I want to thank you all for your continued support and for this opportunity to testify on behalf of the Smithsonian. Second, the Smithsonian's success over the past nearly 156 years has been the result of funding from the public and at-.
ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE
IMPACT OF SEPTEMBER 11
We are now putting the staff in place to deal with these issues so I am confident we can deal with them. So we understand, and I think that's an important point you have to continue to make within the administration, at OMB and with people in the WTiite House, that we've neglected some of these things, and either we have to figure out of a strategy for restoration or we.
FUNDING FROM THE PRIVATE SECTOR
We are very encouraged by the progress we have made so far as this is all under contract and will be open in December. The funds we are requesting from the committee are the funds needed to prepare the collection.
NATIONAL MUSEUM OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN-MALL MUSEUM
SMITHSONIAN AFFILIATIONS
We charge them a very, very small amount to join the program, a few thousand dollars, and then all the loans are free. All the objects could never be displayed because this is the most magnificent collection of indigenous, if not ethnographic, objects in the entire history of the world and collected.
AFFILIATIONS PROGRAM
SECURITY ENHANCEMENTS
Our request for fiscal year 2003 includes an increase to continue to staff the magnetometers and x-ray machines and to purchase additional items such as permanent barriers. I especially want to congratulate you and your predecessors on the way the Museum of the American Indian is being handled.
CORPORATE SPONSORSHIP
I'm very aware of the artifacts that have been preserved in New York that have been curated over a long period of time by, as you said, one person.
We find more and more that corporations provide a fraction of the 30 percent, whatever that fraction may be, they get the biggest role. Then we don't have to stoop so low that others come in and sell out aspects of the institution, not just to get their name on the marquees, but more and more.
SMITHSONIAN POLICY ON CORPORATE SPONSORSHIP
If the corporate part is the smallest part, they certainly play the biggest role lately, don't they. The Regents of the Smithsonian have long since made provision in their pohcies for recognition of donors who.
PUBLIC POLICY ON CORPORATE SPONSORSHIP
Congress says to build this facility out here and get the money for it from private sources. I think we're demeaning an institution that means a lot to a lot of people and we're doing it, in my words, in a very crude, commercial way.
Public sources, because we don't want to take money from public sources, they want it all to be private. However, you find yourself in a place where you have to manage this kind of thing.
NATIONAL ACADEMY OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REPORT ON BACKLOGGED MAINTENANCE
It's fully professionalizing the function, and while it's not easy and it's not going to take overnight, we're moving forward with energy to focus on maintenance, to focus on reliability-centric maintenance, so that t 'catch problems before they happen and take the opportunity to get all the resources. There are 33 million visits to these museums in the Capital and people need not be afraid of falling paint and plaster; they must be in awe when they see the Star Spangled Banner or the table on which Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence.
NATIONAL ZOOLOGICAL PARK
Basically, we've taken all of their recommendations, including one that was done informally that has us with a new Director of Facilities, William Brubaker, who is here today and who was the Director of Facilities for NASA.
BACKLOG MAINTENANCE AT THE ZOO
Along with this, there are only 30,000 Asian elephants left on earth, mostly in Burma and Nepal; in the entire captivity, only 30 female Asian elephants are of mating age, and there is a problem with these.
NATIONAL ZOOLOGICAL PARK RENEWAL PLAN
We can patch this up and we will help this as it falls apart. We have to deal with this area and the sloths for the first five years and then we have to be able to hit the seal area.
COST OF THE ZOO FIVE-YEAR RENEWAL PLAN
NATIONAL ZOOLOGICAL PARK — IMPROVED EXHIBITS
The last sign shows as far as elephants are concerned: again we are not going to try to create Burma in our exhibition space. This elephant has turned on a shower for himself and we are very interested in the interaction between elephants and elephants and between elephants and people. We're thinking about giving these elephants showers that they can turn on or off for people on a hot day and investigating what that means.
VISITATION AT THE ZOO
If you think about the biggest problem facing conservation around the world, it is the interaction between humans and animals. One could say that it is a conflict, but one could also say that there is a solution if you understand the interaction. The idea is that as we renew the zoo, we also want to ask some questions, find some answers, make it interactive and make it fun.
VETERINARY SERVICES
He has a piece of pvc pipe, we do a lot of training, they learn how to suck grapes at one point, but now we have a new problem, they are blowing it. He finally gave her 6x6 logs to pull her teeth out and she worked it out on her own.” always have to arm her.
NATIONAL ZOOLOGICAL PARK KIDS' FARM
NATIONAL ZOOLOGICAL PARK CORPORATE SPONSORSHIP
34; to whom much is given, much is required." We must encourage people who benefit from our free enterprise system and profit to give back to worthy causes. People around the world want what America has, largely because of our free enterprise system The vast majority of people interested here are doing the right thing and we should encourage it and never discourage it.
FUNDING FOR RESEARCH
Let me ask a question about the issue of the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial that is happening in my part of the country. The letter reads in part: “The secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, criticized for leading the museum into a new era of commercialization and corporate sponsorship, was on... In an open letter to the chief justice, the group alleged that the Smithsonian leadership was unwilling or unable to carry out the Smithsonian's mission or safeguard its integrity.
COMMERCIALIZATION OF SMITHSONIAN
The letter, signed by researchers from the nation's top universities, authors and at least one former director of a major Smithsonian museum, accused management of allowing corporations and individual sponsors to have what the letter argued was too much say in the content of exhibits they sponsored and for to allow companies to place their logos on Smithsonian buildings, exhibit halls, and other spaces. If this is allowed to continue, the Smithsonian will become much like a shopping mall, with virtually every inch devoted to the promotion of a corporation or its products." Is your objection that it is a corporation, or would you have the same objections if it was a person who, through good intentions, gave $100 million to the Smithsonian, and you wish there was no name associated with paying for that exhibit.
We all have a right to an opinion in this country and I fully respect that. Absolutely, and that's what I'm trying to do, express an opinion that was not expressed here, but nevertheless reflects the opinion of a large number of Americans. This is reflected in the letter you mentioned, as well as editorials in the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the big one.
SCIENCE COMMISSION
What happened over the years was that as the Smithsonian expanded programmatically and decided to do new things, there was less money available for other things. So if you look at the research functions at the Smithsonian, because of the expansion into other activities, there are fewer people doing that with federally allocated dollars than there were years ago.
PROPOSED TRANSFER OF SCIENCE PROGRAMS TO NSF
HIRING FREEZE AND REALLOCATION OF FTES
ADDITIONAL COMMITTEE QUESTIONS
In selecting Secretary Small, the Board of Regents signaled its intent to provide the institution with stability in both management and finances, and Secretary Small has been very open from the beginning about the need to evaluate the institution's programs and requirements against available resources and core missions. Answer: The Regents charged the Commission with the following: "For 155 years, the Smithsonian Institution has had its mission as 'Increase and Disseminate Knowledge.' Given the important issues facing the scientific world today, the existing level of institutional financial and physical resources, the strength of the Institution's staff and its collections , as they should.occupy 62% of the space or about 95,000 square feet.
In order to balance these competing needs, the Smithsonian carefully evaluated its life force requirements for its existing facilities, and developed a capital program request for FY2003 that will address urgent RR&A work and provide funds needed to meet the Federal requirement for construction of the NMA museum to complete. Similar to the Corps of Engineers, Naval Facilities Command and the General Services Administration, the Smithsonian proposes to include personnel expenses in the home field as a capital cost.
SUMMARY OF FEDERAL SPENDING FOR ERP PROJECT STAGES
Response: The institution carefully refined the 2003 budget to attempt to balance the amount authorized for inclusion in the President's budget and still advance key institutional priorities, such as repairing facilities, opening new museums, and installing modern management and financial systems .
QUESTIONS FROM CONGRESSMAN MORAN
Answer: All federally employed scientists receive annual performance evaluations and are also regularly evaluated through a peer review process. Special species include the Guam tortoise, desert tortoise, sea turtles, black-footed ferret, Florida panther and various migratory birds. The National Zoo's Center for Conservation and Research is actively involved in the conservation of desert tortoises in the eastern Mojave Desert and produces black-footed ferrets for reintroduction in the American West. The Smithsonian offers state-of-the-art facilities, including molecular laboratories, ultra-cold genetic repositories, and marine research facilities in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans from which state-of-the-art research in the tropics is conducted.
QUESTIONS FROM CONGRESSMAN DICKS FY 2003 Budget for Science Programs
FY million (including $665.3 million in endowment funds, with most of the balance reflecting funds restricted by their donors to specific purposes). These additional positions are reflected in the FY 2003 request and comprise the majority of this increase. The remaining new positions included in the FY 2003 request are primarily related to preparation for the opening of the National Museum of the American Indian on the Mall (36 FTEs) and the National Air and Space Museum Steven F. De institution would not object to other approaches that achieve these objectives, but maintaining the budget that provides -$14.1 million. in the 2003 financial year, budgetary authority should be maintained by whatever new approach the committee chooses.
