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Press Briefing by O.M.B. Director Alice Rivlin, Senior Policy Advisor to the Vice President Elaine Kamarck, Secretary of Interior Bruce Babbitt, F.E.M.A. Administrator James Lee Witt, N.A.S.A. Administrator Dan Goldin, S.B.A. Administrator Phil Lader and F.C.C. Commissioner Reed Hundt
The Briefing Room
2:00 P.M. EST
MR. MCCURRY: Good afternoon, everybody. I think many of you attended our event earlier today, but I wanted to have some of the key participants to give you a little more detail. So I've asked Alice Rivlin, who is the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, and Elaine Kamarck, who is Senior Policy Advisor to the Vice President and has been working with the Vice President on reinventing government to start off today; and then also to introduce some of the other agency heads that will be participating.
Secretary Babbitt is here from the Interior Department. James Lee Witt, who is Director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency; Daniel Goldin, the Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration; Phil Lader, who is the Administrator at the Small Business Administration; and also separately, to talk a little bit about the proceeds from the Spectrum allocation, Reed Hundt, who is Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission is here.
I'll start by turning it over to Director Rivlin, and she can kind of pass the baton accordingly.
DIRECTOR RIVLIN: Thanks, Mike.
This is the next stage of our continuing effort to make government work better and cost less. And I think it's an exciting stage and you're going to hear the details from four agencies today about what they are doing to reinvent themselves, make their operations more effective and less costly.
You will remember that in December we announced two major related things. First was that we were putting in the President's 1996 budget a middle class tax cut for families with children, deductions for education and training, and broadening saving incentives. The total cost of that package was estimated to be $63 billion over five years -- much less than the Republican tax cut which goes to much higher income people -- but still something that had to be paid for. And we announced that we were paying for it with savings derived from accelerating our efforts which were already well underway to reinvent government; that we would reexamine each agency one by one. And this is a painstaking process.
Each agency would look at their activities to estimate which ones could be better done by the states, no longer needed to be done by federal government; which by the private sector; and which ones could be done more effectively and more efficiently with fewer people.
In December, we chose five agencies to feature, but we promised that there would be more. And here we are. We are back with four more agencies that have done this intensive look at themselves. And the themes that you will hear as the agencies talk about themselves are, first, that we will be relying on the states more, but not just giving them money and letting them do what they want. These will be partnerships with the states, and we will be working with the states on performance standards. A very good example of that is in the FEMA effort, which James Lee Witt will tell you about in a minute.
We will be relying more on the private sector. The Small Business Administration will have more of the effort to make loans to small business carried out by the banks, and with less subsidy from the SBA. We will cut back to core functions. A good local example of that is the Interior Department, no longer running parkways. They do parks, not roads. And we will turn certain parkways over to the states. And perhaps most importantly, consolidating and getting rid of duplication. Very importantly, consolidating field offices, and the biggest numbers of all in the space agency in NASA, major consolidations.
This is all about more effective government, not just about money. But the savings are real and large from these four agencies, about $13 billion to be saved over five years. And for those of you who were at the President's and the Vice President's presentation this morning at the FCC, is, in addition to the large check that Reed Hundt presented to the President for the proceeds of the Spectrum auction, already counted in the budget, but a hefty $7.7 billion.
Elaine?
MS. KAMARCK: I will briefly add that we invite you today to contrast the Clinton-Gore administration's efforts to reinvent government, our efforts to cut overhead, to cut unnecessary and obsolete bureaucracy, to the efforts going on, on Capitol Hill. We also invite you to contrast our tax cut, which we believe is targeted, directed to the middle-class, to the tax cut on Capitol Hill.
We believe there is a right way to cut government and a wrong way. And we believe that we are doing it the right way. We are doing it looking for obsolescence. We're looking for waste. We're looking for government that works better and costs less. We are not looking to cut school lunches, to cut the WIC program, to cut Women, Infants and Children food supplements, et cetera. So we invite you to make that contrast as you listen to the heads of the agencies who are here today.
I'd like to start by -- and I think everyone will say a short word about reinventions in their agencies, and then we'll open up to questions. I'd like to invite, first up, Secretary Bruce Babbitt, Department of Interior.
SECRETARY BABBITT: Our reinvention process really turned into an exercise in examination and renewal. And I would illustrate very briefly with two examples. One is the discovery of essentially obsolescent function, and the other was the recasting of a series of functions which can be handled by other groups more efficiently. The examples I speak of led in this proposal -- lead and will lead to the outright abolition of two of the Interior Department agencies.
The first one to be abolished is the Office of Territorial and International Affairs. Now, there was a time when America had a colonial empire. At the end of World War II, the United States came up with a tremendous constellation of small territories that ran all the way across the Pacific to the shores of Asia. And for some reason lost in history, the Secretary of the Interior became the colonial overlord of the Pacific. (Laughter.) Well, be that as it may, those Pacific territories are now largely gone, on the road to commonwealth status independence, a variety of other tracks. And looking about, it became clear to me my days as the colonial secretary were very limited, and that has led to a proposal to abolish that function.
The other agency being abolished is the minerals management service. This exercise was really a discovery of some more efficient alternatives -- minerals management services, basically in charge of collecting rather large sums of oil royalties from a variety of public lands, both on-shore and off-shore.
As a result of analyzing those functions, we found that it's quite likely that the states can handle most of those functions for on-shore oil and gas leases, and that offer will accordingly be made to the states. And the royalty streams that come from the leasing process, particularly the off-shore leasing in the Gulf of Mexico and elsewhere, in many cases can be sold; a continuing out- year royalty stream can actually be auctioned off for its current value, leading to a much more efficient process -- collection in the out-years. That analysis led to a proposal to abolish that agency by spinning the functions off in some measure to the states, in other aspects to the private sector.
So a much reduced secretary with two less stars in his constellation happily joins this process.
DIRECTOR RIVLIN: Thank you. NASA Administrator Dan Goldin.
ADMINISTRATOR GOLDIN: Two years ago, the President and the Vice President asked NASA to reinvent itself as part of the initial reinventing government activity. They asked us to do more with less, and that's exactly what we set out to do. During the first phase, we have cut the NASA budget by just about 30 percent, and in a five-year planning period from '96 to 2000, we had taken out $35 billion from the budget. We had done this mainly by terminating programs that were no longer relevant, but terminating programs that were not managed properly.
We also were restructuring programs, and the keystone for that was the space station. We redesigned the space station, and we tried new management techniques where we took the government out of the middle and we transferred the program to private industry. It is wonderful. We had 10 years of debate and paper, and this last year we built almost 40,000 pounds of hardware, and we're 32 months away from launch.
We experimented and we learned. Recently, as part of reinventing government, too, the President and the Vice President asked us to take the next step, and that was to restructure the agency. We have an infrastructure that was designed in the late '50s before modern information, wide-band digital communication systems and information systems. And they asked us to take advantage and take the space technologies to the administrative functions we have on the ground, and we were 35 years behind, we found. So we're going to consolidate and eliminate overlap. We had a choice to make: Would we start terminating more programs, or would we do the hard thing and that is, restructure the agency and consolidate our infrastructure and ready ourselves for the 21st century? We chose the latter, and we do believe we're going to have a very vital agency.
Just as one case in point, in the early '90s, it cost an average of $600 million to build a spacecraft; right now today, it costs $200 million. Instead of taking an average of eight years, our average scientific spacecraft is taking four, and we are going to have a program that inspires America, gets cutting-edge technology, and makes the agency relevant to the future economy of this country.
Before I close, I would just like to make one clarification. In this morning's paper, there was a reference to some 55,000 jobs. Those are not government jobs. It's a summation of government and industry jobs. Secondly, it goes back to the very beginning of reinventing government, so it incorporates the phase that we have already gone through. So this phase is about one quarter of what we have already done to put the numbers into perspective. We don't have all the details and I'll be able to answer questions in a moment.
MS. KAMARCK: SBA Administrator Phil Lader.
ADMINISTRATOR LADER: SBA's reinvention certainly hasn't begun today. You've heard the President refer to the Low Doc program, where the voluminous applications for loans under $100,000 were reduced to one page. There's been more than a doubling of the number of SBA approved since the year before the President was elected to where we are today. We announced a fast track program a few weeks ago in which we are essentially letting the banks take an equal share in a pilot program of the exposure on these loans, but letting them do the paperwork and take the responsibility there.
Over this past two years, under the work of my predecessor and our Deputy Administrator Cassandra Pulley, who's here, there's been a terrific effort of moving people from headquarters into the field where the rubber meets the road.
So as a result of all that, SBA today, as I like to refer to the Oldsmobile ad -- is not your fathers's SBA. At the same time, there's a need to prepare it for another century to make it even more efficient. And the theme that we're using with this today, with all of our 7,000 bank partners and with our constituents and our employees around the country, is that we are essentially stretching taxpayer dollars further.
And the way we're doing that is in four principle themes -- first, by reducing the government's cost of small business financing by increasing the amount of private capital made available to small businesses. We're doing that by reducing the subsidy, the government subsidy of the small business loans to zero, doing that by establishing fees for borrowers and for the banks.
Secondly, we're consolidating field operations by making greater use of public-private partnerships. That includes about 7,000 bank and non-bank commercial lenders, 900 small business development centers around the country, using 13,000 volunteers in the SCORE program for retired executives, to allow us to get the regional offices and collocate them with district offices that otherwise reduce our field presence around the country.
Third, we're going to centralize our processing. Right now, processing of loans is done in all these 106 locations around the country, and as many commercial institutions are doing. By concentrating them, I think we can approve the accuracy and the customer service as well.
And, finally, we're going to be relocating from headquarters to the field some of our back office operations, like accounting. By doing these in a variety of ways, we'll be saving the taxpayers $1.2 billion over five years, which is 32 percent of our budget over that period.
DIRECTOR WITT: Good afternoon. First, FEMA disaster cost has been rising. We've been trying to look at how we can streamline the disaster programs, what we can do to bring the states' capability up to the level they need to be to meet the risk that they face in each state. So what we've done, gone in to look at each state do a risk assessment, establish performance partnership standards with that state, an agreement, multi-year agreement signed by the President and the governor of that state, bring their capability up to the level that it needs to be to meet the risks that they face in each state, because each state's risk is different than other states.
Also, we're looking at self-insurance or insurance for public buildings -- kind of to phase-in over a five-year period. If that had been in place now, like a $5 per capita over the past six years, it would have saved $2 billion in disaster funds in six years. So we'll be working with the states as a partner in implementing and developing these programs. And also, we'll be working with authorized committees on the Hill to do everything we can to cut disaster costs and streamline FEMA in the future.
COMMISSIONER HUNDT: I'd like to thank you all for helping me celebrate not only the FCC's role in reinvention of government, but also this memorable date in history, the anniversary 111 years ago of the first long distance telephone call; I assume that's why you're all here. It was from New York to Boston, it lasted an hour and a half. A flood cut the cable after that. There was no FEMA, there was nothing to do, and the telephone industry was delayed for decades. (Laughter.)
In the future, these calls are far more likely to be made by wireless communications than through these cables, and that is, in significant part, because of the entrepreneurship of American industry and because of these auctions that we were happy to mark today by giving the President a symbolic check for $7.7 billion. The Federal Communications Commission was very proud to play its role. I emphasized to the President the word "commission" as I handed him this check to try to suggest something that hasn't taken hold of anyone yet, except my wife. If any of you would like to help us in this respect, that would be great.
This auction was our third auction. So far, we've raised almost $10 billion. That's about $100 for every American household. The auctions have demonstrated something very important about reinvention of government. On average, it took us about three years to issue any kind of license, once you wound your way through the administrative process. Through auctions, it takes about three months. The cellular industry in this country took about 10 years to develop. Much of that development was delayed because of the torturous administrative processes of issuing cellular licenses. Economists have calculated that our economy is about $100 billion smaller than it would have been just because of the delays in issuing cellular licenses.
This is cured by auctions. Auctions is a technique that permits us to expedite investment. This is a win-win-win for the consumers, for the taxpayers, for the economy. It's good for the taxpayers because they get fair value for the spectrum. It's good for consumers because the auctioning of licenses that lead to competitive industry causes the prices to go down. That's why all of you are getting cut-rate deals on mobile telephones right now. That's why the cellular telephone industry has added about 40 percent in the number of subscribers in one year; it's because of the onset of the new competition. And it's a win for the economy because, for every dollar spent in the auction, $2 to $3 will be invested by the industries that are going to be exploiting these licenses. That means that this auction with the almost $8 billion check we gave the President leads to about a $20 billion to $25 billion investment surge, probably the largest single industry investment surge in the peacetime economy. So we're pleased to do our part, and thank you for inviting me.
MS. KAMARCK: I'd invite the other agency heads to come on up here, and we'll all take questions.
Q: A question for Mr. Goldin, please. Mr. Goldin, how many jobs will be lost in phase two, this second part, and what's the breakdown between government and private sector? And, secondly, how many people will you have to hire back in the event that there's another major shuttle accident, as is predicted by NASA before the space station is half completed? (Laughter.)
MR. GOLDIN: First, let me say that before I answer your question specifically, this is a new time and a new age, and we no longer measure the vitality of NASA by how many employees work on the program, and we no longer measure vitality of NASA by whether our budget goes up.
What we want to measure is, what has NASA done for the country, and how relevant are we. We're in a new way of thinking. And it's very important to transform yourself into that mode.
Industry in America has downsized and they've become much more competitive. But somehow, we feel very queasy about the government. We love the government, but we hate the government. NASA is terrific, we have wonderful people, but we have a management system and an infrastructure that was set up in 1957. We have independent field centers because they didn't have Federal Express. They couldn't get a machine part to go from one place to other. Everyone has a machine shop. We have print shops. We have payroll dispersing at every single one of our centers. So what we have to say is, let's get the infrastructure at NASA down. And that's where we're going.
Now, keeping that in mind, we want to be relevant to the American public. Our idea is to inspire the country and create opportunity. There's a whole new mobile commercial communications industry -- the so-called Big Leos, that the FCC is licensing. Much of that technology came from the ACTS spacecraft, which is up there today. We'd like to believe, as we transition jobs off the government payrolls, we're creating opportunity for the future of America. So long as we hold on to government jobs, we cannot create new industries in this country.
So the answer is, we're working it. We have a process in place. It will be very deliberate and we'll answer your question about mid-May.
Q: Can you just break down how many -- of the 55,000 that was in the paper, what's already been done, what's --
ADMINISTRATOR GOLDIN: I would say on the order of about a quarter.
Q: Has already been done?
ADMINISTRATOR GOLDIN: No, no. In order of a quarter is in this reinventing government, too.
Q: So about 10,000 --
ADMINISTRATOR GOLDIN: Probably a little -- a quarter of 55,000 is probably a little bit more than 10,000.
Q: Of which how much is NASA and how much is private sector?
ADMINISTRATOR GOLDIN: We haven't broke that out, but about -- it will be a -- we already reduced the NASA payroll somewhere on the order of 4,000 employees out of 25,000 or 26,000.
Q: But you must have some general idea. Of the 13,000, would half of them be NASA, or half of them --
ADMINISTRATOR GOLDIN: It would much less than half.
Q: But you already said --
ADMINISTRATOR GOLDIN: We identified 2,000 FTEs as part of the second phase.
Q: So 10,000 or 11,000 would be private sector?
ADMINISTRATOR GOLDIN: Could be. But we're in the process of performing the analysis.
Q: Have you made provisions for the fact that you'll have to hire people back if you have a major shuttle accident while you're constructing the space station?
ADMINISTRATOR GOLDIN: Let me deal with that. The fact of the matter is you don't design in safety by putting people on a program. What we are doing is redesigning the shuttle program and we'd like to have it become safer. And let me give you an example. When I became Administrator, they had 19 people, after all the Challenger safety checks, sign off on a piece of paper that it was okay to shut the shuttle bay doors. And guess what happened? The shuttle bay door shut. You don't design in safety by having a lot of people check checkers who check checkers who check checkers. I do not accept what you're saying as a necessity to just hire back people.
The space shuttle will operate efficiently and safely, and it is not our intent to do anything to stand in the way. And don't measure safety of the space shuttle by how many dollars we spend on it, or how many people we have associated with it.
Q: How is this viewed by the states? Is it passing the buck to the states or is it passing goodies to the states? And what's going to happen to all these people who have been -- who'll be fired? They'll all go on unemployment compensation?
MS. KAMARCK: Let me start with the latter. Last year we, this administration, the President signed a buyout bill, the first ever buy out bill. That bill has been used extensively through the first phase and, in fact, in the this second phase of reinventing government.
Q: How many have accepted this?
MS. KAMARCK: Oh, we've had huge numbers accepted, and I'll get to the exact number. But, for instance, last week alone at NASA 1,500 people were offered and accepted buyouts. And that story repeats itself throughout the federal government. So between attrition and using the buyout authority aggressively, we have, in fact, been able to do historic downsizing. And buyouts have been an incredible valuable tool to the government in this effort.
Q: And how about the states? What is their attitude of having all these new responsibilities?
MS. KAMARCK: There are some places -- Minerals Management Service -- where some states have wanted these responsibilities in the past. So it's kind of a mixed bag.
Alice, do you want to talk to the state question overall?
DIRECTOR RIVLIN: I was going to give a number on the buyout. The number on the buyouts so far -- this is through Fiscal '95 -- is about 36,000 of which there are about half domestic, half defense.
I think the states question really depends on which part of the spectrum here we're talking about, but in general, these are areas where the states either have the capability or want to have the capability. I think maybe James Lee Witt talking a little bit about how it will work with FEMA --
DIRECTOR WITT: Sure. What we've had at the history of FEMA, through the cooperative agreement with FEMA and the states, is basically we send dollars down to the state in local emergency management programs -- it was on a 50-50 cost share. And what it would do, they would go through and check the box, yes, I've done this; yes, I've had this exercise, or, yes, I've had this training course. It really was nothing there to encourage them to develop to a level they need to be at to respond to the risks they face in each state.
So what we've done working with the states to develop a performance partnership standard is to let them work with us in the developing of those standards to meet those risks and give them the flexibility to help set the standards, identify the areas where they want to spend those dollars to meet those risks. And it's working very well. They're really excited about it.
Joe Myers, from the state of Florida, the state director, is here. He's already gone out to his counties, working with them. So it gives them more flexibility to identify program areas they need to be working on instead of micromanaging them. So it really should help all of us, and help have a safer America.
Q: Mr. Goldin, what specific programs are you considering eliminating or spinning off to private industry?
ADMINISTRATOR GOLDIN: We're looking at a number of programs, and probably the lead program is the space shuttle. We've had the American Launch Industry come to us and they said they believe they could make the space shuttle safer and they could operate it for much less money. And we also had the Chris Craft Panel suggest that.
We're also taking a look at some of our communications activities. And a perfect example of that is we have a program called NAVIS. The government for the last seven year, NASA, has been developing with custom software a financial system that we could buy off the shelf commercially. We cancelled the government-developed software system and we're going to buy commercial software. So those are the types of programs we're looking at.
Q: On your space, sir, does this mean the inevitably demise of your proposed -- center at Yellow Creek? That project's been put on hold.
ADMINISTRATOR GOLDIN: We are exploring that, along with activities around the country. Everything is on the table. Let me come back and say this. You've got to change the structure of NASA, and we will probably close a number of our remote sites. We have got to say -- we have two criteria: Is it less expensive to do it as site X than site Y; and if it's site X where it is less expensive, that's where we will do it. Secondly, is it relevant and is it world-class work? If it's not world-class work, we're not going to do it.
Q: I have a follow-up for Secretary Babbitt. It follows Helen's question, which is, presumably, there's a cost associated with collecting the royalties, and certainly there's a cost associated with building and maintaining parkways. Will the states just be now required to pick up those costs, and how big are they?
SECRETARY BABBITT: Well, it would depend on each instance. For example, with royalty collection, that proposal actually originated from the state of Wyoming, which said we can, in fact, do this more cheaply and more efficiently than the federal government.
Now, where do those costs come from? They are subtracted. That is a cost of collection which is paid out of the royalties. So in that case, I think we have a transfer of function with no net additional tax burden to the state.
There are other examples. The United States Geological Survey is giving up its water research institutes. That's a federal state program. That's the kind of research that the state will have the option of picking up through its university system. The Geological Survey will retain core national responsibilities -- perhaps the most relevant one in recent months has been earthquake research. They have the finest seismological research center in the world out at Cal Tech; that's a national function, and it ought to remain that way. So I think it's kind of site-specific.
The roadways to the state of Maryland and Virginia would be absorbed -- the proposal would have them absorb those roadways into their state systems with a three-year declining grant to finance the transition.
Q: Mr. Goldin, has this budgetary uncertainty had any impact on morale at the agency, and if so, what?
ADMINISTRATOR GOLDIN: Of course, people are going to be concerned. But let me come back and say American industry has downsized successfully; we're much more competitive in the world. When you downsize, you would like to do it as fast as possible to minimize the impact on the terrific employees that we have.
I want to tell you, our employees are wonderful. The problem we have is we have an infrastructure that's 35 years old. It's got to change, and we've got to be ready for the 21st century.
Q: Is it too early -- can I ask how it's going to impact on Goddard, the Goddard Space Flight Center?
ADMINISTRATOR GOLDIN: Let me say the following. Again, we are in the middle of a process. We have two external teams and three internal teams. We're doing it very deliberately. The budget is stable and solid for '95 and '96. We are going to take the time to go through and make very deliberate businesslike decisions, and as we make the decisions, we'll make statements. I think it would be very inappropriate and very unfair to our wonderful employees if we shoot from the hip.
And I want to come back and say I don't want to make any commitment to the number of jobs involved because I want to be sure we have a thorough vetting. We've committed to the Congress --before we make any decisions, we're going to consult with them, we're going to consult with the White House. So we have a deliberate process, and I really feel it's inappropriate to talk about numbers of places now. But the criteria are the costs must come down, and it must be best in the world research.
Q: Does the concern had any impact on operations, that you talked about?
ADMINISTRATOR GOLDIN: So far, we don't feel there are any impact on operations. We are going to constantly monitor it. But, again, it is very difficult. I've been through downsizing in industry; it's a little easier in industry, but we're not afraid to do it in government. And everybody ought to work with us and say, my God, what a wonderful opportunity to change the space program and go into the 21st century, instead of holding out with an iron fist about protecting jobs so we keep the status quo. NASA is not about the status quo, we're about the 21st century
Q: Ms. Rivlin, as far as downsizing the Departments of Commerce and Agriculture, there's been some talk about revamping the economic statistical gathering services within those two departments. What exactly are you going to do with them? Are you going to make them a sub-Cabinet agency, an independent agency? What are your plans for that?
DIRECTOR RIVLIN: That goes way beyond today. We are continuing to look at other agencies. And we are particularly looking at how to strengthen the economic statistics. That doesn't necessarily mean any kind of consolidation. It may mean more cooperation, virtual consolidation, as the Vice President likes to say. We're not there yet. But what we really are about here is better economic statistics and, again, more adapted to the economy that we actually face in the future, rather than the one we used to face.
Q: need to make a decision on precisely what to do with that? Do you know when that decision is going to be made?
DIRECTOR RIVLIN: No, I don't. That is not on a terribly fast track.
Q: Ms. Rivlin, I know these five year plans are very important, but I wonder whether you could talk a little bit more about the current budget? Since the House has already approved mid- year cuts to of $17 billion and the Senate is about to take up that measure, can you tell us now which of those ideas the administration might be ready to endorse?
DIRECTOR RIVLIN: Well, the administration has been very clear that the form in which the bill came over from the House was one we found unacceptable. It had in it too many cuts for children and nutrition programs and things that we think are very important to protect. All this to pay for a tax cut for high income people.
The House -- the Senate bill has moved somewhat in response to the criticisms that they got around the country in the direction that we would like to see, but not nearly enough. As the Senate bill still stands, we find it unacceptable.
Q: cuts in the Senate bill?
MS. RIVLIN: We're emphasizing the cuts that we don't like because that's what has to be changed in the bill.
Q: Secretary Babbitt, where will the authority to grant the oil and gas leases lie? Will it still be with the federal government?
SECRETARY BABBITT: Yes, the leasing function, I believe, is a core federal function -- on shore, on federal lands and on the outer continental shelf. Those functions, subject to review by Congress, would presumably be transferred to the Office of Surface Mining or to the Bureau of Land Management where, indeed, those functions originated and were processed prior to 1980.
MR. GAINES: Folks, we've got one last item from Dan Goldin; then we're going to pull it closed.
ADMINISTRATOR GOLDIN: Just so there is no misunderstanding, I talked about closing our remote sites. We have 10 NASA centers. We anticipate that all those centers will be held in place. But we have a multiplicity of sites other than those centers, and they are undergoing a very rigorous review because we think that there could be significant cost savings.
Q: How many of those?
ADMINISTRATOR GOLDIN: Many.
THE PRESS: Thank you.
END2:37 P.M. EST
William J. Clinton, Press Briefing by O.M.B. Director Alice Rivlin, Senior Policy Advisor to the Vice President Elaine Kamarck, Secretary of Interior Bruce Babbitt, F.E.M.A. Administrator James Lee Witt, N.A.S.A. Administrator Dan Goldin, S.B.A. Administrator Phil Lader and F.C.C. Commissioner Reed Hundt Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/270235