Letters from Lawmakers overburden Pentagon Staff.

• Author: Book, Elizabeth G.
• Position: Washington pulse - Brief Article

Responding to the daily inflow of letters that senators and congressmen send to the Pentagon is an ever-growing workload, said a senior Pentagon official.

Since the early days of democracy in the United States, legislative officials have written letters to federal agencies requesting that additional attention be given to specific issues and programs. The problem is that the amount of time it takes to respond to these letters is draining "finite human resources" at the Defense Department, said the official, during a recent meeting with defense industry lobbyists. "I am amazed by the amount of pen pals I have from Capitol Hill," the official said. "We have a finite level of resources we can commit during any given transaction, and every letter I get from Capitol Hill takes eight to 10 hours away from the subject at...