WASHINGTON - The Committee on House Administration held a Full Committee Hearing titled, "Oversight of the Architect of the Capitol: A Review of the Thirteenth Architect’s First Year.”

Witness:

• Mr. Thomas Austin, Architect of the Capitol

In case you missed it, here are the top takeaways:

1. Update on the Capitol Complex Master Plan

Chairman Bryan Steil (WI-01): I want to dive in out of the gates, if I can, on the Capitol Complex Master Plan. It's been over two decades since this has been updated. I know this has been a priority of you and your team. Can you give us an update as to when we might expect that and any top line items that you're seeing in that plan?

Mr. Thomas Austin: Thank you for the question, Chairman. That has been the top priority for my agency and certainly in planning and formulation of the Capitol Campus Master Plan. We've created a subset of that, which is the Capitol Campus Blueprint which we're most focused on, which has 4 key components. The first of which is the House Office Building renewal, specifically the Rayburn renewal that we've been discussing. The second component is the needs of the Senate community, specifically, their own renewal efforts as well as capacity issues. Third is the U.S. Capitol Police headquarters, which we have had passed legislation directing us to look into. And the fourth is our utility resilience. The next biggest issue that we're addressing with this Committee as well as the Appropriations Committees, is the Rayburn House Office Building Renewal. We are in the midst of looking at how we're going to go about that. We appreciate the meeting we had with this Committee and Appropriations last year where you gave us a way forward, gave us some parameters for our swing space study, which we're finishing up right now. We expect that swing space study to be complete next month and look forward to providing those results to you. That's gonna kind of drive where we're gonna go next in this program as far as how we're gonna plan it, which direction we're gonna go into to whether the whether we're renovating existing space or looking to craft new space. 

Rep. Stephanie Bice (OK-05): I know that there's been some, I think, challenges with collaboration across agencies, but you have really made it, I think, a focused effort to try to collaborate better with House entities. Can you talk a little bit about collaboration, strengthening collaboration between the CAO, AOC and other house agencies?

Mr. Thomas Austin: Sure, and it has been a focus of my time here is to be more collaborative in general, but certainly be more collaborative with our fellow agencies. We worked very closely with House CAO, with House Sergeant at Arms, with the Clerk's Office. We do small get-togethers where we talk to each other, but also have regular meetings with them. There is a certainly a lot of efficiencies that we can have in those agencies, and I look forward to discussing with this Committee and others some ways that we can clear some of the lines of effort between, for instance, the Architect of the Capitol and the House CAO, but we have done a lot of collaboration with them. I believe we have a very good relationship.  I actually was just down touring the House CAO shops less than 2 weeks ago, and I was very happy that the CAO allowed me to do so.

Rep. Stephanie Bice (OK-05): I would just echo that I've heard, I think, really positive things coming out of other House entities in their ability to collaborate and work with your organization.

3. Rayburn Renewal Project Plans

Rep. Barry Loudermilk (GA-11): The first question is about critical infrastructure. I know that's one of your stated duties. And what do you see as the House's greatest physical infrastructure need or vulnerability?

Mr. Thomas Austin: So the the biggest project that we're working on, sir, is, of course, the Rayburn Renewal Project that has been the focus of our House Office Buildings, Capitol Campus Master Plan that the Chairman spoke about earlier and which I spoke about a moment ago. That is the biggest one because it has multiple systems that need to be repaired. We get leaks in the Rayburn Building all the time, some small, some big, some impact Member suites, some impact storage areas, some were just in the garage, we had two this past week alone. The only way to address those kinds of things is with a full Capitol renewal, which unfortunately means displacing Members for an extended period of time so we can work open with the walls, remediate the hazardous materials that are still in those spaces, and do the needed work to to refresh and and renew those systems. So I'd say if you're looking for the largest project on that side, it would be the Rayburn full Building Renewal. The largest major component is is related to that, which is the Rayburn air handling units. I spoke a moment ago about the leaks, the way those pipes, especially the secondary water system, that brings the cool, chilled water in the summer time to provide our air conditioning, and the steam in the winter time provide our heat. But those pipes are, again, original to building 60 year old galvanized pipe, and we've got a lot of leaks in in that system and they cannot be inspected because most of them are behind the walls or in crawl spaces. So what we're trying to do is bring as much of that system offline as possible by increasing the forced air into the the suits, but the only way to do that is to upgrade those air handling systems.