Riley Moore Emphasizes Need For The Capitol Complex To Accommodate New Mothers

Forbes Breaking News

During a House Appropriations Committee hearing before the congressional recess, Rep. Riley Moore (R-WV) discussed the need for lactation rooms near the House floor.

Transcript

00:00Now I'd like to recognize Mr. Moore for his five minutes.

00:05Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you all for being here today.

00:08Appreciate it.

00:10So as we work to do a better job to support families across the country,

00:15I also believe that it's important this committee needs to do more

00:19to make the capital complex more friendly for expected members and staff,

00:25as well as for those with young kids.

00:27Speaker Johnson just announced his intention to find ways to allow new moms

00:33to have access to lactation rooms close to the House floor,

00:36which is an effort that I certainly fully support.

00:40Mr. Austin, can you tell me about the existing status of the lactation rooms

00:45on campus for expected mothers?

00:48How many do we have compared to how many the Senate has?

00:52What additional resources would your office need to expand access

00:57if there is a need for more spaces?

01:01Sir, thank you for the question.

01:03The overall status is we have 17 lactation suites across the campus entirely.

01:08Each one of those suites varies to have as low as one seat to as many as eight suites,

01:12so they vary about three to four per suite would be the average associated with that.

01:17There is one suite in each one of the House office buildings,

01:20as well as two inside the Capitol.

01:22In the House office buildings, there's 27 seats total,

01:24and in the Capitol, there's a total of six seats in the Capitol building for lactation rooms.

01:29I would have to get back to you as far as how that compares to the Senate,

01:32but again, there are ones across the campus.

01:35We are working with the Office of the Attending Physician

01:37for what are the requirements for additional ones.

01:40There was a study that was funded in previous years that was executed in FY24

01:45to look at the needs of lactation rooms across the campus,

01:49as well as if there's any modifications to the existing lactation rooms that need to be made.

01:53We expect to get those results this year,

01:55and we will look to work with your committee if we need additional funding

01:58to make any modifications or additions.

02:01And then specifically the ones that would be off the House floor,

02:06is that in process currently?

02:09Well, there are two in the Capitol building itself.

02:13I can't speak to you right now exactly how close they are to the House floor itself,

02:18but pretty much anything was in about a two-minute walk from the House floor

02:21to any spot inside the Capitol,

02:23at least the level we're talking about, which are the lower levels.

02:26Okay, and then how about reserved parking spots near entrances

02:30and elevators available for expectant mothers?

02:33Is that something you all are working on as well?

02:35Unfortunately, I'd have to defer to the House Sergeant at Arms

02:38because they control parking on the House side of campus

02:39and the allocation of parking spots.

02:42And then are there additional opportunities that this committee should consider funding

02:46to make the complex more family-friendly for members or staffs or visitors

02:50that we're currently not contemplating?

02:52We do work with the Office of Correctional Accessibility Services

02:56for some of the requests to the previous question.

02:59We are looking to make it more ADA as well as family-friendly.

03:02We have, if you look in the Capitol Visitor Center,

03:04all the family changing rooms, the single-stall restrooms

03:07and things of that nature that are available.

03:10But unfortunately, because of the historic nature of the campus,

03:12when they weren't quite as focused on those accessibility issues,

03:15we do have some work to do in the rest of campus.

03:18And that's always that balance between the historic nature of the buildings

03:21versus the modern requirements to facilitate access.

03:25All right. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.

03:28Appreciate that. Now I recognize Mr. Strong for his five minutes.

03:32Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

03:33Ranking Member, I want to begin by thanking each of the witnesses

03:35and their staff for being here,

03:37your hard dedication and work for the U.S. House of Representatives.

03:41All of your efforts are critical to ensuring the smooth operation

03:45of our historic institutions

03:47and safeguarding America's, Americans' history for future generations.

03:52Mr. Austin, could you please provide us with a status update

03:56on the Cannon House Office Building renewal project

03:59and its projected completion?

04:02And are there penalties, if not completed, on time?

04:06Sir, thank you for the question.

04:08So I know Cannon has been a long road to get to where we are today.

04:11We spoke earlier about it being a 10-year project.

04:12The good news on that is that all the hard hats and major construction

04:15will be off campus by the end of this calendar year.

04:18So you've already seen some of that demobilization that's happening

04:21with the removal of some of the scaffolding in the courtyard of Cannon,

04:24as well as the retrograde of some of the equipment

04:26that's been stored there essentially since the beginning of this project.

04:30So there will still be some punch list items,

04:36maybe some warranty items that might be happening at the end of this year.

04:38But we believe that the project will be complete by the end of this calendar year.

04:43As far as your second point, as far as penalties,

04:46that is written into the contract.

04:48We have not had to exercise that to this date,

04:50but we are actively working with the contractor

04:52and are willing and ready to enforce liquidated damages if needed.

04:57We have elevators and escalators that are frequently out of service.

05:02Does this service, do we have a service contract or is this handled in-house?

05:08How are elevators and escalators handled in our facilities?

05:13The answer to the question, sir, is it's both.

05:15We have a dedicated elevator and a vertical conveyance team

05:20that works on escalators and elevators that work throughout the house side

05:23and the Capitol as well as the Senate side.

05:25For repairs that require more technical expertise and more equipment,

05:28we do have a service contract with several contractors,

05:31and we're working to expand that to have additional CLINs on the contract

05:35so it can be utilized by different jurisdictions.

05:38Overall, as of today, I'm happy to say on the house side,

05:4184 of the 85 elevators on the house side are fully operational.

05:44There's one down in the forward right now.

05:46And I know every escalator and elevator when it goes out

05:48is an impact to the staff, and it's very visible.

05:51But we are working with the support of Congress to get proactive

05:55with our maintenance on these elevators.

05:57We're looking for a 20-year round-robin project

05:59to replace every elevator over the next 20 years.

06:02We have new ones, obviously, with Cannon that came with a different mechanical system

06:05that will be as part of that, but those are the new ones.

06:08But we do are also funded for a system that will provide real-time monitoring

06:13of those elevators so that we don't have to wait for the phone call

06:16when one of those goes out.

06:17Yeah.

06:17Well, I can tell you the escalators don't work like they ought to work in here.

06:21And I think that we need to put a special focus on it.

06:23Coming to this committee meeting, I took about 27 steps up an escalator

06:27that hadn't worked for a while, and it needs to be addressed.

06:30I'm not sure who's over escalators and elevators,

06:33but in my two years in Congress, I will tell you,

06:36we need to put a better focus on it.

06:39Mr. Alston, security is clearly a priority in your fiscal year 2026 request.

06:44Can you provide more details on how the requested funds will support

06:48both the United States Capitol Police and the House Senate Sergeant-at-Arms,

06:52particularly in terms of infrastructure and upgrades on system replacements?

06:58So this is probably a longer response I could give you in this forum, sir,

07:03and I'd be happy to work with your staff and provide specifics to it,

07:07especially ones that probably aren't best discussed in an open forum.

07:09We are continuing the door replacement program, as I alluded to earlier.

07:14There's additional conduit being put in for more security cameras,

07:16and we're looking for opportunities for additional lighting on the Capitol campus,

07:20especially on the south side of campus,

07:21for some of those spaces that require more active monitoring.

07:25And the biggest one, of course, is going to be the House Screening Facility,

07:28which will go on on the south side of the Capitol building,

07:30and we'll be doing pedestrian screening, and that project will begin later this year,

07:34and will be complete before FY29.

07:37When construction is completed in Cannon,

07:40do you anticipate any other doors being opened for ingress and egress for staff?

07:46Outside of the ones that have been closed for construction, not at this time,

07:50but I can take that question to U.S. Capitol Police

07:52and see if they have any requests to open those.

07:54There's certainly capability to do so,

07:55but some of that goes towards the availability of officers

07:58to man those screening checkpoints and the magnetometers and things of that nature.

08:02The doors closest to public transportation are obviously the ones that are utilized the most,

08:08and especially when it was 8 degrees,

08:11I do know that that right there was a situation that we saw

08:14and hope that that will be corrected whenever, you know, the construction completed.

08:19Switching to you, Dr. Hayden,

08:22your fiscal year 2026 budget lists three new requests

08:25alongside the resubmission of three fiscal years 2025 requests.

08:30How does the library plan to balance funding and resources for these requests

08:35to make sure both sets are successfully implemented?

08:44As I mentioned earlier, with the three new requests,

08:52they, in fact, do not require FTEs,

08:58and so we will be able to use contractual services

09:02that are needed to fulfill what we are trying to accomplish,

09:08and with the re-requests,

09:11we reduced the number of staff that would be required,

09:15and we looked at those re-requests very carefully

09:19to make sure that we adjusted for the current economic conditions.

09:28The library's staffing levels have retained largely unchanged since fiscal year 2015,

09:33yet the scope of programs and services has grown significantly.

09:37Dr. Hayden, how do you ensure this expansion does not overextend staff

09:42or compromise the library's core mission,

09:45particularly its service to Congress and the American people?

09:49As you just heard,

09:52and we're very pleased to have the new director of CRS here,

09:56because that is our primary mission,

09:58and so the focus has been on making sure

10:02that as that level has been reduced since the 1990s,

10:09which was the library's highest level of staffing,

10:12that we carefully looked at workflows,

10:16we looked at how we could make sure

10:19that there's talent that's coming in,

10:21but also retaining a very high level

10:25of staff expertise and experience.

10:28So we have to balance those two.

10:30Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

10:31I yield back.

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