The Joint Committee on Printing (JCP) encloses JURISDICTION, AUTHORITY AND RESPONSIBILITIES The Joint Committee on Printing's jurisdiction, I. Establishment of policy and oversight of II. Oversight of the Government Printing Office's III. Compilation, publication and distribution -2 IV. Oversight of the Federal Printing Procurement Program, through which approximately 70% of the Federal Government's printing is procured by GPO from the private sector. The program's objectives are to improve service, effect cost savings, and reduce unnecessary Government competition with private industry. V. Establishment of standards and specifications for printing papers procured and used by federal departments. The JCP is also designated by law as the final arbiter for the United States in settling differences concerning the quality of paper between GPO and a contractor selling paper. VI. Oversight of the public's right of access to government publications by monitoring the Superintendent of Document's depository library program, general sales program, by-law distribution program, and cataloging and indexing programs. VII. Promotion of cooperation between the Senate and House of Representatives information entities in such areas as automated production of Congressional publications and automated indexing. I. ESTABLISHMENT OF POLICY AND THE FORMULATION OF REGULATIONS FOR THE PRINTING, BINDING, AND DISTRIBUTION OF FEDERAL PUBLICATIONS. 1. Joint Committee on Printing Automation Programs The Joint Committee on Printing actively monitors technological innovations and trends in the private sector as well as those within the Federal Government and promotes the use of the latest automated systems and equipment throughout the Federal Government. These efforts produce greater program efficiency and often substantial savings while providing greater access to the Government information. The Joint Committee on Printing/Department of Defense Technical Information Committee has sponsored activities that continue to show results. Each of the Armed Services has implemented the first phase of a pilot program using advanced printing and publishing systems to automate their technical manuals. The results of this first phase have substantially decreased documentation backlogs and greatly improved overall operations. The Committee also has encouraged the Army and the Air Force to consolidate research and development efforts in automating engineering drawing repositories. This avoids duplication of effort to solve essentially -3 and competitive response from private industry. This unusual cooperative effort combines printing technology with engineering data systems to reduce drastically procurement administrative lead time. The Army alone estimates savings of over $1 million per day when the system is completely operational. Additional phases of automation to support the Services' technical information activities are underway. Specifically, the Government Printing Office has recently awarded a contract to have the private sector produce all of the Army's technical manuals. This contract, known as 600-S, was initiated at the direction of the Joint Committee and will employ the very latest electronic printing technology. Steps have been taken also to provide for the integration and compatibility of technical information programs with the recently announced Department of the Defense Computer-Aided Logistics Support program. The Committee also promoted a highly productive cooperative effort between the Bureau of the Census and the U.S. Geological Survey. The project involved combining computerized geographic codes from Census with digitized field maps from the Geological Survey in a common data base. It is expected that the automated printing products that will result from the system will save over $5 million during the 1990 decennial census cycle, and perhaps as much as $40 million during the year 2000 decennial census cycle. Integration of television technology with the printing process has been introduced as a pilot project by the Departments of the Army and Navy. The application of such new technology portends even greater improvements in operations as well as monetary savings for the Government. The Joint Committee on Printing sponsors a Forms Automation Consortium in which a variety of Departments share ideas and technology. For example, partly as a result of the consortium, the Internal Revenue Service has introduced an automated printing system to automate the production of forms and improve the overall efficiency of the tax processing system. The Department of Labor has installed the initial phases of a print-on-demand forms program that has as one of its objectives the virtual elimination of warehousing of forms. This is expected to save approximately $242,000 annually. The Air Force expects to save over $269,000 annually by establishing a consolidated command-wide forms -4 also have been coordinated with other Government activities, specifically the General Services Administration's Forms and Reports Management Group. With the Joint Committee's urging and support, electronic printing systems regularly are being installed to replace conventional line printers in computer rooms and typewriters in offices. These highly efficient innovations produce better, more readable products at less cost. Departmental printing plans that have been reviewed by the Committee indicate that several departments, including Energy, Justice and Army, plan to install a wide range of electronic printers to support their programs. As a result, the Committee expects that these new printing systems will generate even more savings than in the past. 2. Agency Printing and Publishing Plans Owing to the many changes in printing technologies, the Joint Committee on Printing determined that a broader perspective on government printing and publishing activities was necessary in order to perform its oversight responsibilities. Therefore, the JCP has requested each department and agency to submit to the Committee, on an annual basis, a comprehensive printing program plan. The plans are intended to replace the ad hoc individual requests received by the JCP seeking approval of such things as equipment and establishment of printing environments. The departments will provide plans for the current and two following years. The plans are to be submitted to the Joint Committee no later than the date of submission to Congress of requests for authorization and appropriation. The effort involved in compiling these plans should result in improved internal management of individual department and agency programs. Departments will report also at the end of each year on the actual results of their plans, and any major deviations from the approved plan during its term will require additional JCP review. II. OVERSIGHT OF THE GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE'S The Joint Committee on Printing is directly responsible for overseeing the Government Printing Office to ensure that the printing needs of Congress and the Executive Branch are met expeditiously and costeffectively and that the public has the widest possible access to government-published information. By setting |