Hearing

Opening remarks, as prepared, of Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure Ranking Member Sam Graves (R-MO) and Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings, and Emergency Management Ranking Member Mark Meadows (R-NC):

Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure Ranking Member Sam Graves (R-MO):

Thank you, Chair Titus and Ranking Member Meadows.

First, I want to note that we still don’t have an infrastructure bill – something our Nation desperately needs.  And as Ranking Member Meadows noted, September is National Preparedness Month.  Yet here we are in a politically motivated hearing talking about the Old Post Office. 

In light of all the disasters this year we should be focusing today on making sure our Committee’s disaster reform efforts are working as intended and that our communities have the tools to prepare for and recover from the next disaster.

We just saw last week parts of Texas being flooded from Tropical Storm Imelda.  My home district in Missouri is still recovering from historic flooding that devastated homes and farms.  And many communities have a long way to go to recover from the last two Hurricane seasons.

Instead, today’s hearing is going to be nothing more than a political spectacle – a chance for the President’s opponents to try to undermine him and to continue their search for anything to further their case for impeachment.

Instead of working on disaster preparedness, or any of the other countless infrastructure items that are clearly more important than this, like fixing roads and bridges, we will instead listen to politically motivated criticisms of the President.

I know that we have worked together in a bipartisan manner on this Committee, and I believe we can continue to do so if we put politics aside.  But instead, this partisan distraction takes us away from our important work on infrastructure.

Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings, and Emergency Management Ranking Member Mark Meadows (R-NC):

Thank you, Chairwoman Titus.

Once again, instead of focusing on critical issues like disaster recovery and our crumbling infrastructure, we are here today focusing on answering a constitutional question that’s currently before the courts.

We have other business before this subcommittee that is critical to the American taxpayer.  We have 79 bills referred to this subcommittee and have only acted on about nine of them – we could have had a hearing today examining some of those proposals.

And, it is National Preparedness Month.  The original plan for today’s hearing was to focus on recovery efforts, but instead we are focusing on this issue because of a perception of wrongdoing by the President.

Based on our markup last week and the remarks by Members at that markup, I am sure there are Members on both sides who would have viewed a disaster hearing as critical.  Right now, more than half the States and territories are still impacted by 73 open major disasters and emergency declarations.

Additionally, GSA spends over $5 billion a year on leased space.  The Federal Buildings Fund struggles to pay for basic building maintenance, yet we call the GSA Public Buildings Commissioner here not to talk about that, but rather a decision made prior to his appointment or documents they are already producing.

Let’s be very clear – we are here today because of a lease, endorsed by and advocated for by Democrats, signed off on by Democrats, and negotiated and executed under President Obama.  A lease where nearly all of the decisions before and after the election were made under the Obama Administration.

And the one decision made after the President was sworn in was done by a career public servant, long before the current political leadership at GSA was appointed.  Even the GSA Inspector General found there was no undue influence in that decision. 

Since that time, GSA has produced documents at the request of Members –– over 10,000 pages and nearly 3,800 documents have been produced related to the OPO and more is expected.  Yet, our colleagues argue that GSA is not responding to their requests.

Let me be clear on this as well – I am a strong supporter of transparency, oversight, and access to information.  But, when we are making demands of agencies, taking federal employees away from their core mission to comply with these requests, we have some responsibility to ensure the requests are reasonable – not for political purposes and not a fishing expedition.

Republican members, myself included, sent a letter in February requesting the documents on which the OIG based her analyses and conclusions in her report.  We requested this not as a fishing expedition, but because of the unusual nature of the OIG report.

The report itself has been cited as authority in pending legal cases, yet contains assertions without citations and, in at least one instance, a factual assertion has been disputed by a legal expert.

And, it contains its own legal analysis on an unsettled constitutional question currently pending in the courts.

Given these issues and the fact that it has been used in legal proceedings, it is critical for us to verify its accuracy.  

To understand the basis for the OIG’s report, we requested the case file documents – similar to a request the Committee made last year for the OIG’s report on the FBI Headquarters.  However, so far we have only received 177 documents and those are largely publicly available legal research documents like law review articles they used for their constitutional analysis.  To me that is unresponsive.

I hope we can get back to real work on what usually are bipartisan issues in this Committee.  We have made headway in disaster reforms, reforming how we manage federal properties, and exploring ways to improve our economic development programs.

We could have focused today on a topic that would help inform our actions on those important issues and help our constituents who sent us here to work together on real solutions – not play games on their dime.