Archive

Title: OMB Director at 3/27/95 Press Briefing

Author: White House Ofc. of the Press Secretary

Date: March 27, 1995

The WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary

_____________________________

For Immediate Release

March 27, 1995

PRESS BRIEFING BY

OMB DIRECTOR ALICE RIVLIN,

SENIOR POLICY ADVISOR TO THE VICE PRESIDENT ELAINE

KAMARCK , SECRETARY OF INTERIOR BRUCE BABBITT,

FEMA ADMINISTRATOR JAMES LEE WITT,

NASA ADMINISTRATOR DAN GOLDIN, SBA ADMINISTRATOR

PHIL LADER AND FCC 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.

END 2:37 P.M. EST