Earl Blumenauer: “I appreciated the gentleman from Illinois' (Mr. LaHood) earlier comments about the fitness center for our employees.…”

“I appreciated the gentleman from Illinois' (Mr. LaHood) earlier comments about the fitness center for our employees. When I first came here soon after the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. LaHood), I was struck that the showers that were available for our employees were kind of secret. We, I think, cracked the code, found out where they were, and published a map. And we were able to work with the gentleman from New York (Mr. Walsh), the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Kingston), the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran), the former subcommittee chairs and ranking members in slowly moving some things forward. There are now some new showers. Now the fitness center is under construction. I congratulate the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. LaHood) and the committee. I think this is an important development for our employees. It is important for their health, for their morale, for their efficiency, for their being able to bike and walk and run to work, I think it is an important signal for them that we value their work. I also appreciated comments that he made about the gem, which is the Library of Congress. I must confess I have some concerns in looking at this budget. We basically flatlined the Library of Congress, and we have missing from this, and part of the reduction is, the money that has been set aside for facilities to deal with the massive amount of information that is compiled by the library.…”