Eleanor Holmes Norton: “I thank my good friend for his overly generous introduction, and I thank my friend from Pennsylvania and my friend from…”

“I thank my good friend for his overly generous introduction, and I thank my friend from Pennsylvania and my friend from Indiana for this bill. This bill, which I strongly support, the Public Buildings Reform and Savings Act of 2016, may seem quite technical to those who have heard it described, but I do want to congratulate my friends, the chairman and the ranking member, for a bill that will have great substantive impact on the way that GSA does its business. I particularly appreciate the bipartisan way in which both of them have always performed. I also thank them both for accepting my amendments: one, in keeping with both this bill and the prior bill, for a new, federal footprint here, and a smaller Department of Energy; and then an amendment that is not related to any of this, for lactation space for visitors to Federal buildings. I appreciate the acceptance of an amendment that allows the GSA to sell or exchange the Department of Energy Forrestal Complex that is right in the heart of The Mall area, at 1000 Independence Avenue, in accordance with the so-called Southwest Ecodistrict Plan, which means that all the appropriate planning has been done, given where this location is and how important it is to official Washington. My amendment has two purposes. Because the DOE building is larger than necessary and results in wasteful spending, we now require a smaller footprint.…”