the idea of building a shiny, new courthouse and not
preserving the existing courthouse. So there is--we have been
doing things in a different way the last several years.
But I also want to say there is a long--there is a history
here of disagreement, strong disagreement, with GSA's--I'm
sorry, with GAO's methodology on the 2010 report. And that was
a--there is an appendix that is longer than the GAO report
which contains the GSA response and the court's response. And I
want to just summarize, in three bullets, the testimony of my
predecessor in 2010 on that report.
GAO has used a space measure that assumes upper space in
building atriums is included in the gross square footage of an
asset. That is a key point, because courthouses have large
atriums. And how one treats what is called void space, or that
atrium space, is critical to the calculation of square footage.
GAO compounded this----
Mr. Shuster. So I understand----
Ms. Robyn. Yes.
Mr. Shuster [continuing]. You are including square footage
up in the atrium?
Ms. Robyn. GAO included----
Mr. Shuster. GAO included that?
Ms. Robyn [continuing]. The square footage----
Mr. Goldstein. Yes, Mr. Chairman, that was GSA's policy
since 2000. All we did was quote back GSA's own policy to them.
And we have repeated this to GSA numerous times, to Mr. Peck,
and everyone else at GSA now since 2010. This is GSA's own
policy. I sat here before this committee, Ms. Norton remembers
this, and held up that policy on numerous occasions. It is
GSA's own policy.
Mr. Shuster. Dr. Robyn?
Ms. Robyn. My understanding is that GAO applied--that our
policy, which--this gets complicated, but we instituted that
policy of counting that space in 2005. We have since changed
that policy. We don't count it now. We typically base our
practice on BOMA, the Building Operators and Managers
Association, policy. We--yes, sorry.
Mr. Shuster. I understand that is their policy to include
those open spaces as----
Ms. Robyn. No. I think the latest--and this is quite new--
is to not include it. But I think the key principle here is to
apply the policy that was in place when a courthouse was built,
as opposed to applying a policy that was instituted later.
That, I think, is the key, is the crux of the disagreement,
that and the issue--and I will let Judge Ponsor speak to this--
of whether also applying courtroom sharing policies that came
into place later to buildings that were built before the
courtroom sharing policies existed.
As you said, Mr. Chairman, hindsight is 20/20. If we knew
now what we--if we had known then what we know now about
courtroom sharing, we could have made a lot of these smaller.
But that wasn't the policy.
Mr. Shuster. Judge, do you care to response?
Judge Ponsor. I just wanted to make a sort of personal
comment with regard to the first element of GAO's criticism
back in 2010. As Congresswoman Holmes Norton knows, we had a
3\1/2\-hour hearing on that report in May of 2010, and that
taught me that if you are going to be in a hearing before the
congresswoman, no liquids after 8:00.
[Laughter.]
Judge Ponsor. We were here for 3\1/2\ hours. We went over
that report, point by point. And the predecessor of Dr. Robyn
strongly--strongly--contested the measurements made by GAO. It
is quite a serious accusation by GAO to say that GSA ignored
the prospectus limitations.
My own personal experience was I built a new courthouse in
Springfield, Massachusetts, that is I sat in on the planning.
Once a week I sat down with the GSA people and with the
contractor, visited the courthouse, and we were accused in
their report of having overbuilt by 10 to 15 percent. I
compared the prospectus numbers to the size of the courthouse
by GSA. We went over by between 1 and 2 percent. I was
astonished to see that we were accused of going over. We
didn't. We built the courthouse with GSA. I assisted in that.
And we did not overbuild.
So the first area of criticism was very strongly contested
at the hearing back in May of 2010.
Mr. Shuster. Thank you. And one final question of Dr.
Robyn. What are you prepared to commit to the committee today
that the GSA will not overbuild, run with cost or size in the
future?
Ms. Robyn. Mr. Chairman, my predecessor did commit--and
this is an example of where we have incorporated a
recommendation. We have incorporated many of GAO's
recommendations, but one was that we commit to not going over,
or to notification of the committee if we are at risk of going
over the size--the square footage specified in a prospectus. We
already do that. We let you know if there is a risk of going
more than 10 percent over cost, over budget. That is a
statutory requirement. We committed 4 years ago--my predecessor
did--to notification of the committee if there is a comparable
risk of going over the square footage set out in the
prospectus.
Mr. Shuster. Thank you. With that, I recognize Ms. Norton
for questions.
Ms. Norton. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Not to
belabor the points of--about space, Dr. Robyn, you would
conceded--in fact, Judge Ponsor, you too would concede that the
atrium space was at least partly responsible for what GAO found
to be overbuilding.
Judge Ponsor. That appears to be true. They were counting
that.
Ms. Norton. So that is not occupiable space.
Ms. Robyn. It is also not----
Judge Ponsor. And----
Ms. Norton. And, of course, when Congress authorizes--look,
I am all for atriums. But when Congress authorizes space, is it
not the case that it is thinking of occupiable space?
Ms. Robyn. I think this gets into the technicalities of how
space is counted----
Ms. Norton. It is not very technical. Just----
Ms. Robyn. Yes--no, no, no----
Ms. Norton. Try sitting in an atrium, you know?
Ms. Robyn. Yes. No, no, no. Look, I agree with that. I
don't think--I think the policy we adopted most recently is the
right policy, that one should not count----
Ms. Norton. All right. So the policy now is that an atrium
is not regarded as occupiable space.
Ms. Robyn. Right.
Ms. Norton. I hope we can still have atriums.
Ms. Robyn. Yes.
Ms. Norton. It seems to me you can have atriums without a
lot of space, you just open up a ceiling.
Ms. Robyn. Yes.
Ms. Norton. So I am not--I want to go on record as being
for atriums. But Congress has in mind, when it is talking about
square feet, that there will be some feet such as storage feet
that will not be occupiable, for example. And I must say the
part of me that loves beauty and architecture and sees what an
atrium has done in the courthouse here understands why atriums
are desirable. But of course, we have got to be--we always have
in mind what the Congress intends, and I think that is what the
GAO report was based on.
Now, well, let's look at what we have now, because we have
been looking at this for a very long time. The GAO recommended
that the district court judges--and they gave them two options.
Either three district judges to two courtrooms, or pairing one
district judge with a senior judge. Now, do you, Judge Ponsor,
and you, Dr. Robyn, agree that those are reasonable
requirements?
Judge Ponsor. I will say, speaking personally, I do not
agree that they are reasonable requirements.
Ms. Norton. Well, of course, Judge Ponsor, you are not here
in your personal capacity.
Judge Ponsor. Exactly. And I made that caveat because it is
Judge Robinson of the Committee on Court Administration and
Case Management who articulates the formal Judicial policy with
regard to courtroom sharing. That is not part of the
jurisdiction of the Committee on Space and Facilities. So I
really don't want to play games with you, but I do have to make
that point.
Ms. Norton. Well, if--just for the record, what is your
personal objection?
Judge Ponsor. I am trying to find a way to express myself
in a balanced way. I don't think there is a single Federal
trial judge in the country who would agree that a court with
three active judges could provide the people of the United
States the sort of justice that they are entitled to,
permanently using just two courtrooms. It would----
Ms. Norton. Regardless of the call, the amount of cases
that a particular judge may have, you are making such a blanket
statement as that? GAO didn't come to this conclusion without
some study, Judge Ponsor.
Judge Ponsor. Can I address that study? The study that came
to this conclusion was developed by a man named Higgins, Steven
Higgins. Steven Higgins had a BS in chemical engineering. He
belonged to something called System Flow. We obtained a copy of
the backup for their recommendation after your hearing, but
before a hearing that following September before Congressman
Johnson. He belongs to an organization called Systems Flow. He
has a BS in chemical engineering. His studies have involved
production of industrial soap, John Deere tractors, and
extracting nickel from granite. Based on that experience, he
told the judiciary----
Ms. Norton. Based on that experience, you believe that the
consultant did not observe--did not have data regarding judges'
use of courtrooms?
Judge Ponsor. I am sure----
Ms. Norton. I mean I would trust a chemical engineer on
lots of work, frankly, with that kind of background. But the
first thing I would ask him is how he reached those
conclusions, not what his training was in.
Mr. Goldstein, how did he reach those conclusions?
Mr. Goldstein. It is sort of amazing that we are kicking a
dead horse here several years after we began this process. I
thought we were talking about new courthouses today.
But anyhow, the process that we used was vetted inside of
GAO/outside of GAO by independent analysis and by the company
that made the modeling software that we used. Whether or not
the individual had a bachelor's in chemical engineering or a
doctorate in methodology, what that individual was doing was
putting numbers that came out of the Federal judiciary center,
which showed that, on average, courtrooms are used by a
district judge less than 2 hours a day--less than 2 hours a
day--and that includes time which was unscheduled, and which we
included as scheduled anyhow, to be sure that we were using
conservative statistics.
They came up with a statistically valid model that showed
that you could figure out how to distribute judges to ensure
that all courtroom activities were still held. This is not
rocket science. It is done for hospital emergency rooms, it is
done for modeling nuclear bombs. You can do this for any
variety--number of things. The point I would----
Ms. Norton. Well, I asked the question because we had
resistance before, and we are not going to tolerate resistance,
and certainly not based on an attack of the credentials of the
consultant.
Judge Ponsor, you should know that the Congress relies very
heavily on GAO as an objective analyst. And, you know, I
clerked for a district court judge. I know that judges like to
start their--you know, they all like to start their courtrooms
at 9:00, at 10:00. You know, somebody may have to start their
day at 11:00 or 1:00, and they may have to live in the real
world. So we have no alternative but to rely on what the
objective analyst tells us is possible, and to hold the courts
to that data.
Now, you know, I am really mystified as to why the courts
would want to proceed with courthouses without going through
the AMP process, because they have gone through it and made
changes. And we cite some of those changes, some of those
modifications close to here, in Greenbelt. Here they decided,
well, yes, we are going to use sharing that is not required,
and that the courthouse was entitled to only one courtroom.
They also chose to use the funds for the design of a new annex
to modify the existing buildings. There were also changes in
San Jose, California.
So, here, process has been used to good effect, saving
money. Why would anybody not want to apply that same process to
the other courthouses with the prospect of making similar
savings?
Judge Ponsor. If that question is directed to me, I would
be happy to answer.
Ms. Norton. It is to you, Judge Ponsor.
Judge Ponsor. All right. I think I have two responses to
that, and I am going to try to be as clear as I can.
The changes that occurred in Greenbelt and San Jose, as Dr.
Robyn has already stated, were not in response to a re-analysis
of the project under AMP. Repeat, they were not in response to
a re-analysis of the project under AMP. The Greenbelt project
was re-analyzed because the tenant, the United States Attorney,
moved out, creating more space. We are constantly looking at
projects, not through the AMP process, but just through common
sense, and talking to the judges. It created more space, we
were able to reconfigure it. The court came to us and said,
``We can manage without a new facility.''
In San Jose we did what you asked us to do. We applied the
courtroom sharing policies, which now apply, incidentally, to
half of the judges in the Federal judiciary. Bankruptcy judges,
senior judges, and magistrate judges make up half of the
personnel of our Federal judiciary. All of them are now subject
to a courtroom sharing process. And this has just come into
being in the last 4 years. We have really listened to you. We
may not have moved as far as you would like us to move, but we
have responded.
In any event, we looked at San Jose, we looked at the
courthouse, we applied courtroom sharing, and we realized that
we do not need as big a project as we thought. We worked with
the court, and that project was amended, and it saved the
taxpayers money. I think we deserve some credit for doing that.
We are looking alertly at the projects. But I want to make it
clear the application of the AMP process had no relation----
Ms. Norton. Well, what does that mean, that you--look: If
we have to wait for the U.S. Attorney to move out to get
reconsideration of these other eight projects, and you want to
ignore the AMP process, are you telling this committee that you
are ignoring the AMP process and you are going to use your own
process, which is to wait to see if somebody moves out, because
that is just as good?
Judge Ponsor. No, no, that is not----
Ms. Norton. Are you saying you will use the AMP process on
the other projects or not, Mr.--Judge Ponsor?
Judge Ponsor. I will be very clear. Two things. One, we
have applied the AMP process to four----
Ms. Norton. You have applied another process that is not
the same as the AMP process. This committee has asked for the
AMP process to be applied. Are you willing to use the process
this committee has required to be applied?
Judge Ponsor. No, we would prefer not to. That is my direct
answer.
Ms. Norton. You are in contempt of this committee.
Judge Ponsor. Certainly not. You have asked me to give you
an answer to your question, ma'am, and I am giving----
Ms. Norton. Are you willing to use the AMP process that
this committee authorizes to be used in order to authorize any
new courthouses?
Judge Ponsor. Yes----
Ms. Norton. Yes or no?
Judge Ponsor. The answer is I would hope that I could
persuade you not to require us to do that. If you require us to
do that, then I guess we will have to do that. But it would be
a terrible mistake, in my opinion.
Mr. Shuster. I thank the gentlelady for her questions, and
with that, recognize Mr. Webster for questions.
Mr. Webster. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am not sure--I have
an engineering degree too, and it may not qualify me to ask a
question, but I have one, if I could do that.
Mr. Shuster. Yes, sir.
Mr. Webster. My question would be, I think, Mr. Goldstein,
is the AMP process--does it in any way include the cost of the
process in its--in the way it rates or scores a particular
project?
Mr. Goldstein. The cost of the process?
Mr. Webster. No, the cost of the project itself.
Mr. Goldstein. It does have some project costs, yes, it
does. It does not include all of them, which is among the
reasons we hope that more information might be provided.
Mr. Webster. Did you in any way look at the actual cost per
square foot, or something like that? Did you do any analysis of
that?
Mr. Goldstein. That was not within the scope of this
particular project, sir. We certainly have looked at numerous
courtrooms over the years, and the cost of those per square
foot.
Mr. Webster. Would you, just in your opinion, if
functional/frugal was a 10 and elaborate was a 1, where would
you rate them?
Mr. Goldstein. Where would a rate these projects?
Mr. Webster. Yes.
Mr. Goldstein. I think they are probably all over the map,
sir.
Mr. Webster. All over the map?
Mr. Goldstein. Right. I think some are----
Mr. Webster. There is no real criteria that you found to
determine whether or not we would just be trying to build a
functional, frugal courthouse that would still be able to
produce justice for people, or it could be some elaborate--with
lots of roof lines and cuts and angles and atriums and high--
there is no real standard for that?
Mr. Goldstein. One of the things we looked at was the
criteria that the AMP process has. We are pleased, you know,
quite honestly. We don't always compliment the judiciary on its
process, we recognize that. But this is an instance where we
believe the judiciary has been moving very much in the right
direction. And the criteria that it has developed in
consultation with GSA is much clearer and cleaner than the
older process that was in place previously. It is not a
district approach, it is a comprehensive, nationwide approach.
There are very specific criterion, and there are AMP business
rules which the judiciary uses to specifically say when they
will go out for new construction and when they will not. So we
are very pleased with the direction that this process is going
in.
Mr. Webster. Well, once that process is done, it says--I
mean there is a needs, I assume, based on certain criteria
other than just the cost. There is a needs determined through
that process that says, ``We need more space, we need to
expand, and we have too much for the particular area,'' city,
or whatever it is. That is what determines whether or not there
would be a project.
But once that is determined, is there any sort of model
that they go by on what the cost would be for that new
facility?
Mr. Goldstein. Sure. There is something called the Design
Guide--and that has been in place for a number of years--by
which the judiciary and GSA work together. It has standards in
it: the size of a courtroom, the size of a chambers, things
like that, and other kinds of modifications. And if they wish
to go beyond Design Guide standards, they need to go to the
Judicial Conference in order to get a waiver.
Mr. Webster. OK. So maybe I have the question for the GSA,
then. What--how do you determine--I mean I have heard you say,
``We have done a lot of cost reduction, we have decided to
remodel instead of rebuild.'' What kind of process do you go
through? Once there has been a determination that there is a
need, what do you do?
Ms. Robyn. We typically work with a--we do a competition
for an architecture and engineering firm, and select one to do
a very detailed feasibility study on different ways to meet
that requirement. This is the feasibility study for Des Moines.
Mr. Webster. Is that subjected to any sort of criteria in
that you pick one that has done certain projects? Or is it done
on a cost basis?
Ms. Robyn. You mean the selection of the A&E firm?
Mr. Webster. Yes.
Ms. Robyn. That is--it is a competitive process based on--
it--their cost and their qualifications.
I think I may be getting beyond my level of knowledge here,
but I think, like many competitions that we do to select
experts, it is a combination of their cost and their
qualifications.
Mr. Webster. And this will be the last question.
Ms. Robyn. Yes.
Mr. Webster. Is there any guideline that determines that--
Mr. Goldstein just said it is all over the board--between
whether or not you would be focused on something that is
functional and frugal or something that is elaborate?
Ms. Robyn. Well, I believe that the--I think we don't do
very many things that are extremely high--well, the cost of a
project, the square-footage cost, and that is, I think, a very
good thing to focus on, that is subject to a lot of analysis.
And we submit--we have a very rigorous process of going to OMB
and then the committee, and lots of back and forth over the
proposed cost of a project and, you know, taking into account
cost per square foot and other attributes of the project. So
that is subject to a lot of vigorous discussion with this
committee, with OMB.
So, I think that is--you don't see many elaborate projects
because of all the very appropriate discipline that that
process is subject to. I think you do see some--you know, we
have tried in recent years to have--to build Federal buildings
that are not ugly, you know, that are not like the J. Edgar
Hoover Building. We went through a very bad period in the 1970s
and the 1980s. We built a lot of Federal buildings that have--
that don't stand the test of time.
And we subject everything to something called ``design
excellence,'' so that we get basic designs for courthouses and
other Federal buildings that are buildings that we can be proud
of, buildings that stand the test of time, the way the
buildings that were built in the 1930s do. That does not
necessarily mean that they are elaborate and expensive
buildings. And an atrium--and I share Congresswoman Norton's
love of atriums--that is unusable space, but it may very well,
by bringing in daylight, reduce the energy consumption of a
building.
So, it is--you know, you have to be careful not to assume
that something that looks beautiful necessarily is a sign of an
elaborate, as opposed to a functional and frugal, building.
Mr. Shuster. Thank you, Ms. Robyn. Appreciate that.
Ms. Robyn. Sorry.
Mr. Shuster. The gentleman's time has expired. Before I
recognize next Ms. Hahn, I was mistaken. Mr. DeFazio has
appeared. So--but before I recognize Mr. DeFazio, I just want
to say I am going to turn the chair over to Mr. Barletta who is
the chairman of the subcommittee and done a lot of work on
this.
And again, this is a very difficult situation. This is--for
me, it is all about the taxpayers and making sure that they are
getting their best bang for their buck. As I said before, you
could administer justice with a piece of plywood and milk
crates. I mean I understand there are security reasons and all
that, but--we are not telling you how to administer justice,
but we have got to take our responsibility serious here, in
making sure that every dollar, every precious taxpayer dollar,
is spent in the best way. And if judges have to share
courtrooms and reduce the size of courts--we do it here in
Congress.
This building was built 50 years ago, and it is the last
congressional building that--office building that we built. And
if you go to our offices, which I said in the meeting to the
Judge earlier--we got people crammed into corners and what used
to be closets. So, again, we are at a serious juncture here,
with trillions of dollars of debt and deficit.
So, again, with that, I am going to turn the chair over to
Mr. Barletta, and recognize Mr. DeFazio for 5 minutes for
questions.
Mr. DeFazio. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I was at another
hearing and I have got to go back to that, but I appreciate--
was here earlier.
So, I have a couple of questions. On the 10 proposed
courthouses, as I read the GAO report, only 2 have clearly been
subjected to the AMP process, is that correct? Can anybody
answer that?
Judge Ponsor. I am Michael Ponsor, and I am here for the
Space and Facilities Committee. We disagree with that. Our
position is that four of the projects----
Mr. DeFazio. OK. So 4 of 10, 6 haven't been. How did you
come up----
Judge Ponsor. Four----
Mr. DeFazio. How did you come up with the scores, if they
weren't subjected to the AMP process? Are those scores under
the old process?
Judge Ponsor. Yes.
Mr. DeFazio. OK. So we had some big problems with the old
process, and that is why we adopted a new process. So I don't
see how you can propose to go forward under those terms. I
think you are--now, here is a another question which probably
goes to GSA.
I moved into our new palace, beautiful building, but--and
my entire staff and I occupy a space that is about the size of
a judge's library, a little bigger than a robing chamber for
the chief judge. I have observed, and I walk around this
building on a lot of days. There is no one in the building.
Huge building, beautiful building, but there is no one there
except the workers. So, I question the criteria that led us to
build in this form, in this size, in this area.
But beyond that, when I went to move in, because we very
much wanted security, which we didn't have--we had been above
bankruptcy in our previous building and they would provide
security as needed, but they moved over--so we moved. But I saw
this absolutely astronomical extortionate rent that you wanted
per square foot, and we managed to negotiate that down to the
average for class A office space in the area, and so we moved
in. Thank you.
But, my question is, are the judges in the court system
paying that extortionate per-square-foot rent for all of the
tens of thousands of interior space that is not usable? The
grand design? Right next door to my office is the clerk of the
court. The clerk of the court's office, there is about six
people in there. They have sort of set it up so they have
multiple little living room sitting areas, and all the unused
space in the back. It is about 5 times bigger than my office,
which is occupied by 10 people. And there is six people in
there. It might be more crowded.
So, is the court paying that square foot for all that
unused space? And, if so, how much of our annual budget is
going to pay rents in these sorts of buildings?
Ms. Robyn. The court's annual rent to GSA is on the order
of $1 billion. And I have forgotten now exactly how many
million square feet that is. They are our first--our second-
largest Federal tenant. We----
Mr. DeFazio. And now they have the highest per-square-
foot----
Ms. Robyn. We have a--well, we have--you know, as you can
imagine, we have had some interesting debates about this over
the years. We--our--I would take issue with your use of the
word ``extortionate.'' Our rents are----
Mr. DeFazio. No, it was extortionate. I could have moved
into class A, brand new office space in Eugene and hired
private security, and it would have been less than the rent you
wanted to charge me. And we said, ``Why is it so high?'' They
said, ``Oh, you are paying for all the interior space,'' which
is not a space which is--as you described an atrium that
provides heat-gain or whatever, it is just a grand space on the
inside, where you walk around, it kind of echoes, and it is
very empty.
So, you wanted me to pay for that, and I said, ``No. You
want me as a tenant, I am not paying for that''----
Ms. Robyn. Yes.
Mr. DeFazio [continuing]. ``But I would be happy to pay
class A office space.'' So, yes, I would say it was
extortionate. So we can disagree, but no sane person would pay
that rent who wasn't--but the judges are paying that much,
apparently. So I would find that--and what is an amortization
period for a courthouse, in terms of rent?
Ms. Robyn. I don't know.
Mr. DeFazio. Twenty, thirty years? I mean----
Ms. Robyn. Yes, something like that. I mean I think we have
a methodology that we use on some of these buildings. And I
don't--you know, I don't want to say that we would----
Mr. DeFazio. Mr. Goldstein has a quick response. I don't
have much time left. Mr. Goldstein?
Mr. Goldstein. I believe it is 30 years. Most of the
courthouses, you are absolutely correct, sir, they--the rent is
about $1 billion a year for the judiciary to--for GSA space.
And the--many of these courthouses are--they are rented on
return of investment. It is an ROI process over the life of--
the expected life of that building.
Mr. DeFazio. OK. So--but fully amortized in 30 years?
Mr. Goldstein. Yes, sir.
Mr. DeFazio. OK, thank you. I think that would be another
subject to look into, Mr. Chairman, which is how much unused
space are they paying how much rent for within the existing
system, and what that costs the taxpayers on an annual basis.
Mr. Barletta [presiding]. The Chair recognizes Mr. Perry
for 5 minutes.
Mr. Perry. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thanks to you folks
for being here and answering some questions for us. I have the
privilege of representing the folks of--the good folks of
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. And we have got a courthouse project
that goes kind of almost as long as I can remember. But I just
want to make sure I set the table right so I got my mind
wrapped around this correctly.
Is it the--you folks, Mr. Ponsor, that suggest that we need
a new courthouse, and then GSA constructs it per the
guidelines, whatever they be at that time? Right?
Judge Ponsor. Essentially, yes, that is correct. We do a
long-range facilities plan for the district, we do an
evaluation of the urgency for that courthouse, either pursuant
to our pre-2008 or our post-2008 AMP process, and then we refer
it to GSA for a feasability study. And then, if GSA recommends
a new courthouse, it goes to the Judicial Conference for
approval.
Mr. Perry. OK. So GSA has to recommend. Is that correct,
Dr. Robyn?
Ms. Robyn. Yes.
Mr. Perry. OK. So, with that, we have got 38 of 43
properties now have been purchased for the construction of a
new courthouse, and we have spent about $25 million. And, as I
understand it, we are moving forward with design right now. But
yet there is kind of almost no plan to construct this
courthouse, based on it not being in the criteria, or under the
new AMP criteria, which, you know, as a tax-paying citizen and
somebody that is not sitting here, anybody else would say,
``What in the heck are you folks at the Federal Government
doing,'' I think.
Is there a way to implement the AMP--or does the current
AMP program implement some of the facets of the old program, so
that you are not duplicating the effort to determine the size
and the scope of the courthouse? Is that in there, or not?
Judge Ponsor. It is in there. And this is the point that I
was trying to make, perhaps clumsily, before. Harrisburg is a
courthouse project that was not evaluated under the AMP
process. And I was talking to Congresswoman Norton and we were
having an interesting exchange, because I was taking the
position that we would prefer not to have to go through, with
Harrisburg and the other projects that haven't been through the
AMP process, an AMP process.
The reason that we would prefer not to do that is that we
are satisfied that the process that we went through in
selecting Harrisburg for the 5-year plan appropriately
identified Harrisburg as an urgently needed project. The
repetition, or the overlay of the AMP process, would just be a
further analysis that is likely to only confirm the need to
have Harrisburg on our 5-year plan. And the repetition of the
AMP process would result in an additional delay, we estimate,
of a number of years. It could be as many as six--certainly as
many as two--that would be added to the process for the
citizens of Harrisburg who have already waited, I think, since
the late 1990s----
Mr. Perry. Right.
Judge Ponsor [continuing]. For their courthouse, where
there are already parcels of real estate that have been
purchased for the construction of that process. It would just
slow things down.
We recognize that in this fiscal situation the President is
not putting new courthouses into his budget. But the fiscal
situation will not last forever. And when the time comes that
we are again able to build new courthouses, we believe that we
have adequately assessed the need for the courthouse in
Harrisburg. Certainly San Antonio, Anniston, Chattanooga, and--
--
Mr. Perry. Excuse me, Doctor, let me just follow up here.
So we have spent $25 million. And according to the AMP,
Harrisburg doesn't fall within the criteria. And you folks know
this stuff, we don't, so we are taking, I guess, your lead on
that. But we have got this money. We don't want to waste the
taxpayers' money, and we know this is important. We don't know
if it is right-sized or not. That is GAO and GSA's
responsibility, I think.
But what do we do from here? Do we walk away from our $25
million investment? Do we engineer so that it is right-sized,
so--as courtroom sharing, as has been enumerated in AMP? What
is the plan? What can we expect in Harrisburg from you good
folks that are trying to do the right--and we want the
taxpayers' money to be spent wisely.
Ms. Robyn. Sure, yes. We will--I mean that is one of the
ones that--there is a lot of history on Harrisburg that I
don't--that I am not aware of. Judge Smith just alluded to me
on some issues over the choice of a site. So I apologize, there
is a lot I don't know about that project. But I would agree
with Judge Ponsor that we think it is one that is appropriate
to remain on the list. There are circulation issues with secure
circulation in the existing building. There is a lack of space
for U.S. Marshals.
We are, by the way, going to backfill the existing building
with other Federal tenants that are in leased space in
Harrisburg, so we think there is a savings there. But this
project, like the others on the list, is subject to our ongoing
process of right-sizing, ensuring that we can do it as
inexpensively as possible.
Mr. Perry. Thank you. And as my time has expired, Mr.
Goldstein, do you have any statement regarding Harrisburg,
particularly, from the GAO's perspective?
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Goldstein. No, at the end of the day it is really a
policy decision whether to go forward or not. Our sole point is
you need to make sure that the priorities that are on that plan
are really the courthouses that you need to build. And the
priorities on that plan continue to shift.
And so, until you can understand what is really your most
urgent priority, it makes some sense to wait and see, spend a
little of money now, and not billions of dollars, and wait and
figure out what is the best use of the Government's money at
this point in time. That is all we are saying here.
Mr. Barletta. The Chair recognizes Ms. Hahn for 5 minutes.
Ms. Hahn. Thank you. So, I have one. So my bad story is
from Los Angeles. And in 2000, Congress appropriated $400
million for a 41-courtroom building in downtown L.A. But it had
repeated delays, cost overruns, and then that project was
ultimately canceled in 2006. Then, in 2011, GSA announced a
revised plan for a smaller, 24-courtroom facility at the same
site. And we are hoping construction will be completed by 2016.
So, once this building is hopefully completed on time, on
budget, it will have taken 16 years from the moment GSA
originally requested funding for this project to the time that
it is to be completed.
The judge commented briefly on one thing in Harrisburg that
you thought would prevent some delays, but what else can you
tell us that we have got in place now that will prevent these
kinds of really egregious delays, when and if we do begin
constructing courthouses in the future?
Judge Ponsor. Well, one of the things that we are very
proud about--and I don't want to run away from it--is our AMP
process. It is a good process. Mr. Goldstein and I have done
battle many times--this is our third go-around here--and I have
a great deal of respect for the GAO. We have, in fact, adopted
a number of their recommendations, and I am pleased to hear the
GAO say that they also feel that we are making progress with
that. We have only had that since 2008. I mean we developed it
in 2006; we started using it in 2008. We have a very good
relationship with GSA right now.
But the situation is--in my opinion, it is a fiscal
problem, looking into the future, in terms of the new
courthouses. I do think we can convince this committee. I hope
we can convince this committee, as new projects become
buildable, fiscally buildable, that we are doing it in a
responsible way, that we are building frugal, sensible
courthouses that are also a tribute to the community and to the
values of the courthouses----
Ms. Hahn. So you think the AMP program will take care of--
--
Judge Ponsor. It certainly will help.
Ms. Hahn [continuing]. The delays and cost overruns that we
saw in Los Angeles?
Judge Ponsor. Yes. And we will be folding into the cost--
the courtroom sharing policies that we have adopted already. We
have taken the recommendation of GAO to not build for projected
courtrooms. Even though we believe they will be necessary, we
don't put them into our plans now.
And I have honestly tried to figure out what the heck
happened in L.A., and I think--I don't think you could----
Ms. Hahn. What the heck did happen?
Judge Ponsor. I don't think anybody could replicate it. It
is its own story.
But the only thing I can say is I remember being here for
the hearing in May of 2010, and Congressman Diaz-Balart, who
was the ranking member at that time, talked to me about this $1
billion courthouse in Los Angeles, and I said to him--and I
reread my transcript before I came in here--it was probably the
simplest, most direct thing I said was, ``That isn't going to
happen.'' And it didn't happen. And we heard you, and we are
building the facility there within the funds that were
appropriated by Congress. And I hope there will be no more
L.A.'s in the future. We will do everything we can----
Ms. Hahn. Well, there could be a lot of L.A.'s in a lot of
other issues in this country. Good L.A.'s.
Judge Ponsor. Yes.
Ms. Hahn. Well, thank you. But I do think that is
frustrating for taxpayers, not just how we spend our money, but
taxpayers want to know that, you know, when we have
appropriated money, when we have requested it, that it actually
does happen in a timely fashion. I think that is what
frustrates people the most, is to see these kinds of really
unbelievable, egregious delays in these projects. There is just
really no excuse for those.
Did you have anything to say on preventing----
Ms. Robyn. The only thing I will say is you used the term
``cost overruns.'' There will be no cost overruns on the L.A.
courthouse. It will come in on budget, $400 million. It will
not cost a dime over that.
Ms. Hahn. Thank you.
Mr. Barletta. Mr. Goldstein, in your previous report, you
identified two major causes of overbuilding in Federal
courthouses: the absence of courtroom sharing and the flawed
projections of future judges. Do you believe the judiciary's
new process adequately solves these problems?
Mr. Goldstein. I think it is a start. We are pleased, as
Judge Ponsor mentioned, that the current 5-year--when they are
now putting new projects on the plan, that they are not
including projected judgeships. As we indicated from the last
report we did, of those 33 courthouses from 2000 to 2010, there
were roughly 119 judges that had been projected that they would
have that they did not have that they built space for. So we
are pleased that that process is changing.
With the issue of sharing, we still differ. We do believe
that the data that was compiled by the judiciary itself that we
modeled shows an ability to share at greater levels than they
are doing today. We did not, however--and it is important to
note this--recommend that they adopted our model or any model.
We simply recommended that they look into doing a better job at
sharing at whatever level they felt was necessary. We simply
developed a model that we would help to engage in conversation
and discussion, and we certainly did.
Mr. Barletta. Judge Ponsor, as you pointed out in your
testimony, the judiciary adopted sharing policies for senior,
magistrate, and bankruptcy judges, and you highlight that they
are being implemented. How many of the 446 Federal courthouses
fully comply with the courtroom sharing policies now?
Judge Ponsor. I can't give you a number. I cannot give you
a number. I know that we are looking at it, and I certainly
know that, prospectively, and with regard to renovations, we
are looking at it carefully. We are looking to try to get
entities that are in leased space back in the courthouses, and
we are applying courtroom sharing to them. But I cannot give
you a number.
Mr. Barletta. How many Federal judges are currently
sharing? Do you have a number?
Judge Ponsor. Well, there are about 2,000 Federal judges in
the country. Trial judges, such as myself, U.S. district court
judges, appeals court judges, and Supreme Court justices make
up about 1,000 of those. Those 1,000 judges, under current
Conference policy, are not sharing courtrooms. Appellate court
judges do, because they sit in panels of three.
There are bankruptcy judges, senior judges, and magistrate
judges who make up the other 1,000 of our cohort of judicial
officers in the Federal judiciary. They are all subject to the
policy. That doesn't mean that they are all sharing, because
many of them are in courthouses that have enough courtrooms, so
they don't need to share. We are not turning out the lights and
locking courtrooms up, and not letting people into the
courtrooms when they are already there. So, there is a great
deal of sharing.
I guess I would say one thing. I don't know how your branch
of the Government works in terms of changing deeply rooted
patterns that they have been following for hundreds of years.
It is a little slow. I know that you are frustrated that we
aren't moving fast enough on courtroom sharing. But from where
I sit, since 2008 we have put half the judiciary under
courtroom sharing policies. That is at least progress. And we
are pleased that we are doing that, we are implementing it.
I will tell you, you know, nothing is more bearable than
someone else's pain, so we might not get any sympathy for it,
but imposing courtroom sharing on senior judges and bankruptcy
judges and magistrate judges was hard. It was hard. It took a
lot of work. Perhaps we don't deserve any credit for it. But it
wasn't nothing. It wasn't nothing. We heard you, we knew you
wanted us to courtroom share, and we took initiatives that
brought half of the judiciary, just in the last 5 years, under
courtroom sharing policies that will be applied consistently in
the future.
I think you were the inspiration for that--your committee.
I have to say--you can call it nagging, you can call it
encouraging, you can call it inspiring, or you can call it
whatever you want--we heard you, and we adopted those policies,
and we are continuing to think about the problem.
We aren't ready yet, the Judicial Conference has not yet
taken the step of insisting on courtroom sharing for active
district court judges. And I know that is frustrating to
members of the committee. I recognize it and I respect it. But
it is difficult for us. We have made a lot of progress, and I
hope that we will get at least a glimmer of sympathy for the
work we have put in doing that, just in the last 4 or 5 years.
Mr. Barletta. Well, I can tell you, change doesn't come
easy on this side, either. I certainly understand what you are
saying.
Dr. Robyn, how many courthouses are currently vacant?
Ms. Robyn. I don't--that is a good question. I don't know
the exact number. I think your Dyer is certainly one in Miami.
I don't believe there are a large number. I think it is a
relatively small number, but I don't have the exact number.
Mr. Barletta. Can you provide the committee with a list,
location, and any plans for their reused or disposal?
Ms. Robyn. Sure, yes.
Mr. Barletta. OK, thank you. The Chair recognizes Mr.
Williams for 5 minutes.
Mr. Williams. Thank you. First of all, I would like to say,
just a point of reference, I had the same issue in Texas that
we heard with trying to rent space in a Federal building, and
you might want to take a look at your rent factors. We would
love to be there.
Dr. Robyn, I just want to also reiterate simply I think
that all of--as you certainly said, that it is going to be
important on these cost overruns to come back and see Congress.
In the private sector, if we have a cost overrun we go see our
lender, our banker, before we proceed. And I think it is--that
is what you need to consider, also.
And, Dr. Robyn, the judiciary included in their testimony
earlier an example of a courthouse with maintenance and repair
issues. Why wouldn't the first recommendation in such cases be
to repair and renovate, rather than building a brand-new
courthouse? And then, if you choose to build a brand-new
courthouse, what happens to the old one? We have already talked
about an inventory, a vacancy.
Again, in the private sector, where I come from, inventory
is a good thing when you can sell it. It is not a good thing
when it sits on the shelf. So----
Ms. Robyn. I--first of all, let me just clarify on the
first point. We do--we--by statute, we are required to come
back to you and the appropriators if we are at risk of going 10
percent or more over budget. So that--so we absolutely do that.
With respect to--I share your view. I am relatively new to
GSA. I am a--I live in a 100-year-old home on Capitol Hill. I
am a deep believer in historic preservation. And I think we
have been too quick in recent years to build the shiny, new
building, or the shiny, new courthouse, and not think hard
about preserving the old building. And these old buildings are
typically built in the 1930s and they are beautiful, and they
have a lot of cultural significance to the community. So, we
have made a change there, and do look first at how we can
preserve the old building.
In cases where--you take San Antonio, the old building, not
so old, built as a World's Fair pavilion, windowless. Arguably,
the court needs a new building, and we are going down that path
to build a new building in San Antonio. And the city is taking
over the old one. But it can be hard to find a reuse for an old
courthouse. Typically, you know, you can't just turn it into a
hotel. So that is one reason that we work so hard to try to
preserve the existing buildings.
Mr. Williams. Well, I think that is important for
historical, but also sometimes it can be less money.
Ms. Robyn. Well, yes, that is----
Mr. Williams. Which we are all interested in right now.
Ms. Robyn. Yes, it is--yes. No, the economics drive it.
Mr. Goldstein. If I may, Congressman, we are now studying
that particular issue for this committee, what happens to the
old courthouses once a new courthouse goes up. So we will have
some answers in the not-so-distant future.
Mr. Williams. I would like to see those.
Mr. Goldstein. Yes, sir.
Mr. Williams. Thank you. I yield back.
Judge Ponsor. In fact, Mr. Goldstein's staff is going to be
visiting my courthouse in Springfield next week, and I am
looking forward to showing him what happened to our old
courthouse in Springfield, Massachusetts, which is now fully
occupied by a hospital and the department of education for the
city of Springfield. There are good stories where the inventory
turns over, and Springfield is one of them.
Mr. Williams. And a good business deal made by the
Government.
Judge Ponsor. Absolutely. And for the people of
Springfield, yes.
Mr. Williams. I yield back.
Mr. Barletta. The Chair recognizes Mr. Rice for 5 minutes.
Mr. Rice. Thank you. I also want to concur with these other
gentlemen about the issue with renting the space. There is an
old and dilapidated Federal office building in Florence, South
Carolina, in which Lindsey Graham has his office--and I would
have loved to have put my office there--and I tried to get a
rent quote from GSA for 2 months. When I finally got it, it was
about 2\1/2\ to 3 times the prevailing rate. Ended up going
into a much nicer office building for about a third of the
space. Would have kept the Federal dollars in the Federal
Government if I could have, but I couldn't afford it under my
MRA. So this is a very clear issue that we need to deal with.
That is 3 congressmen out of 10 that you--facing this issue.
Dr. Robyn, doctor of?
Ms. Robyn. Public policy.
Mr. Rice. Public policy. From?
Ms. Robyn. Berkeley.
Mr. Rice. Berkeley. Judge Ponsor? Your judicial degree was
from?
Judge Ponsor. Yale.
Mr. Rice. Yale? And Mr. Goldstein?
Mr. Goldstein. I have a public policy masters from George
Washington.
Mr. Rice. We have three brilliant people sitting here on
this panel, and honored to be here in front of you.
Judge Ponsor. Never mistake credentials for intelligence.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Goldstein. I think we agree again.
Mr. Rice. Certainly far more intelligent than I. But the
fact that, you know, the three of you can sit here with these
very detailed criteria and disagree about whether or not this
given courthouse was built--overbuilt, and by how much, is a
very clear indication about how far awry we have gone with all
this, with the congressional micro--attempts to micromanage,
with the bureaucratic attempts to manage all these things, and
with good intent. I mean with intent to save taxpayer dollars.
I think the--in fact, what happens is that the reverse occurs,
and that we have vast losses of taxpayer dollars through gross
attempts to micromanage all these things.
My opinion is that this ought to be run as if--you run any
other business, and you lay out basic criteria, you put good
people in charge. If they don't deliver, then you find another
good person who can deliver, and you continue on down the road.
I think these massive bureaucracies that we build are
hamstringing the entire country. I think we are the best Nation
on earth, we have more capacity than anyone on earth. Nobody
can beat us, but we can sure beat ourselves. And we are doing a
pretty doggone good job of it.
This page 20, this list in the GAO report of courthouses,
is this the one that we are talking about?
Mr. Goldstein. Yes, it is, sir.
Mr. Rice. The most recent one that has come up recommended
to be built, which one would that be, do you know?
Judge Ponsor. I think Mobile is at the top of the list,
Mobile.
Mr. Rice. That was the one that was most recently
recommended to be built? I want to know how long each of these
projects have been in process. That is what I am curious about.
Judge Ponsor. Oh, I see, sorry. It is at the other end of
the list. Chattanooga and Des Moines both came on the list in
mid-2000. Those are the last two items. We actually don't have
a 5-year plan any more, we have a 4-year plan, and they are the
fourth year, Chattanooga and Des Moines, and----
Mr. Rice. Mid-2000?
Judge Ponsor. Mid-2000, yes, because they were--I know that
they were post-AMP, our AMP process which we began using, and I
believe it was invented in 2006 and came on in 2008. So----
Mr. Rice. And what is the oldest one on this list?
Judge Ponsor. Oh, my God. I think Savannah claims to have
been on the list for 22 years, but the 5-year plan has only
existed 18 years. So they go way back. We have projects that
have been on the plan for a very, very long time.
Mr. Rice. Well, you know, another extremely glaring example
of how these attempts at micromanagement and other management
are hamstringing our entire country. And I am afraid that it
bodes very, very poorly for our future if we can't bring these
things back into the realm of reason, to put some common sense
back into this.
I have dealt with commercial real estate a fair amount in
the past. My history is a CPA, a tax lawyer. And I have
personally seen and helped with bids on GSA projects where--the
specifications being so very, very lengthy, detailed, and
people being afraid of what they are going to have to deal with
have resulted in very large--you know, much higher than any
other normal project would be.
So, I would say that sitting in these committee hearings,
and particularly on the Transportation and Infrastructure
Committee--I have been a congressman for 3 months now--and
seeing these massive delays, and these confusions over
regulation, we have got to do some basic rethinking of this
process, or I am afraid we have--we are going to hold back this
country's future.
That is all I have. I yield back the rest of my time.
Mr. Barletta. All right. The Chair recognizes Mr. Duncan,
who has been tackling this issue for many years.
Mr. Duncan. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have been at
this a long time. This is my 25th year on this committee, and I
have been interested in this issue from the start, because I
did spend 7\1/2\ years as a circuit court judge just before
coming to Congress.
And, Judge Ponsor, I will tell you that I really like
almost every judge I have ever met, but I will tell you that I
spent the 2 months between when I took the bar exam and when I
was sworn in almost full-time at the Knoxville Courthouse
watching jury trials. And there were jury trials going on in
every courtroom. And then I tried my first jury trial, I
think--I know it was in my first week in practice. And we were
just trying them right and left back in the early 1970s.
Then I became a judge in 1981, and I tried 78 jury trials
in my court alone that first year. I was trying--I came from a
largely civil practice, but I had gotten into some big criminal
cases also, and a lot of people thought I did more criminal
work than I did, and I became judge of the criminal court and
tried the felony criminal cases. Tried the attempted murder of
James Earl Ray, and my court was the only court he ever
testified in. I had a lot of interesting cases.
But the law practice has totally changed now. And one of
the civil court judges in Knoxville told me at a Christmas
party a couple of years ago that he had tried six jury trials
that year. And they are still having a few jury trials in the
State courts, but in the Federal courts they are having--it is
becoming so rare that I remember a few years ago Senator Jim
Inhofe of Oklahoma, who was on this committee and sat right
beside me, he said one time at one of our hearings, he said,
``You could shoot a gun down the hallway of any Federal
courthouse at 3:00 on any weekday afternoon and not hit
anybody.'' And I don't know where he came up with that kind of
example, but I remember him saying that to me.
I appreciate your testimony, what you were saying, but it
seems to me that we are going to have to get more than just
testimony, we are going to have to get action on sharing these
courtrooms because the jury trials, I think, unfortunately, are
becoming a thing of the past. Would you have your people get me
a--the statistics on how many jury trials were in all the
Federal district courts in the past year?
I have mentioned it here before. That is really the only
significant statistic that we can look at. Because, for
instance, I know that people who do forgeries, for instance,
they typically would do many of them. And so they would come in
and plead guilty to 20 or 25 forgeries. And then the clerk's
offices would put out that 20, 25 cases had been disposed of.
But a judge who had spent a week in a jury trial had actually
worked a lot harder and done a lot more, but he--maybe if he
didn't finish that case that week, I mean, you see what I am
getting at, that----
Judge Ponsor. Yes. I did a 5-month death penalty trial, and
I got credit for disposing of one case.
Mr. Duncan. Right.
Judge Ponsor. Yes.
Mr. Duncan. So, really, the only meaningful statistic to me
is days spent in trial. Because that is when you are using a
courtroom. So----
Judge Ponsor. You want jury and jury waived, or just----
Mr. Duncan. Yes--well, jury and nonjury. Yes, right. That
would be--because a nonjury trial can take just as much time
as--in fact, that year I said I had tried 78 jury trials, I
tried 5 nonjury trials.
Judge Ponsor. Right.
Mr. Duncan. Now, even the criminal courts are not doing
anything remotely close to that now.
Judge Ponsor. No.
Mr. Duncan. But it just--we are just going to have to do
more on that. And I have been concerned about--I also was
concerned because the Federal courts, we were paying about
double the square-footage cost that the States were who were
building beautiful State courts that were just as nice.
But, at any rate, I appreciate your testimony. But we need
to follow up on this, Mr. Chairman, and see if we are getting
some action, also. Thank you very much.
Mr. Barletta. Thank you, Mr. Duncan. Are there any further
questions from any members of the committee?
Ms. Norton. I just----
Mr. Barletta. Yes, sure.
Ms. Norton. Just for the record, Mr. Chairman, Judge Ponsor
suggested that there might be repetitiveness in redoing the
courthouses under the AMP process. And I have this question for
all of you. If you are using only the process that brought us
here, you are using a discredited process. That is the process,
the old process that the judges used, which was discredited by
the GAO report. That is one of the problems that this committee
has.
But let's say you did what the committee said to, and
looked at--applied the AMP process. Isn't the essence of that
process courtroom sharing? When you look at what happened in
Greenbelt and San Jose, wasn't that the essence of the change
that was made? Mr. Goldstein?
Mr. Goldstein. Well, you know, we have a little bit of a
chicken-or-egg problem. Both the judge and the Commissioner say
that they reduced the size of the courthouses for sharing
purposes and they didn't really go under the AMP process, but
the point is really the same, that they went from very high on
the list to 117 and 139, respectively. So, yes. Quite clearly,
the impact of making changes and reducing costs and sharing was
a major factor here----
Ms. Norton. That was the final result there.
Mr. Goldstein. Yes. They are now 117 and 139 on the list.
Ms. Norton. And----
Mr. Goldstein. When they had been in the top 15.
Ms. Norton. And what brought them to that point was the
decision to share?
Mr. Goldstein. A reduction in the amount of space that they
needed, in part, because of sharing, yes.
Ms. Norton. I know that you, Judge Ponsor, said that
somehow the committee is frustrating--frustrated that there is
no position from the Judicial Conference on active courtroom
sharing. I want to assure you the committee is not frustrated.
The committee has a remedy of its own, and that is simply not
to authorize any more courthouses.
Judge Ponsor. Right.
Ms. Norton. I want you to know that while every community
wants a courthouse, that is not what our constituents are most
clamoring for. If you go down the list and you were to put
courthouses on it, I think you would find a courthouse at the
bottom of the list. And I think that is not just a matter of
the recovery we are in, and the great recession we have come
out of. That is what it would always have been.
There are always a few people who want courthouses led by,
often, the Member from the district because the judges keep on
the Member and the judges. But this just is of no priority. So
do rest assured we are not frustrated. Because the ultimate
remedy is in our hands. Unless we are satisfied that the AMP
process, whatever you call it, including courtroom sharing, is
applied, I don't see any disposition on either side of the
aisle to authorize the construction of courthouses. And you are
not building any courthouses that are not authorized.
Now, let me finally say to Ms. Robyn, because, really, GSA
is an unindicted coconspirator in everything that the courts
have done. The courts have run the GSA. That has been what is
frustrating us, that it has not husbanded the taxpayers'
dollars, but has simply built whatever mausoleum that the
courts wanted to have happen. It is a disgraceful record of the
courthouse--of the GSA. And it is what the GSA has often done
with building, period. You know, what the agencies want, GSA
has tried to build. And that is what we have tried for years to
put a stop to.
But I have got a note here that in your testimony you say
that the GAO opposes a moratorium on building courthouses. The
GSA opposes, I am sorry, a moratorium on building more
courthouses. On what base--no. You do it on the basis,
essentially, that it undermines ``our ongoing maintenance of
the Federal inventory.'' In other words, you want some more
money in order to keep up courthouses. And if you get a great,
big courthouse, you know, then that pays more rent to be
managed by the GSA.
But considering what happened even if we buy Judge Ponsor's
notion--and I do, because I don't care how he does it, as long
as he shares--that even given what happened in Greenbelt and
San Jose, why would you urge this committee to go ahead, willy
nilly, and build courthouses that have not undergone something
close to the AMP process?
Ms. Robyn. To say that I oppose the moratorium does not
mean I think the committee should go ahead, willy nilly. This
committee does not go ahead----
Ms. Norton. Well, what is in between opposing the----
Ms. Robyn. But I think----
Ms. Norton. What is in between opposing it and not opposing
it?
Ms. Robyn. I think there is a fundamental misunderstanding
here about the AMP process versus courtroom sharing. They are
very different. They are not--the AMP process did not institute
courtroom sharing. There may be some--the timing may be
coincident, but the AMP process shifted the weights on--the
essential thing, my understanding, is that it shifted the
weights on the importance of the need for additional courtroom
space, relative to other issues: security issues, condition of
the building, operational deficiencies. It puts--the AMP
process increased the importance placed on the need for
additional courtrooms. In fact, there is a business rule that
says something doesn't get on the list unless there is a need
for two or more additional courtrooms.
I am going to get in trouble for saying this, but I don't
think I agree with that rule. I think there are--if you look at
why Mobile, Savannah, and some of the other projects are on the
5-year list, they got on that list--they may have needed
additional courtrooms at the time, before we applied courtroom
sharing and other approaches to right-sizing, but they
typically have other problems, inability--lack of secure
circulation----
Ms. Norton. Those other problems, Dr. Robyn, might be
handled by some kind of rehabilitation----
Ms. Robyn. Yes, exactly. But that is kind of----
Ms. Norton. So the moratorium is on new courthouses, Dr.
Robyn.
Ms. Robyn. Well, it is--but it could be an annex. So in the
case of Mobile, we can't solve it--believe me, I wish we
could--but entirely within the confines of the existing
building, the Campbell----
Ms. Norton. Are you saying that the AMP process does not
give appropriate consideration to the deteriorating condition
of a courthouse, but only looks at some figures and not at
others?
Ms. Robyn. I--look. I am not an expert on the AMP process,
so I don't want to----
Ms. Norton. Let me ask the expert, Mr. Goldstein.
Ms. Robyn. But it is not----
Ms. Norton. Mr. Goldstein, would you just----
Ms. Robyn. Yes.
Ms. Norton. Just for the record, before we leave this
hearing, would you explain the AMP process, and why the AMP
process was--is being promoted?
Mr. Goldstein. There is two major--there are several major
changes that are important to note, in terms of the criteria,
from the old process to the new process. Some of it is good and
some of it maybe not so good. And it is very interesting.
Under the old capital planning process, under the old
process, there were four weights: the year in which courthouses
would run out of space, it got 30 percent; security
deficiencies, 30 percent; operational concerns, 25 percent;
current and future courtroom and chamber need, 15 percent.
Now, the major difference here under the new process, and
it is one where I am a little concerned about the kind of
comments that the judiciary made in telling GAO that we didn't
look at operational or security concerns, but those weights, by
their own process, become a minuscule part of what is examined
today.
So, what has happened is that security deficiencies and
operational deficiencies, which were more than 50 percent, are
now only a small part of one bucket which has 40 percent, and
it is called facility benefit assessment. And the majority of
what is looked at, the criteria, are courtrooms needed by judge
type and chambers needed by judge type, which is 50 percent. In
other words, what the judges actually get has gone from 15
percent to more than 50, because they also get a portion of
what is considered under the facility benefit assessment, as
well. So, that is the major change in how things are weighted.
And so, I am concerned, because while we are talking about
trying to improve the efficiency, part of what we are seeing
here is that a greater emphasis on the needs for courtrooms and
chambers, as opposed to operational and security elements,
which--obviously, are extremely important, as well.
Judge Ponsor. Could I insert a comment?
Ms. Norton. Certainly.
Judge Ponsor. I was feeling quite sympathetic to Dr. Robyn
as she was trying to express the AMP process.
The AMP process was created by the judiciary. It wasn't
created by the GSA. GSA is not the expert on the AMP process.
That is our process.
There are four factors in the AMP process right now. Thirty
percent is whether the courthouse is big enough to hold the
judges that are there. In some cases, it just isn't. Thirty
percent has to do with the systems in the building, whether it
is falling apart.
In Savannah, we don't have a problem with room. The
courthouse is falling down. It was built in 1899. The corbels
are falling off the building and hitting people on the head.
They have got a big fence around it so people don't get hit on
the head. They have got hall corridors that dead end with no
fire egress. They have got no sally port. They have got no
secure lockups, they have got no secure elevators. The Marshals
Service says it is a catastrophe waiting to happen.
Twenty-five percent is security. So we got 30 percent for
size, we got 30 percent for building systems, we got 25 percent
for security, and we got 15 percent for compliance with the
Design Guide, which means we don't have 1,000-square-foot
courtrooms, which are too tiny to really do anything. So we
look at that. But that is 15 percent.
So that is the AMP process. The courts developed that as a
way of refining our rankings of urgency. But I can only repeat
that I do believe the process that we had prior to that was
adequate to identify urgency for other courthouses.
You all have already appropriated $188 million for the
courthouses that are on the plan. Eight of them have sites. Do
we want to waste that? Two of them have land swaps already, San
Antonio and Charlotte, where the municipalities have swapped
land, and they are waiting for the courthouses to be built.
I am not going to be chair of this committee 5 months from
now. My community has a nice courthouse. But I feel like I am
speaking for the people of Chattanooga, the people of San
Antonio, the people of Charlotte, the people of Harrisburg, who
have been waiting, sometimes for 15 years, with courthouses
that are falling to bits. And the courthouses, they are clearly
needed. And I am just hoping that, when the times comes, that
there are funds to build these courthouses, and we can come
back to you and persuade you----
Ms. Norton. Mr. Chairman, so long as the judiciary supplies
the committee with evidence that it has met all of the criteria
that it itself created, I am sure this committee would be
willing to proceed. I thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Judge Ponsor. Thank you.
Mr. Barletta. I would like to thank each of our witnesses
for your testimony today. Your contribution to today's
discussion has been very informative and helpful.
I ask unanimous consent that the record of today's hearing
remain open until such time as our witnesses have provided
answers to any questions that may be submitted to them in
writing, and I ask unanimous consent that the record remain
open for 15 days for additional comments and information
submitted by Members or witnesses to be included in the record
of today's hearing.
[No response.]
Mr. Barletta. Without objection, so ordered. If no other
Members have anything to add, the committee stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:33 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]