We are here today to hear testimony from the Honorable Emily J. Reynolds, the Secretary of the Senate. We will also be listening to testimony from the Honorable Alan Hantman, the Architect of the Capitol.

Madame Secretary, we are pleased to have you here today and look forward to the update on your very important organization. We note that you are accompanied by your very able Assistant Secretary, Ms. Mary Jones, and are pleased to have her before us as well. We also see that you have Mr. Timothy Wineman, the Senate Financial Clerk, before us and we welcome him to this hearing.

Before we hear your testimony, Madame Secretary, I would like to commend the very capable men and women of the Secretary's office for their dedication and loyalty to this institution. As we all know, your organization is responsible for the enormous task of ensuring that all the official records of the Senate are maintained in an accurate, expeditious and efficient manner. As such, you have the important responsibility of documenting the Senate Floor activities, ensuring that the Congressional Record is printed daily, maintaining the information on the Senate's web site, and registering and publishing online all the registered lobbyists. I also want to commend your organization for the tremendous job they did during this last year developing a new web site for the public to access the Senate. We know that this team effort, with the Sergeant at Arms, was a successful one. Thank you.

In addition, your organization has the enormous responsibility for overseeing the financial operation of the Senate, making sure that the Senate's financial records are maintained accurately and all the Senates' debts are paid in a timely manner. We would also like to note that you are responsible for maintaining the art in the Senate wing of the Capitol as well as overseeing the operations of the Historians of the Senate.

Thank you for appearing before us, Madame Secretary and we look forward to your testimony.

Secretary Reynold's testimony follows.

If there are other Senators at the hearing, ask if they have any questions for the Secretary. After all questions are asked, move to the summary statement below:

Thank you for your testimony today, Madame Secretary. We appreciate the exceptional efforts and dedication of you and your organization and we look forward to continuing the strong relationship with this Committee.

Introduction to Mr. Hantman.

For our next witness, we are pleased to hear from the Honorable Alan M. Hantman, the Architect of the Capitol.

Mr. Hantman, thank you for appearing before us today to present a general overview of your operations. We note that you are accompanied by Ms. Amita Poole, Mr. Larry Stoffel, Mr. Carlos Elias and Mr. Gary Glovinski. We welcome them to our hearing as well.

Before we hear from you, Mr. Hantman, we would like to commend the men and women who work for the Architect for their tremendous dedication and hard work over this last year. We know that, with more than 2,000 employees, you have the single largest work force within the Legislative Branch of government and are tasked with an enormous mission of facilities management for this entire branch of government. For the record, we would like to note that you are responsible for maintaining the Capitol, the three primary House office buildings, the three primary Senate office buildings, the Library of Congress, the Supreme Court, the Botanic Gardens, the magnificent grounds for all the campus, and a number of auxiliary buildings that are part of the Capitol Hill complex. Your team does a very good job on ensuring that our physical plant is well maintained.

We would like to note that you have increased your professional staff dedicated to ensure the safety and 'wellness' of your large workforce. We are pleased that you have reduced your total employee injury/illness rate by more than 50% during the last year. We encourage you to keep up this good work in the coming year.

We understand that you will be asking for $513 million in fiscal year 2004 for various projects. We will be asking you questions about these projects after your testimony.

In addition, working with the Senate and House leadership, you are responsible for the construction of the Capitol Visitors Center, scheduled to be partially opened in 2005. We will address specific questions to you about the Visitors Center during our hearing today. We would like to note for the record that we will not address the current contract discussions you are in as we clearly understand that this could possibly violate the integrity of the contracting process.

Thank you for appearing before us today and we look forward to your testimony.