▶ 0:18:38Chair Fischer: I call the subcommittee to order. Good morning, everyone. I'd like to welcome everyone to the third and final fiscal year 2027 budget hearing for the agencies under the jurisdiction of the legislative branch subcommittee. Today, we have with us Mr. thomas austin, the architect of the capitol, and Mr. robert newlan, the acting librarian of congress. Thank you for joining us this morning.
▶ 0:19:08Chair Fischer: The architect of the capitol is responsible for the care and operations of more than 18.5 million square feet of facilities and 570 acres of grounds that make up the capitol campus. The dedication and diligence of the aoc employees is felt by the 30,000 daily occupants of this campus, as well as the millions of annual visitors.
▶ 0:19:33Chair Fischer: I like to extend the subcommittee's appreciation to the men and women of the aoc who ensure that the day-to-day operations of congress can continue in a safe working environment and to preserve these historic buildings for future generations. This fiscal year, the architect of the capitol's request totals over $1.67 billion, an increase of 850 million dollars, one hundred 5% above the level provided in fiscal year 2026.
▶ 0:20:06Chair Fischer: This significant increase is primarily for project and construction related to requests which reflect the fact that important infrastructure projects have been delayed or phased funded. The request also includes an increase of $60.6 million for the agency's operating budget to support fte and program increases necessary to execute the scale and scope of projects that have been proposed across this campus.
▶ 0:20:38Chair Fischer: While I realize the level of difficulty, and therefore expense, in managing the maintenance of the campuses' aging infrastructure in addressing security, life safety, and historic preservation requirements, it is highly unlikely that the subcommittee will have the ability to meet the agency's request level. Therefore, aoc will help to further delay some of the proposed work due to budget constraints.
▶ 0:21:08Chair Fischer: Mr. austin, I like to hear about the impact of delaying projects in terms of the increasing deterioration of these historic buildings and the growing cost and the risks we have to operate them. The library of congress does important work. Not only in support of congress but on behalf of the american people.
▶ 0:21:31Chair Fischer: I want to commend the library on recent initiatives to expand access and increasing engagement so that more people can benefit from the library's treasured collections. For fiscal year 2027, the total budget request for the library of congress is $931.4 million, which includes offsetting collections and an appropriation of $883.4 million.
▶ 0:22:01Chair Fischer: This represents an increase of $34.4 million, 3.8% above the enacted level. I understand this funding would support continued investment in I.t. Modernization including improvements to congress.gov and other library websites and applications, and additional investments in the library's digital capacity and accessibility. Mr.
▶ 0:22:26Chair Fischer: New lynn come in your testimony, I hope to hear how the increase will enable the library to expand access, modernize offerings, and provide additional research support for congressional staff. Thank you again to our witnesses for being here today and they look forward to our discussion this morning and learning more about your agencies, priorities in the coming fiscal year.
▶ 0:22:52Chair Fischer: Now I will turn to our ranking member, senator heinrich, for any remarks he would like to make.
▶ 0:22:58Sen. Heinrich: Thank you, madam chair. I'm pleased to be here for our third and final hearing for fiscal year 27. This bill is important to making sure congress and the agencies that support it can continue to function effectively and serve the american people well. I appreciate your partnership as we work to put together a bill that responds to the needs of the senate and the broader legislative branch.
▶ 0:23:22Sen. Heinrich: I look forward to hearing from today's witnesses, whose agencies play an important role in supporting the senate as we carry out our constitutional response abilities. Mr. austin, thank you for your time and the work that the men and women of the architect of the capitol do every day to keep the capitol complex running. You have work to develop a long-term capitol complex master plan intended to increase safety, stewardship, and resilience across the campus.
▶ 0:23:52Sen. Heinrich: The work of the architect of the capitol helps ensure that congress can do its work, and that the american people can visit the capitol complex to witness their government in action. The architect of the capitol's fy budget request was one point $6 billion, an increase of reit nearly $850 million over the last year. I appreciate the opportunity to hear more about her budget request and the needs of your agency. Mr.
▶ 0:24:18Sen. Heinrich: Newlan, I first want to thank you for stepping into the role of acting library and after president trump forced out Dr. hayden. I know her presence is missed at the library. The library of congress plays a unique and vital role not only as steward coordination knowledge and history, but also as a direct source of support and information for members of congress. Our staffs, educators, researchers in the public.
▶ 0:24:45Sen. Heinrich: I also want to thank the women and men of the congressional research service whose work supports many of us here every day as we carry out our responsibilities. In fiscal year 27, library is requesting $883 million to carry out its mission which is an increase of $31 million over last year's enacted level.
▶ 0:25:07Sen. Heinrich: I welcome the opportunity to hear more about your fiscal year 27 budget request, how you plan to use these funds to strengthen the library services, and how the library is approaching new tools including artificial intelligence in a responsible and effective way. Thank you, madam chair.
▶ 0:25:23Chair Fischer: Thank you, senator heinrich. Now I'd like to ask the witness is to give a brief opening statement of approximately five minutes to allow adequate time for questions. The written testimony of each witness will be printed in full in the hearing record. Mr. austin, welcome. You may begin."
▶ 0:25:43Mr. Austin: Good morning, chairman fisher, ricky member hi members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today on behalf of dedicated workforce of the architect of the capitol. To present our fiscal year 2027 budget request and strategic priorities. I would like to begin by expressing my sincere appreciation for the subcommittees of continued support as well as the professionalism and equities of your staff. Particularly molly and richard.
▶ 0:26:12Mr. Austin: Whose engagement is critical to our mission success. I look forward to sharing hard-working of the agency and serving the needs of congress. The architect of the capitol workforce comprises more than 2600 professionals, remains steadfast in their commitment to preserving and maintaining over 18.5 million square feet of facilities, 570 acres of ground, and thousands of irreplaceable works of art.
▶ 0:26:36Mr. Austin: Their reference directly supports the congress and serves the 30,000 daily occupants in 4 million annual visitors to the capital. I continued to be amazed by their work and remain grateful to the unwavering commitment of the team of professionals. Since assuming the role as the 13th architect of the capitol in june 2020 four, I have prioritize strengthening transparency, accountability, and communication across the agency and with our stakeholders.
▶ 0:27:06Mr. Austin: These principles are foundational to maintaining trust and ensuring disciplined stewardship of the resources entrusted to us. Or fiscal year 2020 seven, we are requesting 1.6 billion dollars to address critical info structure requirements to mitigate life safety and physical security risks, preserve historic assets, and advance modernization initiatives across the capitol campus.
▶ 0:27:29Mr. Austin: While this budget request includes a 9.5 percent increase in our yearly operating budget, it also includes a significant increase in multi-year and middle your project funds driven primarily by two factors. First, the accumulation of deferred maintenance resulting from previous years of unfunded projects which has elevated the risk of system degradation and failure. And second, the inclusion of major capital investments, most notably the long-overdue renovation of the rayburn house office building.
▶ 0:28:00Mr. Austin: A central focus of my tenure has been getting a conference of understanding of the condition of congressional facilities and infrastructure. To that end, we are finalizing the capitol complex master plan, a data-driven framework to inform decision-making and guide strategic investment over the coming decades. Maintaining and preserving the capitol campus remains our core mission and most complex challenge.
▶ 0:28:29Mr. Austin: It requires a proactive enterprise-level approach to facilities management, one that balances immediate operational demands with long-term capital planning. This budget request addresses major senate facility initiatives from elevator refurbishment to significant building restoration to security projects across the campus. While the rayburn building is the most pressing major project on the capitol campus, the senate facilities are also aging and monitored by the aoc.
▶ 0:28:58Mr. Austin: We look forward to continuing the ongoing dialogue regarding the facility and operational needs of the senate community over the coming years. Safety and security will always remain a key priority. With the support of this committee and coordination with the senate sergeant at arms and united states capitol police, we have made significant progress over the past few years and will continue to improve the security posture across the capitol campus to safeguard members, staff, and visitors.
▶ 0:29:28Mr. Austin: We are committed to working closely with you and your staff as well as the U.S. senate committee on rules and administration to ensure the architect of the capitol meets the needs and expectations of the united states senate and the american people. Chairman fisher, ranking member heinrich, members of the subcommittee, thank you for your continued partnership in consideration of our fiscal year 2027 budget request. I'm honored to be here and look forward to your questions.
▶ 0:29:51Chair Fischer: Thank, Mr. austin. Mr. newlan, welcome. You are recognize to give your opening comments.
▶ 0:30:01Mr. Newlan: Thank you, chairman fisher, ranking member heinrich, members of the subcommittee. It's an honor to testify in support of the library's fiscal 27 budget request. I'm deeply grateful for the consistent support congress has shown the library throughout the last year. I am profoundly appreciative of the library's talented and resilient staff. This includes the strongest management team I have ever had the pleasure of working with.
▶ 0:30:29Mr. Newlan: I'm also pleased to be testifying with the much valued colleague tom austin, the architect of the capitol. To start, I want to stay that we are the library of congress. We exist to support you and the performance of your constitutional duties. Every single library of congress staff member contributes to serving congress, and in turn, the american people.
▶ 0:30:54Mr. Newlan: Being an enduring source of knowledge for you and your constituents requires ongoing investment in expert staff, cutting edge technology, and comprehensive collections. You will see these three areas in our budget request. Our fiscal 27 request totals $934 million.
▶ 0:31:14Mr. Newlan: It is designed to maintain the library's core operations, cover unavoidable cost increases, and make targeted investments that strengthen service, efficiency, and public value. The request includes a net increase of $34 million, 3.8% over fiscal 26. If approved, this would be the first increase in three years. It falls into two categories. First, approximately $24 million to cover mandatory pay and price level increases.
▶ 0:31:47Mr. Newlan: Second, approximately $11 million for critical program increases. In the 1990's, the library of congress employed 5000 staff to deliver our services. Today, we deliver on our mission with 3100 employees. Study investments in modernization over the last 10 years have allowed us to be more efficient and accomplish more with this reduced staffing level. It is critical that this relatively low staffing level be adequately supported.
▶ 0:32:18Mr. Newlan: Our fiscal 20 seven program request is chiefly for a centralized ai enterprise platform. I'm very proud of our team who have made significant strides in harnessing ai to improve work processes and deliver services to congress.
▶ 0:32:35Mr. Newlan: But in order to use confidential data, to ensure data integrity and privacy, and to train ai on our unique datatypes, we need to be able to develop and manage ai models in a controlled and secure environment. Without an ai platform of our own, we will be left behind, as will congress.
▶ 0:32:59Mr. Newlan: So far, we have used existing resources to underwrite ai experimentation, to move forward, we need a relatively modest increase of $5.4 million which is an investment in serving you. As we move forward, we must also remember the past. The celebration of america's 250th anniversary gives us all an opportunity to appreciate the treasure that is the library of congress.
▶ 0:33:26Mr. Newlan: We invite everyone to join us this summer for our newest exhibit, the declaration's promise. It will feature our copy of the declaration of independence with jefferson's handwritten notes and the lincoln's reading copy of the gettysburg address. In this year of celebration, we focus on the sublime, natural beauty of america. I also want to show you what we do best, and that is acquire, preserve, and make accessible rare items of americana.
▶ 0:33:58Mr. Newlan: I have some things to show you. Our curator, sarah duke, his first going to show you in early 2000's illustration by a renowned artist depicting a wagon train passing scott's bluff national monument in nebraska. Second, in 1939 c america first poster encouraging tourism in new mexico's carlsbad caverns.
▶ 0:34:29Mr. Newlan: Now, lastly, I have a rare eyewitness drawing of magnificent yosemite falls from 1855. It is among the first known images of this natural wonder. We were able to buy this thanks to a generous donation from the library of james madison's counsel, and you are among the first to see it. It literally just arrived. Thank you, sarah.
▶ 0:34:55Mr. Newlan: Even though I work at the library for five decades, I remain in awe of precious new treasures like these. Every day, I'm energized by the possibilities the emerging tools that hold so much promise for how we can deliver on the library's central commitment, providing you with authoritative, unbiased support grounded in a comprehensive collection of knowledge. To close, I want to reiterate my gratitude for congresses support for the library of congress.
▶ 0:35:25Mr. Newlan: We take the fact that the word congress is in our name very seriously. When making financial decisions, we always remember that these are hard earned taxpayer dollars, and we remain committed to delivering exceptional service and the best possible value in return. Thank you for the opportunity to testify. I look forward to your questions.
▶ 0:35:48Chair Fischer: Thank you, Mr. newlan. Mr. austin, I appreciated meeting with you recently to discuss your efforts to develop a comprehensive capitol complex master plan. As I mentioned in my opening statement, I understand the level of difficulty in managing the aging infrastructure across the campus, and therefore, the significant expense.
▶ 0:36:15Chair Fischer: However, I believe many senators would be surprised to learn the level of significant and sustained investment that may be required over the next 15 to 20 years. As I also mentioned in my remarks, it is highly unlikely that the subcommittee will be able to fund all of the line item construction projects and renovation plans submitted in the agency's budget request this fiscal year.
▶ 0:36:43Chair Fischer: That level of funding, almost $1 billion for projects and minor construction, will require much more member outreach and education for members to justify it. So what are your plans to increase member awareness, understanding of the state of the campus' facilities and to encourage significant investment in the maintenance and renewal?
▶ 0:37:08Mr. Austin: Thank you, senator, for the question. The development of the capitol complex master plan has been a central part of my 10 year. The last one done was completed in 2011, usually done every five years, so we are significantly behind on that effort. We are finishing the last phase this summer and will be able to have a published product by the end of the summer. Engagement with the committees, certainly something we do in the senate as well as the house.
▶ 0:37:38Mr. Austin: Senate rules as well as the house and senate appropriations committee's. We are willing to work with leadership as well as the committee to do outreach to individual members. We have done many briefings individually and collectively to members on the house side. I look forward to doing that on the senate as well. Fortunately, these buildings often make the case for us, when we have facility failures and issues in the buildings. Certainly, that's been the case more so on the house than on the senate side, but we have had our challenges in the senate as well.
▶ 0:38:08Mr. Austin: You are correct, to address these facility issues, it will take a significant amount of investment over a period of time, 15 to 20 years.
▶ 0:38:16Chair Fischer: How can we ensure the proper balance between the number of projects that you need to do and that we can take on without putting too much strain on the agency and the personnel that you have? As you were showing me in my office, there is a lot to be done.
▶ 0:38:35Mr. Austin: There is a lot. This year our budget request includes over $600 million in line item construction projects, major facility projects, air units, roof, electro-switchgear, things like that. How do we balance that requirement? It's a difficult situation because we have to balance not only budget priorities which is what we are talking about today but also the impact to the congressional community.
▶ 0:39:00Mr. Austin: How much can we do well not making the primary mission of the agency which is to enable congressional operations, having that suffer. In addition to that, we have considerations with other agencies. How much staff do we have to bring in, temporary staff, contracted support. It's a balancing act of many factors that we work through. Engaging with our oversight committee and appropriations, having that ongoing discussion with leadership to make sure what is acceptable and what is possible matches.
▶ 0:39:31Mr. Austin: Certainly, the funding priorities are what we are trying to highlight by the deferred maintenance backlog that we are referring to.
▶ 0:39:37Chair Fischer: I know you are still working to complete the cannon building project. That is a 14-year phase renovation, close to a billion dollars. You testified at length about the need for a potential rayburn renovation and the amount of time, effort, funding that would entail. How is the agency preparing to balance equities among the various jurisdictions, particularly the senate office buildings and the capitol building over the coming years?
▶ 0:40:09Mr. Austin: We just had a big milestone last week, able to open the cannon courtyard, first time it's been renovated in the 1980's when they made it into a parking garage. It is now a open space for our visitors and staff. A beautiful sight to see. Talking about what we learn from the canon, we want to apply those lessons that we learned over that 14 years as this process has gone on to the future renovations, whether that be the rayburn or the russell.
▶ 0:40:39Mr. Austin: One of the lessons we learn is how to congressional operations tied so closely to operations is detrimental to both. More disruptive to congressional operations and the construction. The lesson we want to learn is taken into account things like swing space and mitigation factors, that we reduce the impact on members, as well as reduce the impact of the construction.
▶ 0:41:02Mr. Austin: As far as balancing across the agency, that is at the heart of what the capitol complex master plan is trying to do, lay it out holistically, so we can see the picture across campus, balanced by cost and access requirements.
▶ 0:41:15Chair Fischer: Thank you. Senator heinrich.
▶ 0:41:20Sen. Heinrich: Mr. austin, as you are aware, I am not a particularly big fan of the hart area renewal project, at least that isn't currently in vision. I'm concerned it doesn't make adequate physical or practical sense. You mention member engagement.
▶ 0:41:40Sen. Heinrich: I wanted to ask whether you have communicated directly with each of the senate offices that are going to be impacted by hart, not just in the first phase but across all the phases.
▶ 0:41:51Mr. Austin: Thank you for the question, senator. The hart program goes back all the way to late 2008, so a little more than 15 years that we have had some engagement with this. We have been supporting senate leadership and senate rules, administration on their outreach effort to member offices. We look forward to continuing that. I don't have a specific breakdown as far as all the phases but we have been doing that over the past month. Looking forward to continuing that engagement.
▶ 0:42:23Mr. Austin: We understand the construction impacts and the way that we phase these, the impact to members is front and center to operations. We want to make sure that we are being as transparent as possible.
▶ 0:42:33Sen. Heinrich: Having spoken to a number of folks beyond the first phase, I don't think there's an adequate understanding of what is being proposed. I would urge you to double down on that. Do you think adequate swing space has been identified to be able to manage the workflow across those phases?
▶ 0:42:52Mr. Austin: Swing space is always an issue with any major project especially one that impacts congressional operations. We want to ensure that is front and center to the project. We work closely with the senate oversight, to identify that swing space.
▶ 0:43:12Mr. Austin: My understanding is all of the swing space for phase one of the project has been identified, working through the rest of the phases of the project to identify adequate swing space to ensure no senator or senate staff is left without an office.
▶ 0:43:22Sen. Heinrich: Without going into what they are in this setting, have you considered alternative means to addressing underlying issues that precipitated hart in the first place?
▶ 0:43:35Mr. Austin: As you know, it's a program, not a specific project. There are several products associated with that. Being sensitive to the classification levels on this. We have looked at alternate items, certainly the senate sergeant at arms, capitol police, other mitigating measures. We have seen the work on 2nd street in the last couple months.
▶ 0:43:58Mr. Austin: As far as the program itself, we originally envisioned it as a two phase program which would have been more disruptive but shorter. We have looked at doing an eight-phase program to minimize impact to members. That is currently sitting with senate leadership or a decision. The product has not been given formal approval as of now.
▶ 0:44:16Sen. Heinrich: Mr. newlan, I understand the library is exploring how artificial intelligence can support its work really across the institution. You have proposed an ai enterprise platform to create a dedicated, secure cloud environment where the library can test and develop, deploy new applications in a secure and controlled setting. Why is this the right time to invest in an ai enterprise platform?
▶ 0:44:45Mr. Newlan: Thank you, senator. Since I have become acting library and, I have made a one of our top priorities. I'm a librarian by training, so I have spent literally five decades at the library, helping to implement new technologies that would deliver better services to congress and to the american people.
▶ 0:45:09Mr. Newlan: We have reached the point where our very talented staff who have explored many options for work processes that we can improve and service to congress, that we have hit a roadblock because we don't have a secure platform to do this. I will give you one example. The congressional research service. There is an enormous opportunity in manipulating big data across all policy areas of crs.
▶ 0:45:40Mr. Newlan: With an ai platform, this would give us the ability to do it more efficiently, more securely, and to deliver the data more quickly. That is one of the reasons.
▶ 0:45:52Sen. Heinrich: Can you drill down a little bit more, give a more specific example of how we might be able to benefit from manipulating large data sets?
▶ 0:46:04Mr. Newlan: Yes. Particularly in areas of domestic social policy, social security data that we use to prepare a report for congress. That is one example. If I may, I like to give you another example of the way that we, crs would like to harness ai, and that is with the bill summary backlog we have for congress.gov.
▶ 0:46:36Mr. Newlan: Thanks to the initiative of Dr. karen don friede, our crs director, we have a plan in place to address this. This congress, over 14,000 bills have been introduced. This really exceeds the capacity of our 12 staff to manage in terms of researching, analyzing, summarizing, and publishing bill summaries.
▶ 0:47:02Mr. Newlan: The ai platform would give us the ability to address a substantial backlog. We would really like the opportunity to implement this because we think it would really speed up the process. We could get summaries online as quickly as possible. I think it's really an exciting application of ai. We are very eager to move forward.
▶ 0:47:28Chair Fischer: Thank you, senator heinrich. Senator rounds, you are recognized.
▶ 0:47:37Sen. Rounds: Thank you, madam chair. First of all, I think you are correct moving forward with regards to advancement using artificial intelligence. The ranking member and I are cochairs of the senate ai caucus . We have been working on a number of different initiatives over the last three years regarding the path forward. I am curious as to the path you have chosen with regard to a specific ai platform.
▶ 0:48:07Sen. Rounds: Can you may be flesh that out a little bit for us? What I'm curious about, we currently have multiple commercial ai platforms available, starting out with the well-known chatgpt, and moving from there into others. You have heard of the department of defense and their challenges with genesis and so forth. I'm curious, can you differentiate what you are talking about from simply applying, what current members of congress might have access to themselves?
▶ 0:48:37Mr. Newlan: Senator, thank you for asking the question. You mentioned chatgpt. I just had a conversation with sam altman, the ceo of chatgpt, about this exact issue. For us, obviously, we are approaching ai very cautiously because we have to guarantee that everything that we give you is accurate, authoritative, and nonpartisan.
▶ 0:49:10Mr. Newlan: This platform, one of the most important aspects of it is the confidentiality, the way that we could designed it to ensure that all the data, all the legislative data, since we are the biggest repository of legislative data, that this data would be secured, that we could process in the way that we need to deliver to congress.
▶ 0:49:34Sen. Rounds: So you would be perhaps contracting with one of the hyper scalars to actually develop a product that would be available for our members use?
▶ 0:49:47Mr. Newlan: It certainly could be. If that is the wish of congress, we would certainly be willing to take the lead in terms of designing a platform that could serve the entire congress.
▶ 0:50:02Sen. Rounds: I apologize. I am curious, though, as a matter of fact, senator heinrich and I have been working on ways in which we can set up literally sandboxes where different executive branch agencies could test their versions of nai product in conjunction with perhaps, in some cases, regulated industries, so about the industry and the regulator
▶ 0:50:33Sen. Rounds: Would both have an understanding of how an ai system would work. Do you have appropriate authority to be able to establish something along that line or do you need authorities created by congress for you to do that at this time?
▶ 0:50:46Mr. Newlan: My understanding is that we do have the authority. I would need to explore that a little further to give you a authoritative answer. It is certainly something that we would be willing to pursue if that is the desire.
▶ 0:51:01Mr. Newlan: One of the things that I think makes the library qualified to do this is, we manage so many shared services for the legislative branch, financial management data system, gis system. We would like to take that knowledge and apply it to this idea for the platform.
▶ 0:51:25Sen. Rounds: I don't think there is any question that the use of ai to agentize asserting a different databases is important, and congress should not be left behind in that respect. I appreciate what you're trying to do, look forward to work with you on that particular subject. Mr. austin, I'm curious. Second street is an area where there's been construction, repairs. Clearly there's been a disruption in traffic.
▶ 0:51:52Sen. Rounds: Can you share about what the purpose of that was? I'm not familiar what the purpose was perhaps other than stopping some truck traffic in the area. Can you talk about what your involvement is with regard to the construction project?
▶ 0:52:06Mr. Austin: Senator, you are correct, the overall rationale, the threat case was not for public consumption, but happy to share the specific threat. But it is controlled traffic, specifically large vehicle traffic like trucks. We put in mobile vehicle barriers to establish the checkpoints along with U.S. capitol police immediately.
▶ 0:52:32Mr. Austin: We are putting in more permanent but still temporary, no digging into the ground vehicle barriers that are going in right now. In the future, we are working with the senate started at arms, capitol police, putting in some more permanent control measures for that stretch of street.
▶ 0:52:51Sen. Rounds: Is the intent to shut that portion of 2nd street down?
▶ 0:52:55Mr. Newlen: It is to control it and shut it down when needed. So we don't have unrestricted vehicles or unbidden vehicles going down the street.
▶ 0:53:03Sen. Rounds: Thank you you, madam chair.
▶ 0:53:06Chair Fischer: Thank you, senator rounds. Senator husted, you are recognized.
▶ 0:53:13Sen. Sheehy: Stood thank you, Mr. chair. Senator heinrich, senator rounds Mr. newlen talked a lot about ai already. I intended to do that as well, so hopefully I will take this conversation a little further. You mentioned you had a conversation with sam altman about the way that the library of congress can integrate ai into your work.
▶ 0:53:42Sen. Sheehy: Could you enlighten us more as to what you may have talked about, what those recommendations were?
▶ 0:53:48Mr. Newlen: Yes. We actually had a very high-level conversation about it. It was a great opportunity to talk to him about, what he sees for the future of ai. I talked with him about our initial efforts to use ai for applications that would provide better service to the congress and to the american people.
▶ 0:54:18Mr. Newlen: We really didn't drill down into the details but I said that we were very excited, a great opportunity to talk to somebody that is on the bleeding edge of this technology.
▶ 0:54:30Sen. Husted: I can tell you what his ai told me just a few seconds ago when I asked what it would recommend to the library of congress. It said make the library a trusted ai layer for american history and knowledge, use ai to unlock inaccessible archives, build ai-guided research assistance for congress and the public, which you have talked about is important, part of what you are recommending.
▶ 0:55:00Sen. Husted: Becoming a national leader on ai for preservation. Finally, create standards for authenticity and providence. Those are the five recommendations.
▶ 0:55:11Mr. Newlen: May I add one? I would like to add to our national service for the blind and print disabled. We have had a lot of conversations about ways in which ai can support our talking book and braille production, particularly interpreting text for the talking books.
▶ 0:55:38Mr. Newlen: I would like that -- your description is very helpful. It is something that we can accomplish.
▶ 0:55:48Sen. Husted: What you are talking about is essentially creating a closed system for the library of congress, correct, on what you do? The whole operation would be within a closed system, which would make it a much more trusted system, is that correct interpretation?
▶ 0:56:09Mr. Newlen: Clearly, the security is our number one concern. In terms of closed, we will look forward to opportunities to share data.
▶ 0:56:22Sen. Husted: Closed, meaning that you will eliminate the hallucinations and things that can come from on trusted sources. He would create a trusted source.
▶ 0:56:32Mr. Newlen: Glad that you mentioned that because that is a big concern of ours. One of the things that we do is look at commercial products. I will just give you one example, one that we looked at that was a big failure. It was a commercial product for legal assistants from a major provider, information provider.
▶ 0:56:58Mr. Newlen: Crs took questions, used the system, we had a trial, trial period. The system repeatedly failed and did exactly what you said. It produced hallucinations, wrong case sites, things that would be totally unacceptable for us to provide to you.
▶ 0:57:23Mr. Newlen: Obviously, we want to continue to look at commercial products that might save us time in terms of development, but at the same time, we are very cautious to ensure that we are always providing you with authoritative information because that is what we hang our hat on.
▶ 0:57:41Sen. Husted: I would just conclude by using the word trust. I think the word trust is the most scarce element of all the information that we have out there right now, in the world, can we trust it, is it reliable, is it something that we can base our credibility on as a resource ?
▶ 0:58:07Sen. Husted: I would just encourage you to lean into that as a goal, trusted resource. In a world where trust is scarce, that you could be a trusted resource to people to rely on. Thank you, madam chair.
▶ 0:58:27Chair Fischer: Thank you, senator husted. Mr. austin, I understand the campuswide deferred maintenance backlog is already well over $2.6 billion. If we continue to delay on this, it is critical infrastructure work that is out there.
▶ 0:58:49Chair Fischer: What does that mean in terms of risk, also what about the future cost, what would we be looking at?
▶ 0:58:59Mr. Austin: Thank you for the question. Certainly something that we've been wrestling with that we talk about scarce funding. Quickly, it is useful to break this down into the three lanes of funding that we look at. We have our annual appropriation which is usually things like our operating costs, our pay for our employees come utility costs, consumables used throughout the campus. We have our multiyear funding, facility projects like you spoke about earlier with roof repairs, switch gears, air handling.
▶ 0:59:30Mr. Austin: Then we have our capital renewal, know your funding. Things that we do with cannon, working with the rayburn program, also in the future looking at russell. That is the way the three things break down. If we are held to flat levels are held to flat levels or slightly rising levels I'm where that hits us artist for the annual was with inflation. Just one example, over the past four years, the price for utilities has gone up about 30%.
▶ 0:59:57Mr. Austin: Fortunately, we've been able to offset some of that with reduced consumption, so only a 60% increase in cost, but that has been an increase over the past four years. When it comes to projects, what does that mean as far as deferred maintenance? It comes down to risk. Our staff has done a phenomenal job keeping these facilities operating well beyond the service life of the components that rests within them.
▶ 1:00:22Mr. Austin: Example in the canon office building, rayburn office building, we have air handlers that just turned 60. We have issues like that all across the campus. Even though our team does a great job of doing the day-to-day maintenance on it, it is a risk of having these one of these major components fail. As we spoke about earlier, there is not sufficient swing space to move members of congress, representatives into a different office quickly, easily, or without disruption.
▶ 1:00:52Mr. Austin: In terms of cost are products vary because they are different. A good rule of thumb is they will increase 5% to 10% per year for every year they are delayed. It is increased cost year over year. If we have a product that's gone through the design phase come to sweden for construction dollars, we may have to redo the design or do a refresh, and that will cost money. It doesn't go to where the deferred maintenance. So there is risk and also the increased cost.
▶ 1:01:18Chair Fischer: Thank you Mr. newlen, over the past decade, with significant support from the subcommittee, the library has embarked on modernization initiatives in almost every area to achieve the strategic goals of greater access and customer service for all americans.
▶ 1:01:38Chair Fischer: Can you explain how those goals serve the library's mission, and how does the fy 27 request further the library's mission and stated goals?
▶ 1:01:51Mr. Newlen: Yes, indeed. I like to give you one example in our budget, something that will improve access where we have a big problem now. That is with all of our websites, web applications that would help us during the day.
▶ 1:02:18Mr. Newlen: Often, all of our websites, copyright, congress.gov get huge surges of people accessing.
▶ 1:02:26Chair Fischer: About how many people a day access the websites, do you know offhand?
▶ 1:02:31Mr. Newlen: I would make up the number but I don't the guy should do that. I will happily find that out for you. I do know that it is enough that it creates, there are times where you are going to have to wait in queue to get in. That has happened to me a number of times. I like to test it periodically.
▶ 1:02:59Mr. Newlen: This cloud-based web application that is just over 2 million I believe would help us eliminate those surges and ensure -- again, that is a small example, but that is the kind of thing that we are thinking about in terms of access. Something else we have just done, in fact, just opened this week to great success, is our new facility called the source. Specifically designed for children and teens.
▶ 1:03:31Mr. Newlen: This was initially a part of Dr. hayden's vision. It's been a pleasure to finish this up. It teaches children and teens all about a library of congress, how to do research in a large research organization. It is so much fun. The first day, we had 1100 children cycled through. School groups are signing up.
▶ 1:04:00Mr. Newlen: It is really very, very exciting. I look forward to showing it to you. It is something that I hope you will tell your constituents about when they come to washington. Just having our digital, all of the items, rare and unique items that are digitized, that are available on lsc.gov, we continue to pursue that.
▶ 1:04:32Mr. Newlen: This provides access to things that people normally would not have access to. We also have teaching for primary resources, a wonderful program that trains teachers to use a lot of our primary sources in their curriculum. I could go on and on.
▶ 1:04:48Chair Fischer: Thank you. I would like my last question to be to you come Mr. newlen, give you the opportunity so that you can highlight any specific programs or exhibits that you have planned, ready for america's 250th anniversary.
▶ 1:05:10Mr. Newlen: Thank you for asking the question because this is our daily agenda because it is so exciting to celebrate america, but we consider america's greatest cultural institution. I did mention our declaration's promise, the major exhibit we are opening in our treasures gallery.
▶ 1:05:38Mr. Newlen: Again, I can provide a whole list of unique things we are pulling out of the vault that we usually don't display.
▶ 1:05:43Chair Fischer: Where can americans go to access that on your website and be able to see everything that you have planned?
▶ 1:05:52Mr. Newlen: In fact, there is already a site where people can go. Go to our home page, and you are directed to a page that gives you background on 250. That exhibit is exciting. We have another exhibit coming up, celebrating the 50th anniversary of the american life center.
▶ 1:06:19Mr. Newlen: We are doing an exhibit on that, having material, congressionally mandated directive to create the american folklife center. We had amazing collections from every state. We are looking forward to displaying those.
▶ 1:06:31Chair Fischer: Sounds great. Thank you. Senator heinrich is going to elbow me here. I have taken up too much time. I wanted to end my questions on the positive and inspiring note. Thank you.
▶ 1:06:49Sen. Heinrich: Mr. newlen, tell me more about the source, how it works, whether it is in person, digital, both, and then how you are doing outreach to school groups that would potentially use that resource.
▶ 1:07:06Mr. Newlen: Yes. The source has various kind of stations that orient children and teens to all the different collections of the library of congress. With tourists coming into the library, they come into the jefferson building, and now with our treasures gallery, that is a wonderful way to show our treasures which we never had before.
▶ 1:07:37Mr. Newlen: For children and teens, we have never had anything that would engage them. We have so much that does. When you see the source, I think you'll agree. It is consisted of various stations. I have to admit, it has technologies I was not even familiar with. Ways that you can look at restored films from the library of congress. They can choose what they want to look at.
▶ 1:08:04Mr. Newlen: They can pull hollinger boxes of material that have focused material on library of congress collections. These various stations are just incredibly engaging. The one that I love the most is an old-fashioned, it looks like an old-fashioned movie projector. You can choose these discs. You put it on the projector, and suddenly little movies appear.
▶ 1:08:35Mr. Newlen: You can choose from a whole range of different things. My observation is children just love this. It is one of the things that we did that was so important. We used children to help develop this. So far, it looks like that was a good investment. In terms of how we publicize it to school groups, we have a part of the library that does outreach to school groups.
▶ 1:09:06Mr. Newlen: We welcome any group that is coming to washington to schedule ahead. We would love to have them come in and experience this. We hope it will turn children and teens onto research, and to know the breadth and depth of our collections, but also with the hope that they will come back to the library again and again. We have also prepared a small booklet that helps children navigate it.
▶ 1:09:36Mr. Newlen: As you can tell, we are just very, very excited about it. When you have an opportunity, we would be eager to show it to you.
▶ 1:09:43Sen. Heinrich: I'm going to return to ai for just a minute. As you are thinking about that platform, how do you ensure that you are able to keep pace with the changes in such a rapidly developing environment?
▶ 1:10:01Mr. Newlen: We have a group within the library, our ai working group, that is constantly surveying the ai environment in terms of new products, new processes, new contractors, industries involved. This is something that is ongoing. We also consult with other parts of the legislative branch.
▶ 1:10:33Mr. Newlen: And then just the greater ai community to stay up to date. We have a really talented and savvy staff that I believe has kept up to date. That is why I come back to this platform, why this is so important to us right now. Because if we lose the fiscal year, we are going to be behind. I am so impressed with the work at our staff has done already.
▶ 1:11:03Mr. Newlen: Crs has actually delivered five cloud-hosted tools using ai. I think this is just the tip of the iceberg of things that we can do that will free our staff to do the higher level analytical work that you, I think, value the most.
▶ 1:11:25Sen. Heinrich: Mr. austin, can you walk us through who the constituencies were that you consulted in developing the capitol complex master plan?
▶ 1:11:37Mr. Austin: Thank you, senator, for the question. We've been engaged with both committees on the house and senate side, engage with senate leadership, engage the house and senate appropriations as we consult through this. Ccmp has been a long time coming. A few false starts 10 years ago trying to do the base. I get it, it's a big, thorny problem. We talked earlier about the investment that is required to do that program. We have been working with our oversight and appropriations committees.
▶ 1:12:08Mr. Austin: We are going to need to keep engaging the congressional community to understand the needs of the campus, as well as what we will be allowed to do, especially as we design these various aspects of this. This will be a years long engagement. The programs that we have, the major components, 15 to 20 years as we are programming out right now. Spoke about the investments just in those major components which is the house office building, senate office building, U.S. capitol police, resiliency.
▶ 1:12:40Mr. Austin: Just those four tranches is between eight and $16 billion over 20 years. That will require significant engagement, discussions, significant design. It was our conversation we are having over the coming years.
▶ 1:12:51Sen. Heinrich: Thank you, madam chair.
▶ 1:12:54Chair Fischer: Thank you come senator heinrich. I want to thank the panel today for your good comments and also answering our questions thoroughly. If we have a question for the record, I would ask the committee members get those into us. We will pass them on to you. Hopefully, you will return those in a fairly expedient manner. With that, I declare the subcommittee hearing closed.