Eleanor Holmes Norton

Are you changing steps to get a contract for pre-apprentice and apprenticeship program so that there could be employment of people in the community?

I particularly want to thank you for making this a Full Committee hearing, indicating that this is a matter of great importance to the entire Committee.

So the grid, for example, which is separately in the budget of the Homeland Security Department, that grid will be the grid for the entire St.

I ask you about that, because I am trying to find if there are any economies of scale going on.

Now, I dare believe that the reason 17 States have failed to do it or not do it, based on their druthers, is because the Department took no leadership one way or the other.

When we passed that stimulus bill, I look at it like my grandmamma's sweet potato pie: I want my slice hot out of the oven.

What direction is being provided for contracting officers to help achieve the GSA's small and disadvantaged business goals?

Yes, it seems to me what the Park Service should be interested in is the preservation of the park land around there and the obligation, it seems to me, of DHS, certainly in exchange for allowing access, to take some responsibility for that.

This is perhaps the real moment of truth for the Postal Service and for the Congress of the United States.

I think that is a very important thing you are doing in that way.

Even if it were the most efficient corporation in the United States, it could not have been the same Postal Service it was when all of us were children.

I don't blame the Postmaster for talking about 5 days a week service. I know he doesn't want to do more layoffs.

But, Mr. Morris, aren't they having trouble finding anybody who wants to lease? Why don't we leverage the misery...

I think the concern isn't just about this Metropolitan region, that it is replicated in other Metropolitan regions as well.

These are people who could pay. These are not people who are in distress.

The Subcommittee should get--the appropriate GSA official should be informed that, by close of business Monday, we either want the projects up, know the reason they are not up, or know when they will be up.

If this agency ever does to us what it did to Prince George's, because when they did it to Prince George's, they did it to us, we are going to hold you in contempt because it was a contemptible act.

That doesn't speak well to the Congress, speak well of the Congress or the agency.

the delays cost the government.

We brought consider being pressure on agencies to in fact move to space which cost the government less

I want Prince George's in it.

the agency needs to be protected here.

We need to negotiate the best deal we can and lock in on not a year extension, but go long and at least out go there 5 to 7 years where we can take advantage of the market rates and we can stabilize.

People can't afford it anymore, particularly with the cost of credit.

The Subcommittee will hold the agency very responsible, if you do not take advantage of this market to renegotiate these rents or to extend these rents or to move.