mr. chairman , i thank the ranking member of the committee on appropriations for yielding me this time , but most particularly for his leadership . 
the gentleman from wisconsin ( mr. obey ) xz4003000 made several points . 
some of them were consistent with the comments of the gentleman from illinois ( mr. lahood ) xz4002280 that there are a lot of good things about this institution and the facilities that we fund . 
but the gentleman from wisconsin ( mr. obey ) xz4003000 pointed out some of the concerns that many of us share over the capitol visitors center . 
i share those concerns as well , having been the ranking member of the legislative branch subcommittee before it was incorporated in the full committee . 
we raised these , the gentleman from georgia ( mr. kingston ) xz4002210 , and i. it is not meant to be argumentative , but we have created a situation where the capitol visitors center is going to create some substantial problems in the future . 
we have a facility that is going to cost well over what was originally estimated . 
the original estimate was $ 165 million . 
we are now over half a billion dollars . 
we were going to try to get private money . 
it is all federal money now , of course . 
we were going to have it ready for the january 2005 inauguration . 
obviously , we are way behind schedule ; but that happens in a lot of construction projects . 
we recognize this is going to be completed , and there will be a number of things that we will be proud to show . 
but some of these situations are going to cause more problems than they are worth . 
for example , we are creating an enormous capacity for visitors . 
one would think that would be a good thing , but what is going to wind up happening , they are going to be given a virtual tour of the capitol . 
the reason for that is we have the capacity for twice as many people to come into that capitol visitors center as can ever come into the capitol itself . 
now , do you want to be the member who tells your constituents , after traveling from any place in the united states , and for many of them it takes a whole day to get here , they stay here , they are all excited and they get to the capitol visitors center and want to go to the capitol and you have to tell them well , actually , there is no room ? 
half of the people coming into the capitol visitors center are probably going to have to be informed there is no room in the actual capitol for you to be able to make a visit today . 
that is a substantial problem . 
i think we should have figured that out . 
i am glad we have capacity ; but , again , is it consistent with our real objective , which is to enable all our constituents to see the u.s. capitol itself ? 
the taxpayer is paying for this . 
a lot of the decisions have really not been made by the members as much as staff , i have to say . 
it is not the staff of the appropriations subcommittee that has made those decisions , but we have got some major concerns . 
i think they are well-founded concerns . 
i want to raise one now , though , that is not a matter of legislation , but it is one that has been brought to my attention as cochair of the congressional prevention coalition . 
we have tried to do some things to address public health concerns . 
one of them is in regard to smoking . 
we have a ban on smoking in all federal buildings but we exempt congressional office spaces . 
i do not want to change that necessarily , i can understand why there is an exemption in place , but we have a particular problem with the rayburn cafeteria . 
with that , i would like to enter into a colloquy with the chairman of the full committee on this because i do think we need to address it . 
in the rayburn cafeteria , the main dining room is overflowing with patrons generally every tuesday , wednesday and thursday ; and so those patrons are forced to spill over into the designated smoking area . 
the same thing happens when we close the main cafeteria for receptions and special events . 
because that main designated area is the only place available on that floor for smoking , it gets pretty asphyxiating according to many of the staff who have contacted me . 
i think we need to address it because some of these people have real serious health problems in terms of their breathing capabilities ; some have asthma and other related problems . 
they just can not deal with all of that smoke and they do not have any choice to avoid it given the situation that frequently occurs . 
i yield to the chairman of the full committee to see if he has some suggestions in how we could alleviate this problem for the nonsmokers . 
