ALEXANDRIA, VA (July 15, 2002) — The Joint Committee on Printing hosted a hearing to examine federal government printing procedures and public access to government documents. Benjamin Y. Cooper, Executive Vice-President of Public Affairs at the Printing Industries of America (PIA) gave testimony representing it’s 13,000 member companies in the manufacturing sector. On May 3, 2002, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) launched an effort to wrest control of federal printing from the Government Printing Office (GPO) and give Executive branch agencies more direct control over printing and print buying decisions. "While I understand and appreciate the intent of the OMB proposal to give smaller companies in the private sector more business, the OMB misses the mark," said Ben Cooper. Currently, the GPO procures print jobs at rock bottom prices and then charges a fee for GPO‘s administration of the project. The Executive Branch’s involvement in the procurement process would actually result in significantly higher costs to the taxpayers than the status quo. "Despite what the Executive Branch and the OMB think, this reform would result in the need for additional staff to design work and specs. Competition may actually decrease because the smaller printers do not have the sales resources of larger printers. As for more control, ‘Too many cooks…’," explained Cooper. "The best thing about the OMB proposal is the potential for open dialogue and discussion, which hopefully will result in some positive reforms in improving the GPO that will be good for the government and small business." See Cooper’s comments at www.gain.org or email Ben at [email protected]