[Page: H7997]

(Mr. GLICKMAN asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. GLICKMAN. Mr. Speaker, as chairman of the Intelligence Committee, I have been critical at times of the intelligence community's organization and management, but I come to the floor today to defend them on an allegation that was made by the Intelligence Committee of the other body regarding a building built by the National Reconnaissance Office in Virginia.

The allegation was made or inferred that in some way the intelligence community deceived Congress by never notifying us of this building. Yesterday we had a public hearing of the House Intelligence Committee in the Rayburn Building, and the fact of the matter is that while we may disagree with some of the procedures used by the National Reconnaissance Office, there was no intent to deceive Congress, and there was no intent to hide the facts or deceive the intelligence community or Congress with respect to that particular building.

This was a building that was designed several years ago, frankly, at the request of some Members of Congress and the intelligence community to consolidate the offices of the National Reconnaissance Office, which, up until 2 years ago, was actually a classified body. But the purpose of the consolidation was to close or consolidate many, many leased offices around the country that were costing the taxpayers a lot of money.

While we are going to look at the procedures used in the building and the contracting process and although we think the budgeting needs to be improved, I want to assure my colleagues that there was no intent to deceive Members of Congress in connection with that facility.

END