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safety or health codes or correct hazardous conditions, (2) repairs required to keep building systems and equipment in operation or avoid major replacement, and (3) projects that will give a financial return in terms of efficiency of operations or cost savings. In determining the relative priorities of projects, the effect on ongoing programmatic activities is placed against the potential risk associated with deferral of the work. Major projects are phased to avoid major disruption where possible. A long-range program is projected over a period of five or more years, incorporating information from the backlog of essential maintenance and repair, programmatic needs, and future replacement requirements of major building equipment, systems, and components generated by the ongoing preventive maintenance program. With this information, the Institution develops a long-range funding strategy for the Restoration and Renovation of Buildings Program to eliminate the current backlog and provide adequate funding levels to keep pace with the future repair and restoration requirements of the facilities.

Major construction projects result from a variety of internal and external initiatives. To meet these needs, staff and contractor assistance is sought for preparation of studies and analysis of requirements and early identification of possible solutions. Once a very general range of the scope and cost of the potential project has been estimated, the project is presented through the Secretary's Management Committee to the Secretary and the Regents for general concurrence with the objectives and approval to proceed with planning. If the Regents approve the project, a request for formal authorization is often entered into the legislative process at this point. Each year Smithsonian staff assemble all projects which have been approved in this manner into a five-year program. Factors to be weighed in assessing the relative priority of projects include the long-range importance of the program itself, the impact of the desired project on the effectiveness of the program and the adverse impact of the project, the likely economic climate of the coming years, the possibility of private sector financial support for individual projects, the availability of alternative interim measures, and specific timing factors (such as the fixed schedule of an anticipated program initiative, historic date, or the expected termination of a current lease situation). Because the Smithsonian must remain responsive to new opportunities as they are often unpredictably presented, a list of priorities for new construction must be assumed to incorporate some flexibility. Nonetheless, the Smithsonian can be more orderly in its approach and ought to prepare more completely conceptual papers on what the needs are for new facilities, what problems may be encountered, what the sources of funds might be, and often where the facility might be located. A modest appropriation for forward planning will be of significant help in this effort. 

[[underline]] LEGISLATIVE ACTIONS AND ISSUES [[/underline]]
No action has been taken on either H.R. 2395, to repeal Public Law 87-186, relating to the National Armed Forces Museum Advisory Board of the Smithsonian Institution, or H.R. 2815, to construct, expand, and renovate facilities for the Cooper-Hewitt Museum.