[House Hearing, 119 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
FEDERAL FORECLOSURE:
REDUCING THE FEDERAL REAL ESTATE PORTFOLIO
=======================================================================
FIELD HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON DELIVERING ON
GOVERNMENT EFFICIENCY
of the
COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT
AND GOVERNMENT REFORM
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED NINETEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
APRIL 8, 2025
__________
Serial No. 119-18
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available on: govinfo.gov
oversight.house.gov or
docs.house.gov
_______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
60-028 PDF WASHINGTON : 2025
COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM
JAMES COMER, Kentucky, Chairman
Jim Jordan, Ohio Gerald E. Connolly, Virginia,
Mike Turner, Ohio Ranking Minority Member
Paul Gosar, Arizona Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of
Virginia Foxx, North Carolina Columbia
Glenn Grothman, Wisconsin Stephen F. Lynch, Massachusetts
Michael Cloud, Texas Raja Krishnamoorthi, Illinois
Gary Palmer, Alabama Ro Khanna, California
Clay Higgins, Louisiana Kweisi Mfume, Maryland
Pete Sessions, Texas Shontel Brown, Ohio
Andy Biggs, Arizona Melanie Stansbury, New Mexico
Nancy Mace, South Carolina Robert Garcia, California
Pat Fallon, Texas Maxwell Frost, Florida
Byron Donalds, Florida Summer Lee, Pennsylvania
Scott Perry, Pennsylvania Greg Casar, Texas
William Timmons, South Carolina Jasmine Crockett, Texas
Tim Burchett, Tennessee Emily Randall, Washington
Marjorie Taylor Greene, Georgia Suhas Subramanyam, Virginia
Lauren Boebert, Colorado Yassamin Ansari, Arizona
Anna Paulina Luna, Florida Wesley Bell, Missouri
Nick Langworthy, New York Lateefah Simon, California
Eric Burlison, Missouri Dave Min, California
Eli Crane, Arizona Ayanna Pressley, Massachusetts
Brian Jack, Georgia Rashida Tlaib, Michigan
John McGuire, Virginia
Brandon Gill, Texas
------
Mark Marin, Staff Director
James Rust, Deputy Staff Director
Mitch Benzine, General Counsel
Peter Warren, Senior Advisor
Alex Rankin, Counsel
Madeline Brewer, Counsel
Jenn Kamara, Senior Professional Staff Member
Lauren Hassett, Professional Staff Member
Mallory Cogar, Deputy Director of Operations and Chief Clerk
Contact Number: 202-225-5074
Jamie Smith, Minority Staff Director
Contact Number: 202-225-5051
------
Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency
Marjorie Taylor Greene, Georgia, Chairwoman
Michael Cloud, Texas Melanie Stansbury, New Mexico
Pat Fallon, Texas Ranking Minority Member
William Timmons, South Carolina Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of
Tim Burchett, Tennessee Columbia
Eric Burlison, Missouri Stephen Lynch, Massachussetts
Brian Jack, Georgia Robert Garcia, California
Brandon Gill, Texas Greg Casar, Texas
Jasmine Crockett, Texas
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Hearing held on April 8, 2025.................................... 1
Witnesses
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Mr. David Marroni, Director, Physical Infrastructure, U.S.
Government Accountability Office
Oral Statement................................................... 5
Mr. John Hart, CEO, Open the Books
Oral Statement................................................... 6
Mr. Ron Kendall (Minority Witness), Executive Chairman Emeritus,
National Federal Development Association
Oral Statement................................................... 8
Written opening statements and bios are available on the U.S.
House of Representatives Document Repository at:
docs.house.gov.
Index of Documents
----------
* Press Release, White House, ``Biden Announces New Actions to
Ease Burden of Housing Costs''; submitted by Rep. Lynch.
* Press Release, GSA, ``GSA Accelerates Efforts to Rightsize
Federal Real Estate''; submitted by Rep. Lynch.
Documents are available at: docs.house.gov.
ADDITIONAL DOCUMENTS
----------
* Questions for the Record: to Mr. Marroni; submitted by Rep.
Brown.
These documents were submitted after the hearing, and may be
available upon request.
FEDERAL FORECLOSURE:
REDUCING THE FEDERAL REAL ESTATE PORTFOLIO
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Tuesday, April 8, 2025
U.S. House of Representatives
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency
Washington, D.C.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:02 a.m., in
the Wilbur J. Cohen Federal Building Auditorium, 330
Independence Avenue S.W., Washington, D.C., Hon. Marjorie
Taylor Greene [Chairwoman of the Subcommittee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Greene, Cloud, Fallon, Timmons,
Burchett, Burlison, Jack, Stansbury, Norton, Lynch, Garcia, and
Crockett.
Also present: Representative Brown.
Ms. Greene. This hearing of the Subcommittee on Delivering
on Government Efficiency will come to order.
Welcome, everyone. Without objection, the Chair may declare
a recess at any time. I recognize myself for the purpose of
making an opening statement.
Welcome, everyone, to today's DOGE Subcommittee hearing on
Federal real estate. This is an area where the Trump
Administration is taking long overdue action.
The Federal Government owns a massive real estate portfolio
of more than a quarter million buildings. No one knows how much
of this real estate is actually being put to use or what it is
worth on the open market.
Here is what we do know. Taxpayers spend about $10 billion
annually just to operate and maintain all of it. American
taxpayers have been drowning in debt, inflation, unaffordable
grocery prices, high interest rates, and have been suffering to
get by, all while the Federal Government is pouring billions of
dollars into wasteful empty office buildings and luxurious
high-end furniture, which they, the American taxpayers, cannot
even afford themselves. It is quite a hypocrisy.
These buildings sat largely empty during the entire Biden
Administration, which kept Federal office workers at home long
after the COVID-19 pandemic ended. By the way, truck drivers,
first responders, so many people worked during the pandemic,
but Federal workers could stay home and these Federal buildings
sat empty.
Here in D.C., GAO found, in 2023, that the vast majority of
Federal agency headquarter buildings were less than 25 percent
occupied, some much less. Meanwhile, from 2022 to 2024, the
backlog of deferred maintenance on the aging buildings the
government owns grew from $216 billion to $370 billion. That is
more than one-third of a trillion dollars it will cost to
restore them if we do not sell them.
What is worse, aside from paying for useless leases and
allowing Federal buildings to decay, the Biden Administration
spent billions on high-end furniture for empty buildings during
the pandemic. No one was sitting in those chairs or at those
desks. Our witness from Open the Books will testify to that.
It is only now, under the Trump Administration, that we see
a light at the end of the tunnel. This Administration is taking
historic action on reducing the size of the government and with
it a significant reduction in the useless office space that is
claimed to be essential for the government to operate.
GSA has established a goal to reduce the size of the
federally owned real estate footprint by 50 percent. This is a
massive real estate auction.
The President issued an executive order instructing
agencies to update their property inventory and to determine
which of their government-leased or government-owned spaces
they do not need.
In just a few months since inauguration day, DOGE and the
General Services Administration have sold off several Federal
properties and worked with agencies to eliminate hundreds of
unneeded taxpayer-funded office leases. More specifically, they
have canceled nearly 700 Federal leases of 7.9 million square
feet of space, saving taxpayers around $400 million.
One of the canceled leases was a nearly quarter of a
billion dollar 15-year lease at a luxury office building on
Pennsylvania Avenue to house Voice of America and the United
States Agency for Global Media. The Biden Administration signed
the lease late last year, sticking taxpayers with the tab. It
is one of the fanciest office buildings in the city. You can
see of the building on this poster board. Incredible.
Furthermore, this beautiful building had zero broadcasting
capabilities, a capability one would think would be essential
for a broadcasting media agency. The cost to taxpayers to build
out the building with broadcasting capabilities, $130 million.
The Biden team wanted to move USAGM and Voice of America from
this building that we are sitting in today into that luxury
space. Instead, the President is shutting down the whole state-
run media operation and taxpayers will be spared a quarter
billion dollar lease and millions more for renovations and
security measures.
This is just one example of countless egregious abuses of
leases and contracts being paid out across the Federal
Government.
Another egregious abuse of taxpayer dollars regarding
Federal property was the $200 million the FBI received last
year for a new headquarters in Maryland. While the FBI was
going after the American people, parents at school board
meetings, and many others, our Federal Government gave them
hundreds of millions of dollars of American tax dollars for a
brand-new, beautiful headquarters.
Federal agencies should not be maintaining empires at
taxpayer expense. That is why GSA, the Federal landlord agency
driving this reform process, plans to lead by example. Imagine
that. It intends to vacate its current headquarters building in
downtown D.C. and co-locate with another agency. Then it will
sell the GSA headquarters.
Before I close, I will note that Congress also acted on
this front in January. We passed a law requiring Federal
building occupancy to be tracked and for low-occupancy
buildings to be sold, but it will take a willing partner in the
White House to implement that law and to take other steps to
shrink the Federal real estate empire. We now have that
partner, and I look forward to working with the Trump
Administration and DOGE to finally rightsize the Federal real
estate footprint.
And with that, I yield to Ranking Member Stansbury for her
opening statement.
Ms. Stansbury. All right. Well, good morning. I always
enjoy a field hearing, and it is nice to be out in the field
here in Washington, D.C. I would like to thank the Chairwoman
for holding this hearing focused on properties that the Federal
Government manages.
The General Services Administration, or GSA, manages
roughly 9,000 federally owned properties and private sector
leases in all 50 states and territories. Federal real estate is
what makes it possible for the civil service to serve the
American people. This is programs like Social Security,
Medicare, Medicaid, education, care for our veterans, and all
of the programs and services that are so vital to our
communities, but unfortunately, as we know, are currently under
attack.
For more than two decades across both Republican and
Democratic administrations, the Government Accountability
Office identified Federal property management as a significant
challenge, including problems of excess and underutilized space
and poor building conditions. All of that is to say, that this
is a longstanding issue that many administrations have worked
on and it certainly is not something new.
My colleagues and I have consistently worked to improve
stewardship of Federal real estate so it can better serve the
American people, and that is why I would love to make this a
bipartisan hearing about how we address the needs of this
country and best serve the people of this Nation.
The last Administration disposed of property, saving nearly
$2 billion for American taxpayers. And recently, Congress
worked together to pass bills for additional tools to reform
and consolidate the Federal property inventory. These efforts
also directed the sale of four Federal buildings, including the
one we are here in today. The Inflation Reduction Act also
helped to facilitate property consolidation, including reducing
the Department of Homeland Security footprint by over a million
square feet and saving taxpayers over a billion dollars over 30
years.
But instead of building on these successes and continuing
to do what could be characterized as the tedious analytical
work on behalf of Americans, the Trump Administration is
currently taking a fire sale approach of looting the Federal
Government and stripping it for parts to pay for tax cuts that
we know will come up in their reconciliation deal.
Let us be clear. Republicans are trying to pass legislation
right now that would give billionaires permanent tax breaks, on
the order of $37 trillion over the next three decades. And in
order to pay for that, they are looting the Federal Government
and taking a page out of the playbook of private equity. Take
public assets, privatize them, sell them for profit, lease them
back, help your buddies make money. And that is exactly what we
are seeing here today.
And unfortunately, we have seen this across the Federal
Government since the Trump Administration took office. In fact,
we have been deeply concerned that the entire DOGE effort has
been a front to help support billionaires who are trying to
privatize public services.
And just this week we have seen, as Elon Musk is on his
exit out of the Federal Government, he has secured billions of
dollars in new contracts across the Federal Government.
Conflict of interest? Yes, absolutely. It appears that he has
recently secured contracts and promises for contracts at the
Department of Defense, NASA. He has installed Starlink at the
White House and is asking to install it at other Federal
agencies. And we understand that there is the potential to
potentially deploy his AI technology across the Federal
agencies to replace the tens of thousands of Federal employees
that have recently been illegally fired.
That is why we are deeply concerned about the non-data
driven fire sale that the Trump Administration is proposing for
Federal properties, such as the one we are in today.
So, I am deeply distraught and dismayed that we do not have
an Administration witness with us here today. The GSA is not
here to answer questions. That, yet again, Elon Musk is not in
front of this Committee. And unfortunately, we have yet to see
a single Trump political appointee in front of this Committee
or the Oversight Committee. So, we will continue to do our jobs
to elucidate what is happening inside the Federal Government.
I look forward to hearing from the witnesses today and I
look forward to talking about how we can actually manage
Federal properties and the Federal work force to continue to
provide the vital services that are needed for the American
people.
Finally, I just want to say that it is quite rich to talk
about the abuse of Federal properties after Donald Trump used
the historic Postal Service building just down the street
during his Administration to make millions and millions of
dollars from foreign governments while they came and visited
him in the Oval Office. So, let us make sure that we are doing
right by the American people and doing things in a way that is
transparent and also in the interest of the public.
And with that, I yield back.
Ms. Greene. Without objection, Rep. Brown from Ohio is
waived on to the Subcommittee for the purpose of questioning
the witnesses at today's hearing.
I am pleased now to introduce today's witnesses.
Mr. David Marroni is a Director in GOA's [sic] Physical
Infrastructure team. He oversees work on Federal real property
management and the U.S. Postal Service. Mr. Marroni joined GAO
in 2004.
Mr. John Hart is CEO of Open the Books. Mr. Hart is a
veteran of Capitol Hill, having served in the late U.S.
Representative and Senator Tom Coburn's long-time
Communications Director and co-author. Mr. Hart helped enact
landmark transparency legislation to put Federal spending
online.
Mr. Ron Kendall is the Executive Chairman emeritus at the
National Federal Development Association. He previously served
in senior roles in the Federal Government, including within
GSA's Public Buildings Service.
Again, I want to thank you all for being here to testify
today.
Pursuant to Committee Rule 9(g), the witnesses will please
stand and raise their right hand.
Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you are
about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but
the truth, so help you God?
[Chorus of ayes.]
Ms. Greene. Let the record show that the witnesses answered
in the affirmative.
Thank you. You may take a seat.
We appreciate you being here today, and I look forward to
your testimony. Let me remind the witnesses that we have read
your written statements and they will appear in full in the
hearing record. Please limit your oral statement to 5 minutes.
As a reminder, please press the button on the microphone in
front of you so that it is on, and the Members can hear you.
When you begin speaking--well, this one may be different. Is it
the same? The light will blink? It will? OK.
When you begin to speak, the light in front of you will
turn green. After 4 minutes, the light will turn yellow. When
the red light comes on, your 5 minutes have expired, and we
would ask that you please try to wrap it up.
I now recognize Mr. Marroni for his opening statement.
STATEMENT OF DAVID MARRONI
DIRECTOR, PHYSICAL INFRASTRUCTURE
U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE
Mr. Marroni. Thank you, Chairwoman Greene, Ranking Member
Stansbury, and Members of the Subcommittee. I am happy to be
here today to discuss GAO's perspectives on how to make Federal
property work better for the American taxpayer.
For more than 20 years, we have identified the management
of Federal property as a high-risk area in need of substantial
transformation. The Federal Government has held on to too much
space and has been too slow in shedding underused properties.
Federal buildings are often in poor condition and not well
configured for the modern workplace, and the data needed to
make good real property decisions has often been unreliable, in
some cases nonexistent.
The pandemic shined a spotlight on these longstanding
problems and created a unique opportunity to rightsize the
Federal Government's property holdings. While there have been
important actions in recent years to take advantage of this
opportunity, progress has been slow. Agencies were in a wait-
and-see mode for too long.
Since January, there has been a notable shift in momentum.
GSA is now rapidly moving forward with plans to terminate
leases and dispose of large amounts of Federal property. This
has disrupted the longstanding inertia that has slowed previous
efforts to reshape the Federal Government's real property
holdings.
There is a risk of moving too fast. Most buildings have
active tenants and relocating them could be costly. As a
result, as GSA and other agencies move forward, it is important
that they balance the goal of speedy reductions with the need
for deliberate planning. This will best ensure the most
efficient and effective result for the American taxpayer.
There are a lot of moving parts right now that will shape
Federal property for years to come. First, the Trump
Administration's return-to-office policy and its reductions in
force are still relatively early in their implementation.
Second, agencies will be measuring building utilization across
all their owned and leased space for the very first time
starting this summer. Third, it is going to take time and money
to move out of properties and consolidate into others, so
agencies will need to prioritize. The Administration will have
better information on each of these data points by this summer
to help inform its efforts.
GSA and other agencies should use that new information to
sequence real property reductions in a way that makes the most
sense. GSA's recent decision to take an incremental approach to
property disposals by starting with owned buildings that are
clearly not needed is a positive step in this direction. Taking
a deliberate and strategic approach to real property reductions
could generate substantial savings for the taxpayer and
mitigate the risk of costly mistakes and unexpected mission
impacts.
In conclusion, rightsizing the Federal Government's real
property holdings is long overdue. As the Administration moves
forward with reductions, they should do so deliberately in a
way that balances speed with planning. Doing so will best
position the Federal Government to achieve the most efficient
and effective result for the American taxpayer while ensuring
agencies have the right space to successfully carry out their
missions.
Madam Chairwoman, that concludes my opening statement. I
will be happy to answer any questions.
Ms. Greene. Thank you.
I now recognize Mr. Hart for his opening statement.
STATEMENT OF JOHN HART
CEO
OPEN THE BOOKS
Mr. Hart. Madam Chair Greene, Ranking Member Stansbury, and
distinguished Members, thank you for having me today at this
hearing.
As we gather in this cavernous auditorium, we have an
opportunity to reflect on, not just the costly problem that
Chairman Greene described in her opening statement, but its
root causes. Today's expansive, excessive, and sometimes
opulent Federal real estate portfolio is both a monument to the
administrative state and a mausoleum of lost dreams,
opportunity, and freedom for American taxpayers.
In the early 20th century, progressives like Herbert Croly
dreamed of managing a complex new world with a managerial
class. Croly believed in, quote/unquote, ``increasing control
over property in the public interest.'' He would no doubt be
pleased to see this auditorium and the administrative state's
impressive portfolio of office space. So, this hearing is an
opportunity for Congress to turn away from this failed policy
of the past and reestablish our Founders timeless vision of
limited constitutional government and transparency.
At Open the Books, we view transparency as a first
principle in a free society. Our work was, in part, enabled by
landmark bipartisan transparency legislation: the Federal
Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006, or the
Coburn-Obama bill, that I helped craft when I was working for
then-Senator Tom Coburn. And that bill created USAspending.gov
and put all Federal spending online for the first time.
Our Founders wisely prioritized transparency and wrote it
into the Constitution. Article I, section 9, clause 7 says that
a regular statement and account of receipts and expenditures of
all public money shall be published from time to time. Note
that these words precede the Bill of Rights, the First
Amendment, and our right to free speech itself.
In the public square, transparency is like oxygen. We
cannot speak if we cannot breathe. So, when we at Open the
Books looked at the Federal real estate portfolio, we
discovered the high cost of decorating and redecorating the
administrative state. And to taxpayers, today's hearing is
quite literally a kitchen table issue.
Every family can relate to the cost of furniture. That is
why taxpayers are so incensed when they learned that Federal
agencies are freely spending billions of dollars every year on
high-end pieces. Since Fiscal Year 2021, executive agencies
have spent more than $4.6 billion on furniture alone. That
amount could buy 9.2 million American families a modest $500
kitchen table. And of course, workplaces need desks, chairs,
and meeting tables. And it is true that beautiful spaces can
make us more productive, but beauty at what cost and on whose
dime?
Do Federal employees need seven figures worth of abstract
modern art to make government run? The State Department spent
$1.4 million on artwork for various embassies, including
$200,000 to procure a pair of custom paintings from a
contemporary abstract artist. Do they need high-end leather
recliners worth thousands of dollars each? Our Embassy in
Islamabad is a place where you can put your feet up, thanks to
40 Ethan Allen chairs which cost taxpayers $120,000.
During the peak years of the COVID emergency, from 2020 to
2022, agencies spent $3.3 billion on furniture even as work
migrated to Zoom. The SEC managed to spend $700,000 furnishing
a single conference room in New York. And social distancing
guidelines failed to keep even the Centers for Disease Control
from buying solar-powered picnic tables with charging ports
that, by their own rules, should have sat unoccupied.
And an added burden for taxpayers is that many spaces are
in long-term disrepair, as we mentioned before. Federal
buildings need $370,000 billion in fixes. All in all, we have
an incomprehensible amount of physical space and furnishings,
too much of it inefficiently procured, leased, and maintained.
At Open the Books, we believe taxpayers are demanding
transparency and accountability. Instead of expanding Federal
agencies, they want Congress to expand their agency and their
right to pursue happiness on their terms with their own
resources. Thomas Jefferson wisely said, ``The natural progress
of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain
ground.'' Every dollar saved in Washington is a dream realized
somewhere in America. The administrative state's well-decorated
real estate portfolio is a worthy place to start.
I look forward to your questions.
Ms. Greene. Thank you, Mr. Hart.
I now recognize Mr. Kendall for his opening statement.
STATEMENT OF RON KENDALL
EXECUTIVE CHAIRMAN EMERITUS
NATIONAL FEDERAL DEVELOPMENT ASSOCIATION
Mr. Kendall. Thank you, Chairwoman Greene, Ranking Member
Stansbury, other Members of Congress, staff, guests. A brisk
good morning to all.
My name is Ron Kendall. I am the Executive Chairman
emeritus of the National Federal Development Association. That
is a trade association comprised of owners and developers of
real estate that is leased to the Federal Government, along
with various service providers, financiers, attorneys, brokers,
and so forth.
My relevance to this Committee's inquiry today is twofold.
First, 24 years ago when I served as the Chief Asset Officer of
the Public Buildings Service, I wrote a paper called the
Portfolio Restructuring Strategy. It bears very closely to what
the Administration is doing today in terms of disposal of
Federal buildings.
I want to explain that a bit. It is based upon three key
findings. No. 1, that the PBS-owned portfolio had significant
accrued depreciation in terms of physical needs for the
properties. Billions of dollars, just as it is today.
Two, is the recognition that GSA was never going to receive
appropriations sufficient to be able to cure that depreciation,
that all the repairs and replacements that the buildings
needed.
The third is a critical point. What we did--when my
analysts went to look at the portfolio's performance, we
noticed something very interesting. Fifteen percent of the
buildings, in terms of building number, 250 roughly out of
1,750 buildings, produced 95 percent of the financial--what is
called FFO, funds from operations, a term borrowed from the
REIT industry. The profitability of the Federal Buildings Fund
depended upon 250 buildings. That is a small number, less than
15 percent, but it constituted 55 percent of the square
footage.
So, the portfolio strategy was very simple: Take and direct
the scarce capital resources that GSA would receive by
appropriation to those buildings, because those are the ones
that are keeping you going, and sell off the balance, but only
when you need to, not when the buildings are--when the
buildings fall into decrepit states or when fire, like safety
issues, are pressing and you need to vacate. There is no need
to get out before then.
Now, some may construe the strategy as being very GSA-
centric in terms of the profitability of the Federal Buildings
Fund, but that is a mistake in apprehension, because it is
really good government. GSA's core portfolio, that is how we
defined it back then, 24 years ago, is a portfolio of well-
occupied, high-rent buildings in major metropolitan areas. And
so, by having those buildings in the inventory, you avoid
paying high-lease costs to the private sector, so it is really
benefiting the American taxpayer.
Now, my concern today is that the DOGE-led disposal group,
the non-core buildings that were posted briefly and taken down
after a day, 440 some buildings, consisted of buildings that
should not be on that list, buildings that are brand new, like
the Volpe Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Brand new. It
will not need major repair for 15 or 20 years.
The Main Justice building was on that. That is a core
property. So, my concern is that this is not being done
judiciously. The list of core properties is pretty easy to
figure out and needs to be protected.
So, disposal is not the enemy. It is how it is done, and it
must be done carefully with deliberate study.
I am about out of time. I simply want to talk quickly about
leases. It looks to me that there is a list of leases that are
being terminated purely because they are soft term. Agencies
still have needs for that space. So, my concern is that we are
not looking at agency mission when terminating soft term
leases. It is very important to maintain the viability of
agencies to execute their mission.
I am out of time. I look forward to questions.
Ms. Greene. I now recognize myself for 5 minutes of
questions. And I thank the witnesses for their testimony.
Mr. Marroni, the title of your testimony is ``Reducing the
Government's Holdings Could Generate Substantial Savings,'' and
I agree with that. And thanks to the Trump Administration, we
are finally seeing some savings, $400 million on leases,
according to the Administration.
Do you think the government's excess properties exist in
part because Federal agencies and the bureaucrats who run them
have no incentive to move or to give up their space? Just, why
won't these agencies co-locate and downsize?
Mr. Marroni. So, there are a number of reasons, but
certainly cultural reticence to sharing space is something we
have identified in the past. Also, inertia, for lack of a
better word. It is a space you have already had and there is
not as much incentive to move. It costs money to move out of
space at times and agencies have not always put that up front.
There is a number of other reasons possibly too, but certainly
those are both valid reasons that they have brought up before.
Those are reasons that have been brought up before.
Ms. Greene. Right. Except their actions are different. They
certainly were ready to jump out of this building and lease a
very expensive building on Pennsylvania Avenue.
Recent Presidents could not overcome that bureaucratic
inertia, yet President Trump and DOGE ended almost 700 leases
in just a few months. That is unbelievable.
Has any other administration acted so quickly to reduce the
Federal footprint, that you know of?
Mr. Marroni. Not that I am aware of.
Ms. Greene. Yes. Much needed, though.
Mr. Marroni, your testimony states that a GAO covert
operation last year was successful about half the time in
sneaking prohibited items past the guards and into Federal
buildings. I am really interested in that.
What sort of items did you sneak in? What dangers does this
vulnerability pose?
Mr. Marroni. Right. So, we snuck in three different items:
a multipurpose tool with a knife, a baton like a baton you
could use to attack someone with, and pepper spray. All those
are prohibited items. All those are things you could cause real
harm if you wanted to, and like you said, about half the time
we were able to get that through, so that raises concerns. We
only did 27 tests and got through half the time. That suggests
other items could be getting through at a greater level.
Ms. Greene. But you got through half the time in 27 tests.
Mr. Marroni. Correct. And that also comports with FPS', the
Federal Protective Service's, own covert testing program.
Ms. Greene. Wow. That is definitely terrifying. Thank you
for that. I have a lot of death threats and several people have
been convicted and served time in prison for planning to murder
me, so I always appreciate the efforts on every single aspect
of security to make sure that people that work within the
Federal Government and the Capitol and visitors, as well, are
safe. So, thank you.
Mr. Hart, I appreciate the work your organization has done
in making the American people aware how the government spends
American's hard-earned money, including this chart behind me
here. It shows a disgusting amount of Federal spending on
furniture, which is what you talked about.
So, how did you go about finding the Biden Administration
spent about $1 billion per year on furniture while Federal
buildings sat empty during COVID and Federal workers worked
from home?
Mr. Hart. Yes. What we do, Chairman, is we have access to
all Federal spending through USAspending.gov, and that's a bill
that I helped pass back in 2006. So, we are able to do key word
searches and look at furniture, look for vendors even, and
identify--and key word search things like ``recliners'' to
identify and understand how much the Federal Government is
spending on furniture. And it is really a scope-of-government-
problem issue, I mentioned in my opening statement. When we
decide----
Ms. Greene. Yes, it is a big scope----
Mr. Hart. When we decide to have a large scope, there is
going to be a big cost of furniture, so it is--but it is a very
useful way to think about and assess whether we ought to have
this number of Federal buildings at this time.
Ms. Greene. Yes. Mr. Hart, we appreciate those efforts.
In 2021, the CDC spent almost a quarter million dollars on
solar-powered picnic tables. The CDC at the time was telling
people to socially distance with masks and basically forcing a
vaccine that many Americans did not want.
So, what use would its employees have for this new picnic
table that has quite the price tag?
Mr. Hart. Yes, it is quite expensive and, you know, the
social distancing guidelines suggested they should not be
seated at that table while they were spending $237,000 on it.
Ms. Greene. Look at those seats. Look at those seats. That
is not social distancing.
Mr. Hart. No, they are quite close. There is a close
proximity of those seats to the other person in order to
utilize those.
Ms. Greene. Yes. Real quick, I have just got a short amount
of time yet. I would like to ask just basically, just for the
general audience, is $238,000 spent on solar-powered picnic
tables at the CDC appropriate? I think the American people
thinks that is disgusting. Is $700,000 spent by the SEC for
their New York regional office conference room appropriate of
taxpayer dollars? I do not think so. What about $6.5 million
spent on high-end furniture to redecorate the EPE office? No.
And then $284,000 in Herman Miller furniture for FEMA's
headquarters conference center an appropriate use of taxpayer
dollars? I would argue not.
I am definitely over time, so thank you, gentlemen.
I now yield to the Ranking Member, Stansbury, for 5
minutes.
Ms. Stansbury. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
Mr. Marroni, I am grateful that you are here. I know in the
report that GAO has published that real estate of the Federal
Government has been on the high-risk list since 2003, and part
of that is that we are not disposing of it and taking care of
it in as quickly a process as needed, so I think this is an
issue that we have bipartisan agreement on. Certainly, if you
are overinvested in assets, it is something that you need to
deal with as a business.
But, you know, I am a former OMB employee. I was a non-
partisan Federal official, and I worked on the Department of
Interior's portfolio. And one of the things that the American
public may not realize is that when the Federal Government is
trying to figure out how to reconfigure its Federal property
footprint, there is a whole planning process that begins.
So, you first work with the Federal agencies. You identify,
are they going to change the configuration of how they are
using space based on sharing of desk space, if there is
laboratories needed, do they need to be physically located in
certain spaces? This is what any company does, right. They try
to figure out where their employees are going to be located.
Then there is a planning process with the actual real
estate itself, because in many cases you cannot dispose of your
leases without investing in construction and improvements
because of the terms of a lease, if it is a lease, or if you
are trying to dispose of the property and get fair market
value.
So, what I really want to highlight here is that we need an
expedited process, but any private company or public entity
would have to go through an extensive planning process to do it
in a way that would get a fair shake for the taxpayers. Would
you agree with that?
Mr. Marroni. There is certainly planning steps you want to
take.
Ms. Stansbury. Absolutely. So, the idea of just putting out
a list of hundreds of Federal properties, including some of the
most valuable real estate in Washington, DC. on the Federal
Mall, including the headquarters of every major Federal agency,
is not a planning process. That is a fire sale of some of the
most valuable real estate properties in Washington, DC.
Now, we all know that Donald Trump is a real estate
developer--let us not lose sight of that--and certainly he
understands the significance of the disposal of properties in
the most valuable real estate in our Nation's Capital. So, I
think it is important that we keep that in mind as we are
thinking about, is the intentions of what DOGE is doing, are
they actually in the public interest?
And, Mr. Marroni, I want to also go back to kind of the
bigger economic context, because I think it actually relates to
the issues that we are dealing with this week in the House. In
fact, you know, Donald Trump has put into place tariffs last
week that are causing the markets to tank, right now the
economy is in complete free fall, and House Republicans are
whipping votes to try to get this new package across the finish
line that would give permanent tax breaks to billionaires, and
the markets are completely shook by it.
And I know you--this is outside your purview, but the issue
here is that anyone who works in real estate right now knows
that this is not a good time to sell real estate. Would you
agree with that?
Mr. Marroni. It is a challenging time, particularly
commercial offices.
Ms. Stansbury. Absolutely. So, that is the point I want to
make. If we are talking about actually getting value for the
taxpayers, then doing a fire sale of Federal properties and
then putting into place expensive leases where the Federal
Government would spend Federal taxpayer dollars to lease back
from private entities at this moment, as the market is in free
fall and the real estate market is in complete tanking at the
moment, it is not a good use of taxpayer dollars. Like, this is
a terrible idea at this moment, and it needs to be done through
a sane process.
Now, Mr. Hart, I was interested in your testimony, and I
actually just want to follow up. You used in your testimony a
bunch of times this concept of dismantling the administrative
state. And so, I am just curious, do you view the disposal of
Federal real estate as part of dismantling the administrative
state?
Mr. Hart. No. I view it as empowering taxpayers and
transferring wealth from Washington to individual Americans.
So, I think it is probably one of the best economic stimulus
programs you could have is to shift tax dollars from----
Ms. Stansbury. May I ask, Mr. Hart, is your agenda to
dismantle the administrative state?
Mr. Hart. No. My agenda is transparency and to give----
Ms. Stansbury. I am sorry, Mr. Hart, I understand. I just
listened to your 5 minutes of testimony.
I think it is very clear that part of the agenda here is
really about dismantling the administrative state and using
real assets of the Federal Government to do that. I mean no
disrespect, but I wanted to reclaim my time.
So, the point here is that things are not always as they
appear in Washington, DC, and I think it is very clear that
this is not about the Federal taxpayers and the American
people. This is about disposing of Federal property and a fire
sale to make the wealthy more wealthy.
Thanks. I yield back.
Ms. Greene. I would like to point out that the market is up
about 1,400 points.
With that, I now recognize Mr. Fallon for 5 minutes.
Mr. Fallon. Thank you, Madam Chair. You have got to love
the hyperbolic accusations and class warfare all in one
sentence.
We have 1,500 Federal buildings. We have 7,500 leases of
other locations, 511 million square feet of office space, and
it really comes down to need and want. There might be some
people that want all of that space, but do we really need it?
And clearly, when you read government reports, even pre-COVID,
we did not need the space that we had. We had too much. Then
COVID exacerbated and the surplus exploded.
Now, in 2022, Joe Biden in his State of the Union Address,
and I quote, said, ``The vast majority of Federal workers will
once again work in person.''
Mr. Kendall, do you believe Mr. Biden achieved his goal?
Mr. Kendall. Mr. Fallon, I believe that he made a directive
which was tempered by agency input. There was a lot of----
Mr. Fallon. So, Mr. Kendall, sorry, I have 5 minutes. So,
do you believe he achieved that goal, yes or no? We can talk
about----
Mr. Kendall. To some degree he did.
Mr. Fallon. To some degree. OK.
2023 GAO report found that 17 of the 24 largest Federal
agencies used only 25 percent of their headquarters capacity.
Of all 24, not one of them reached over 50 percent, and we are
talking big ones: Defense, State, Commerce, Justice, Treasury,
et al. This much space, when you are talking about operation
and maintenance bills, are going to be in the billions. Leases,
$7 billion just on leases, and then there is a backlog deferred
maintenance, which is now estimated--and these are not our
numbers. These are not Republican numbers. These are numbers
from government agencies--is $370 billion. So, 17 out of 24; 71
percent are under 25 percent and all of them are under 49. We
clearly have to take some of this off the books.
So, we can be accused of nefarious intent. The fact of the
matter is we are looking out for the American taxpayer.
Now, you are talking about very expensive real estate in
Washington, DC, New York City, San Francisco. And to alleviate
some of our friends' concerns on the other side of the aisle,
there is something called strategic sequencing to prevent the
flooding of the market, and I would trust somebody that has
real estate experience.
The Biden Administration, when we are talking about 1,500
buildings, 7,500 leases, 5,011 million square feet of office
space, what did they do? Did they take action? Fact of the
matter is, they did not. And it is time and it is high time, 20
years in the making, to take some action.
The U.S. Center of Disease Control, as Madam Chair pointed
out, spent $230 grand on solar picnic tables. That a good use
of government funds, Mr. Kendall, you think?
Mr. Kendall. I just wanted to respond to something you just
said. When I did this portfolio restructuring strategy----
Mr. Fallon. I am not asking you that.
Mr. Kendall [continuing]. There was $197 million----
Mr. Fallon. Madam Chair?
Mr. Kendall. It is $183, so----
Ms. Greene. The witness is not recognized.
Mr. Fallon. Thank you. Reclaim my time.
Mr. Kendall, you are a witness. You are here of your own
volition. Could you answer my question? Do you think that $230
grand for solar picnic tables at the Center of Disease Control
is a good use of taxpayer money?
Mr. Kendall. I have no opinion. I do not know----
Mr. Fallon. OK. How about State Department, high-end
furniture, $120 grand of leather furniture in Islamabad,
Pakistan? You think that is a good use of taxpayer money?
Mr. Kendall. I would like to examine----
Mr. Fallon. So, no opinion, again. How about the Pension
Benefit Guaranty Corporation--spent $14.4 million, about
$14,400 per employee, on brand-new furniture? Is that a good
use of taxpayer money?
Mr. Kendall. Did it include IT? Does it include computers
and so forth?
Mr. Fallon. It is furniture. So, again, yes or no? No?
Mr. Kendall. I do not have sufficient information to make
an informed decision.
Mr. Fallon. OK. Thank you.
The Biden Administration essentially did nothing, and what
we have had with new leadership, with DOGE is terminating 700
Federal leases already, 10 percent. That is a chunk. That is a
good start. Any building that has national security
implications is going to be unaffected. And now they are moving
on to sell, and we are going to do it, again, with strategic
sequencing as well.
I think it should be noted; the Democratic witness works
for a trade association that represents real estate owners who
lease space to the Federal Government. Is that a fair
assessment, Mr. Kendall?
Mr. Kendall. That is true.
Mr. Fallon. OK. Thank you.
Then we have got something in the research that we were
doing. The McKinney-Vento Act of 1987, I was shocked to find,
Madam Chair, that homeless assistance providers have right of
first refusal on any sale of any Federal building. I think the
American people should know that, and legislation should be
drafted, and our office will be doing so, to repeal that, to
give the Federal Government more flexibility to properly sell
and unload these buildings to save the taxpayers--not the
super-rich, evil people--the taxpayers of this country, some
money.
Madam Chair, I yield back.
Ms. Greene. Thank you, Mr. Fallon.
I now recognize Ms. Norton from the District of Columbia
for 5 minutes.
Ms. Norton. I strongly oppose OMB and OPM's recent
directive to Federal agencies to, quote, ``propose relocations
of agency, bureaus, and offices from Washington, DC, and the
National Capital region to less costly parts of the country,''
end quote. I also strongly oppose the new bills that have been
introduced this Congress to relocate the headquarters for
Federal agencies in the National Capital region to outside the
National Capital region.
These relocations, as we saw during the first Trump
Administration, would harm the operations of these agencies and
waste taxpayer dollars. They would also harm the economy of the
National Capital region and upend the lives of Federal workers,
many with kids who love their homes and schools.
Last month, I introduced a bill to prohibit such
relocations. However, there are specific Federal buildings in
D.C. that GSA should dispose of in an orderly manner and move
the employees from those buildings into other buildings in D.C.
These disposals would save the Federal Government money and
could generate tax revenue for D.C., increase housing supply,
and create new mixed-use neighborhoods in the District of
Columbia.
There is a precedent for orderly disposals of Federal
property in D.C. Congress has passed many of my bipartisan
bills to transfer unused or underutilized Federal buildings and
land in D.C. to the D.C. government or the private sector,
including the Webster School, the development of the Wharf, and
The Yards, and most recently the RFK Stadium campus.
Mr. Kendall, I believe that there needs to be an orderly
process for disposing of Federal buildings in D.C. as opposed
to putting many Federal buildings up for sale at the same time.
How would putting many Federal buildings in D.C. up for sale at
the same time affect the price the Federal Government could get
for the buildings and the value of commercial real estate in
D.C., generally?
Mr. Kendall. Congresswoman Norton, selling into a down
market is not a sagacious plan. As Ranking Member Stansbury
said, that is a kind of fire sale approach. Vacancy in the
office market in Washington, DC.--and I have been here for 47
years--it is the highest rate of vacancy in four and a half
decades. You do not sell into a down market. You are going to--
it is folly. You are going to get the lowest price possible, if
you can move the assets at all.
I mean, there is, of course, McKinney-Vento, as the
Congressman just made--it could go, some could go the homeless
way and others might be public benefit discount conveyances and
you get nothing. But the point is, it is not--you are loading
up a market with--that is already under distress, so it is
cataclysmic.
Ms. Norton. Well, a few months ago, Congress passed the
bipartisan Water Resources Development Act, which established a
clear Federal standard requiring GSA to identify buildings for
potential consolidation or disposal, specifically any with an
occupancy rate below 60 percent. However, I am concerned that
GSA is trying to dispose of Federal buildings without looking
at data to judge whether the buildings are needed or not.
Mr. Marroni, based on the timeline established in the
recent law, when do you expect the GSA would have the
information needed to make more informed decisions about
private property disposal?
Mr. Marroni. Agencies are supposed to start collecting that
data in July and then they are supposed to report in January.
Ms. Norton. Thank you very much. I yield back.
Ms. Greene. The gentlelady yields.
And I now recognize Mr. Cloud from Texas for 5 minutes.
Mr. Cloud. Thank you all for being here. Appreciate you,
Chairwoman, for holding this hearing on this topic. It is
certainly one that we have talked about before, but one that we
have seen very little action on.
You know, one of the reasons and discussion points
surrounding those who were proponents of teleworking were that
we would save all this money on not needing these Federal
buildings, and yet what we have seen was--you know, in the
business world, what you would do is you would lose a little
productivity with people maybe working remotely, but you would
gain that from, you know, less cost and overhead of maintaining
buildings and facilities. But, of course, in the nature of the
Federal Government, we sent people home and got less
productivity and we continued to grow our assets and property
portfolios and now are maintaining empty buildings to the tunes
of millions and millions and millions, and billions of dollars
even.
Biden had, as Mr. Fallon mentioned, committed to getting
the work force back to work in person in offices, and of
course, we know that did not happen. This has really been a
bipartisan issue. Even Obama in 2011, in the campaign to cut
waste, laid out what you could almost describe as the goals of
DOGE, but we saw very little progress over that. And so, our
friends in the left right now are kind of complaining about how
this is being done, but one would have to ask them--they had
all three branches, the House, the Senate, and the White House
just 3 months ago--why didn't they do anything about it then?
And so now, we continue to--I am sorry, you are right, a
couple years ago. But nonetheless, you had it a couple years
ago and did not do anything with it. And so now, we find
ourselves to the point where President Trump and the Trump
Administration is finally doing something about this, and this
is good for the American people. We must find savings for it.
As Mr. Fallon mentioned, the vast majority, I think 17 of 24
agencies, were almost vacant, it seems, using 25 percent less,
and then we have a backlog of $370 billion in maintenance costs
backlogs, and so we have to do something about this.
And I think it is worthy to note you keep mentioning
selling properties in a down market. Who would benefit from
that? Well, that would be the American people who are buying
it. These businesses who could buy it up and turn it into a
profitable asset, create a property that would bring tax flow
to Washington, DC, for example, income as opposed to a vacant
building sitting there being a burden on the American people.
So, there is a lot of reasons to continue to move forward on
this. Of course, we want to make sure this is done the right
way.
Mr. Marroni, could you speak to kind of the decisionmaking
process that you look to bring? First of all, thank you for
being willing to take up this fight that so many
administrations have been willing to talk about and bring
little action to. But could you talk about, kind of, your
decisionmaking process and apparatus as we continue to look
forward and how you evaluate what properties are valid and
which ones are not for sale or off-leasing.
Mr. Marroni. Right. So, for owned properties, GSA and the
Administration in general should take a look at--first,
sequencing makes sense. Take a look at the properties. There
are already a number of properties that have been previously
identified as properties that should be gotten rid of.
Oftentimes, these are buildings that are underused, have been
for a long time, and have large deferred maintenance and
liabilities. So, it makes sense, start with those. Get those
out the door as quickly as you can and get those savings.
And then, as the new data that we are going to have on
utilization, which is going to start rolling in in July comes
in, you can use that to further assess where are there
additional properties that are underused. We will have that
data for the first time for many buildings and assess what
makes next sense in the next tranche to sell off and
consolidate.
This all is going to take money. It does take money to move
out of spaces, to build out consolidations, to reconfigure
spaces, but at the end of the day, you save--not only do you
potentially get proceeds from the sales, but you also save the
operation of maintenance costs, which have a very long tail,
and save a lot of money over time by getting rid of buildings
that are just too costly to maintain now.
Mr. Cloud. More than half of GSA's leases, I think it is
4,108 out of 7,685, are set to expire between, well, 2023 and
2027. How much of the Federal Government can save by allowing
these leases to expire that are not needed, using properties
that we already own?
Mr. Marroni. Right. Well, from a pure financial basis, we
spend about $6 billion on leases each year. So, if you are
reducing--whatever the math is, I cannot do the public math,
but it is a substantial amount you can get from lease savings.
You just want to make sure you know what your end state is
going to be, how much space are you aiming for at the end to
make sure you are sequencing things in a way that makes sense.
Mr. Cloud. I only have 8 seconds left, so I will yield back
to the Chairwoman. Thank you.
Ms. Greene. The gentleman yields.
And I now recognize Mr. Lynch from Massachusetts for 5
minutes.
Mr. Lynch. Thank you, Madam Chair.
At the outset, I would just suggest that if this Committee
were truly concerned with delivering on government efficiency,
we might examine the devastating impact of President Trump's
recent trade tariffs on the financial security of the American
people.
In just the 2 days of the President's tariff
implementation, U.S. stocks have lost more than $6.6 trillion
in value. The market turmoil has already placed the retirement
savings of millions of Americans at risk with more than $44
trillion of U.S. retirement assets tied to the stock market,
the 401(k) plans, and other retirement accounts.
I know that President Trump has recently stated, ``I have
not checked my 401(k),'' close quote. Well, Americans,
retirees, and workers that are approaching retirement have
certainly been checking theirs, and I can tell you they are
alarmed. They are alarmed by the extent to which the
President's trade war is pummeling their retirement
investments. So, for the average American who is approaching
retirement, who has about $500,000 in a 401(k), that American
worker lost $35,000 in their 401(k) in the last 2 days of
Trump's tariffs.
So, you know, I have heard from one of our witnesses, if
ever dollar saved is a dream realized, then this is really a
nightmare for the American worker, especially for those who are
approaching retirement. And while the President made great
promises in reducing the cost of groceries, food, housing,
during his campaign, I really would like him to get around to
that if he could at some point.
So, Mr. Kendall, the suggestion here is that we are
supposed to move away from a situation where the government
owns the buildings. Instead, we are going to move to the
private equity model where we sell the building that is home to
a Federal agency, and then we are going to pay rent to a
private equity firm to rent that same space out.
In Massachusetts, we just had a situation like this with
one of our hospitals. Actually, eight of our hospitals. So,
those hospitals were receiving a lot of money from Medicare and
Medicaid, OK? They sold the building to a private equity firm.
The private equity firm drove up the prices. The CEO of the
private equity firm bought two yachts. He has got one of them
off the coast of Ecuador. But at the end of the day, the
Federal taxpayer money, the money that was going to that
hospital through Medicare and Medicaid was now going in the
pocket of a private individual who could spend it on whatever
they want. They introduced the profit motive into the ownership
of those buildings.
So, how does that work for these government buildings that
are now are going to go to Elon Musk's pals who are in private
equity and they are going to have to get profit in addition to
just covering their bills?
Mr. Kendall. Well, Congressman, while my trade association
always feels that there will be adequate leasing, the truth is
leasing does cost more than federally owned space. And I make
it very clear, the cost to the Federal Government to borrow
long term is about two percent--two to three percent. There is
a 500 basis point premium to have space that is leased. That is
what the market charges. So, to bring it home to everybody,
would you rather have a two percent mortgage on your house or a
seven percent mortgage? Obviously, two percent is a lot
cheaper.
So, it behooves the government, when it can afford to own
space, to own it, and you only lease in the alternative. It is
a stark world. You have to lease because you do not have the
sufficient capital to own enough buildings, but it is a mistake
if you have a choice to lease and to sell off buildings and now
pay for them--to pay private sector lessors, it is going to be
more expensive.
Mr. Lynch. And if you have a unique facility that is
designed to provide veterans benefits or some other public
service, it makes it tougher for the government to move, right?
Mr. Kendall. That is correct.
Mr. Lynch. OK.
I yield back, Madam Chair.
If I could, I would ask unanimous consent, a press release
from GSA, dated December 4----
Ms. Greene. Without objection, so ordered.
Mr. Lynch [continuing]. Two-thousand-twenty-four. Thank
you.
Mr. Lynch. And a press release from the Biden-Harris White
House titled ``President Biden Announces New Actions to Ease
the Burden of Housing Costs.''
Ms. Greene. Without objection, so ordered.
Mr. Lynch. Thank you.
Ms. Greene. I now recognize Mr. Timmons from South Carolina
for 5 minutes.
Mr. Timmons. Thank you, Madam Chair.
We are here because this country faces an existential
threat--$36 trillion in debt, a $1.8 trillion annual deficit--
and we are trying to find commonsense solutions to address
unused space and how we can be more efficient with taxpayer
dollars in that regard.
And this is really a whole-of-government approach. We have
to right-size our fiscal ship in order to have a country, long
term. So, I guess this is just one small part of that endeavor.
And it really is just common sense.
And I am going to tell you a story about my time in office.
I got elected 7 years ago, and my predecessor had two offices.
They were spread out in my district. I have a fairly small
district. And they were in some of the highest-costing office
space in my district. And we only had three employees, and we
had two offices. And they were, you know, one was in
Greenville, one was in Spartanburg. And I just said, ``Well,
that really does not make sense.''
So, I went to a wonderful, you know, municipality that is
up and coming, and I got this fantastic office space. It is
actually more square feet than I had between the two, but it is
drastically nicer, and it costs less than half as much. So,
just in my one little congressional office, we are probably
saving $60,000 to $70,000 a year.
So, that is just pretty straightforward. And we are going
to basically do the same thing across the country. We are going
to figure out what we need and what we do not need, and then we
are going to dispose of what we do not need by either selling
it or by not renewing the lease.
So, Mr. Marroni, the Department of Government Efficiency
has already terminated close to 700 Federal leases. What
financial impact has that created for taxpayers?
Mr. Marroni. That, once the leases are drawn out--there is
about a 90-120 days, but there will be this lease savings. You
will not be paying that lease rent anymore.
Mr. Timmons. And, I mean, 700 leases, that is likely
hundreds of millions of dollars. I mean----
Mr. Marroni. It depends on the----
Mr. Timmons. Depends on the property.
Mr. Marroni [continuing]. Timing of the leases. Right.
Mr. Timmons. And I know we are complaining about property
in D.C. that we own. So, this building is likely to be sold in
the next couple of years. Do you want to guess at what, I mean,
this is probably, what, 3 acres? How much is 3 acres worth, 4
blocks from the Capitol?
Mr. Marroni. I would imagine quite a lot.
Mr. Timmons. Yes, it is at least tens of millions of
dollars.
And you know what we really need in this area? We need
housing. And so, I guarantee you that a developer--a big, bad
developer is going to come in, and you know what is funny? The
D.C. city code is going to require them to do 30 or 40 percent
of it as affordable housing. So, that will make some of my
colleagues across the aisle happy. But there will probably be,
I do not know, 1,000, 2,000 units to address the housing crisis
in this area.
Because what--this is crazy. The highest and best use of
this property is not what is currently being used. And we are
going to transition it to that. And the best part is, when they
build this massive building and put housing in it, they are
going to pay taxes.
So, we are going to take a building that is currently using
taxpayer dollars to be maintained, but not very well, and we
are going to then sell it, get tens of millions of dollars, and
we are going to turn around and create a highest and best use
for this property, which is then going to result in it paying
taxes.
So, I mean, that is the whole theory. And, while we can
look all across the country for areas that we can save money, I
mean, this is just common sense.
I do have a question.
So, Mr. Marroni, why is this so hard? Like, what is wrong,
historically, that has created this problem where we use such a
small percentage of property that we lease and that we own? And
what are the structural impediments to really turning this
problem upside-down and solving it?
Mr. Marroni. Yes. I will point to a couple. There is
multiple reasons.
But the biggest challenge is, we are typically talking
about underuse. So, it is not a lot of properties that are just
purely vacant and empty and--there are some. But the bigger
issue is agencies having space where only a portion is being
used.
And so, a couple of problems. One, agencies typically have
not had the incentive to move off of properties that are
underused but not completely vacant. It costs money for them to
get the buildings ready for disposal.
Another reason is reticence, inertia. You have been in this
space for a long time; you are familiar with it. In recent
years, there has been some uncertainty, right? How many people
are going to be in the office versus not? Do we get rid of the
space and have to get back new space?
Mr. Timmons. I am running out of time.
Mr. Marroni. OK.
Mr. Timmons. I want to close with this.
President Biden, in his State of the Union address, talked
about how he was bringing people back to work. He did not do
that because he actually wanted to. He did that because the
city of D.C. was crumbling without the Federal workers coming
and supporting the businesses that they previously supported.
So, I know that my colleagues across the aisle do not like
this effort, but when this building becomes 2,000 apartments,
those people are going to then spend money in Washington, so it
will actually help the economy.
With that, I yield back.
Ms. Greene. The gentleman yields.
I now recognize Ms. Crockett from Texas for 5 minutes.
Ms. Crockett. Thank you so much, Madam Chair.
And I can tell you, one thing that is crumbling for the
city of D.C. was that continuing resolution that defunded
approximately a billion dollars from them.
But I will focus on today's hearing.
The Republicans' recklessness and chaotic approach to
reducing the size of government has shown us what we have
already known: Concepts of a plan do not work.
This is the Committee's fourth hearing, and, still, no one
from the so-called Department of Government Efficiency has
testified before this Committee about their plans to break the
Federal Government. Because, as it turns out, breaking the
Federal Government does not just hurt people you do not like.
It is not just going to be Democrats who miss out on Medicaid,
Medicare, and Social Security or only Democratic veterans who
will miss out on their VA benefits. Their approach will
negatively impact all Americans.
So, it is unfortunate that Republicans have taken a
seemingly bipartisan issue and included it as part of their
scam to subsidize tax giveaways for billionaires. They have not
proposed anything that will improve the efficiency of the
government. Instead, they have put the country on a path to a
recession and implemented the largest tax increase on Americans
in decades, through Trump's tariffs.
This hearing is their latest attempt to try to convince the
American people that dismantling public-facing agencies will
somehow improve government efficiency. Let me tell you, it will
not. There is nothing efficient about terminating leases for
IRS taxpayer assistance centers during tax season, nor
dismantling farmer support offices in rural communities while
farmers are trying to survive Trump's tariffs.
And, just like their trade policy, there is not any logic
or strategy behind the Trump Administration's reductions in
force or accelerated disposal of federally owned property. It
has been discussed that managing Federal property has been on
GAO's high-risk list for more than two decades. Currently, GAO
has almost 60 recommendations that the Administration could
fully implement but decided to ignore.
And I am going to veer off for 2 seconds, because all I
kept hearing was ``fire.'' ``Fire, fire, fire'' is what I
heard. And as I heard ``fire,'' it seems like we are talking
about an Administration that has been hell-bent on firing
government workers; they are hell-bent on engaging in fire
sales of our government buildings; and, while we are at it,
they are lighting the Social Security on fire, Medicaid on
fire, Medicare on fire, 401(k)'s on fire, Department of
Education on fire.
And, instead, what we need to light on fire are Trump's
tariffs. In fact, we could probably go a little bit further and
fire this incompetent Administration.
But, if we are going to talk about efficiency and worry
about some solar-paneled whatevers, let us talk about the fact
that, as of March 30, Trump's golfing has cost us approximately
$26 million. And the last time I checked, we are not getting
anything in return for that.
So, I will get back on my remarks, but I just wanted to
point out that maybe we need to talk about the President and
his golfing habits. In fact, he decided that he was going to
golf as the markets were tanking. He decided he was going to
golf instead of receiving four heroes who died serving this
country. He has decided that he wanted to play games while the
rest of us are really trying to make sure that we can serve the
American people.
So, Mr. Marroni, you were quoted in the New York Times
article dated March 17, stating that it is important for
officials to have a plan to generate the most savings and that,
quote, ``all of these moving parts point to the need for some
deliberate planning.''
Did the Administration consult with GAO regarding their
plans to dispose of hundreds of federally owned buildings?
Mr. Marroni. No.
Ms. Crockett. In your testimony, you highlight that one of
the core issues associated with managing Federal property is
the lack of reliable data to support decisionmaking. Is that
correct?
Mr. Marroni. Yes.
Ms. Crockett. Would reducing GSA's work force by 50 percent
improve data gathering and analysis?
Mr. Marroni. I cannot say. They are not----
Ms. Crockett. That is perfectly fine. We know that we need
experts and not idiots.
But, Mr. Kendall, we will move on. In your written
testimony, you State: Some of the actions of this
Administration suggest that the Administration ``is not
following a strategy designed to save taxpayer money'' and that
the Administration seems to ignore agencies' mission integrity.
Why do you think that?
Mr. Kendall. In the list of----
Ms. Crockett. You have got 20 seconds.
Mr. Kendall. In the list of projects, there were a couple
score Social Security offices, IRS taxpayer service offices,
which those agencies, those end-user agencies, wanted, and yet
the Administration is canceling those leases. So, it does
imperil mission accomplishment.
Ms. Crockett. Thank you so much.
I will yield back.
Ms. Greene. The gentlelady yields.
And I now recognize Mr. Burlison from Missouri for 5
minutes.
Mr. Burlison. Thank you, Madam Chair.
I first want to acknowledge these amazing chairs that we
are sitting in. I looked them up. These chairs retail for
$2,900. This is the nicest chair that I have sat in. And, you
know, I have worked at a lot of Fortune--I have worked at
Fortune 500 companies, worked in the private sector. Never had
a chair this nice--in a building that is empty.
I am speaking to you from a microphone that I looked up
right now. It is over $1,600 for this very nice microphone that
apparently needs video.
This is why we are here. We are in an empty building from
an agency that decided this was not good enough, so they
decided to spend $250 million more over a 15-year period for a
more luxurious location than this.
So--and, with that, I want to say thank you----
Mr. Lynch. Would the gentleman yield?
Mr. Burlison [continuing]. For this hearing.
Mr. Lynch. Would the gentleman yield for a question?
Mr. Burlison. When it comes to--I have very limited time. I
do not----
Mr. Lynch. OK.
Mr. Burlison [continuing]. Want to yield.
Mr. Lynch. OK. I understand. I am just asking. Thank you.
Mr. Burlison. So, the solution is quite simple: Reduce the
budgetary burden of the national real estate portfolio by
disposing of Federal properties like the one that we are in
today. It could be repositioned, it could find a better
purpose, as was mentioned before.
So, I want to ask Mr. Marroni, how many properties in the
Federal portfolio--how many are there?
Mr. Marroni. So, there is about 277,000 buildings, but that
is everything.
Mr. Burlison. And how many of those have approximate
utilization of their full capacity or at 75 percent or above?
Mr. Marroni. There is just not good data.
Mr. Burlison. OK.
Mr. Marroni. We do not have data.
Mr. Burlison. How many are below 15 percent?
Mr. Marroni. Same thing there. We only know for
headquarters.
Mr. Burlison. So, I want to show you, the American people,
a chart that we found where there is a list of a number of
buildings. And on this list, you have got, for example, the
James Forrestal Building, which is--its estimated capacity is
almost 5,000 people. There are eight people occupying that
building today. We have the Wilbur Cohen Building, which, you
know, could house almost 3,500 people, but there is 750.
This entire list--it goes from the top to the bottom. At
the very bottom, the GSA headquarters is 14-percent occupied.
So, this is where we stand.
You know, Milton Friedman had a great quote that I wanted
to mention. There are four ways that you can spend money. You
can spend your own money, which you do. You are really careful
or watch what you are doing and try to get the most of your
money. Then you can spend your money on somebody else, like if
you buy a birthday gift for someone else. Then you are not
careful about the gift, but you are careful about the money.
Then you can also spend somebody else's money on yourself, and
in that case you have a really nice lunch. And then there is
the example where you spend somebody else's money on somebody
else. And this is what happens when you are spending somebody
else's money on somebody else.
So, I have a question for Mr. Hart.
You and your organization, Open the Books, say that you are
committed to making every dime of government spending
accessible to the public, which I commend you for what you are
doing. Transparency is exactly what we need from our Federal
Government.
More than half of the current leases that GSA maintains are
set to expire between now and 2027. How much money could the
American people save by not renewing these leases?
Mr. Hart. Well, I can speak to the cost of furniture, which
is going to be about $1.1 billion on just furniture. And I
would have to get you the figure on leases.
But what it illustrates, again, is that, when you decide to
have a massive expanse of Federal agencies, it is very, very
expensive to decorate and redecorate these agencies and buy
chairs like the one you are sitting in right now.
Mr. Burlison. Apparently my $1,600 microphone----
Mr. Hart. Right. Failed.
Mr. Burlison [continuing]. Was not working.
Mr. Burchett. You got the $800 one.
Mr. Burlison. So, I want to put into perspective a report
that we uncovered from the Public Buildings Reform Board's
report to Congress. Instead of using, you know, the accounting
that was given to them, they used available cell phone data.
And, in 2023, the cell phone data indicated that approximately
441 people occupied the Frances Perkins Building on an average
day, costing the American taxpayer approximately $182,000 per
employee each year in operating and maintenance expenses and
rent paid.
Mr. Marroni, is that a reasonable expense from the American
taxpayers, $182,000 per employee?
Mr. Marroni. You certainly do not want to spend more on
real property than you need.
Mr. Burlison. Thank you.
Thank you, Madam Chair, and I yield back.
Ms. Greene. The gentleman yields.
And I now recognize Ms. Brown from Ohio for 5 minutes.
Ms. Brown. Thank you, Chairwoman.
I wanted to waive on to today's hearing because the General
Services Administration is rushing to sell a piece of Federal
infrastructure in my district, the Anthony J. Celebrezze
Federal Building in downtown Cleveland.
Let me be clear: This is not just the sale of a building.
It is a reckless decision that could destabilize essential
services for my constituents, displace some 4,000 Federal
employees, and deal a blow to the local economy.
The Celebrezze houses the IRS, the Veterans Benefits
Administration, the Defense Finance and Accounting Service,
DHS, and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. These are
the people ensuring tax seasons run smoothly, our veterans get
their benefits, and military payroll is processed accordingly.
Selling this building, especially on an expedited 3-year
timeline compared to the usual 10 years this takes, is
shortsighted and misguided.
And what it really represents is another example of Donald
Trump and Elon Musk's chaotic and careless approach to cost-
cutting. In fact, ``cost-cutting'' is too generous. What they
are really doing is looting the Federal Government and
stripping it for parts.
This sale could result in reduced public access to
services, lower job security for thousands of workers, and a
ripple effect throughout Cleveland's downtown economy. Local
businesses, public transit, and city revenues all depend on the
Federal footprint of this building.
The Administration promises to relocate workers to other
spaces in Cleveland. That is great. But how? How can their word
be trusted?
They are selling a building while forcing workers to return
to the office. They claim they will look for new lease space as
they simultaneously cancel leases nationwide. And they are
firing Federal workers that provide my constituents and the
American people with critical programs and services.
So, what assurances do we have that they will actually
maintain staffing levels and secure new space for the agencies
affected? Or is this just another slash-and-burn strategy, a
thinly veiled attack on the Federal work force under the guise
of reform?
This building is an anchor for downtown Cleveland. Removing
this presence will not only leave a void in the heart of
Cleveland, it will undermine the progress that we have made in
revitalizing the city.
There is a responsible way to reduce and consolidate the
Federal Government's real estate portfolio, but this hasty
decision is not it.
So, Mr. Kendall, can you tell us, how does GSA balance the
social and community impacts, like job loss, transit
disruption, and economic disinvestment, with the needs of the
agency?
Mr. Kendall. That is a difficult question.
GSA defers to end-user agencies in terms of what their
space needs are. They really are a reactive organization in
terms of finding space. Typically, the rule is to use owned
space and, if that is not available, to lease space.
The Celebrezze Building, I do not know the particulars of
it. If there is not an exigency about selling it because it
constitutes a life-safety threat to the occupants, it does not
have to be moved.
I mean, part of the argument here today is that Federal
workers are being put in opulent space, leased space, and
incurring great costs, but they could be retained in maybe
Class B or B-minus federally owned buildings and avoid lease
costs. GSA is all about avoiding lease costs.
So, I do not know specifically about the mission needs of
the agencies that are housed in that building, but my sense
would be GSA is deferential to those concerns.
Ms. Brown. So, given your experience at the GSA, how would
you characterize the Administration's rushed approach? Would
their rushed approach to decisionmaking and shortening disposal
timeline lead to more efficiencies or less?
Mr. Kendall. I think that there is a lot of haste going on
today, and I think it is ill-thought-through. I think that a
much more deliberate approach should be taken to deciding what
buildings to retain and what to get rid of.
I also think that the staffing levels are endangering
GSA's--the reduction in staffing--I understand 63 percent of
the PBS employees are to be terminated. That is three out of
every five. I do not know how it was determined, how they
reached that number, and in consideration of what mission needs
are and what types and numbers of employees you need to
execute. So, I am concerned.
Ms. Brown. So, the last thing I want to get, before I run
out of time, this question in--is, the list reported that
building utilization is a contributing factor to the need for
management of Federal property. How is the President's return
to work impacting GAO's analysis of Federal real estate?
Ms. Greene. The gentlelady is out of time.
Ms. Brown. Sorry. Thank you.
Ms. Greene. I now recognize Mr. Jack from Georgia.
Mr. Jack. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. And thank you for
convening this hearing in an underutilized Federal office
building.
To establish context for those watching at home, our
Federal Government owns roughly 511 million square feet of
office space, and that does not include large swaths of
military bases.
So, again, to establish context, if you, like me, watched
the National Championship last night and saw how massive the
Alamodome looked, the 511 million square feet of Federal office
space represents 3,200 Alamodomes.
If you watched at home--if you are watching this hearing at
home, the average square footage of an American home is about
2,000 square feet, which represents 255,000 average American
homes.
So, that is the scale with which we are dealing when we
discuss Federal office space.
And if I could start with Mr. Marroni, I would like us to
look into the 2020 GAO report that just describes how
inaccurate the data base is that monitors all this Federal
Government.
Are you familiar with that report? And could you share a
little bit about its findings?
Mr. Marroni. Right. We found that the Federal Real Property
Profile, which is the data base for Federal real inventory, had
significant--they have liability problems, including something
as simple as address information.
Mr. Jack. And if I am not mistaken, that report
demonstrated that, of the 511 million square feet of Federal
office property, 67 percent of the addresses and accounting for
it is inaccurate. Is that true?
Mr. Marroni. That was the case in 2020. There has been some
improvement.
Mr. Jack. One of the things that we have, you know,
highlighted throughout this hearing thus far is just how
underutilized this office space is. And could you walk us
through GAO's survey--I think there were 24 agencies surveyed--
just how much underutilization is there today?
Mr. Marroni. Right. Well, in 2023, when we did that, there
was significant underutilization in headquarters buildings.
None of the agencies were using more than half of their office
space in the D.C. area for headquarters, and about 17 of the 24
were using less than a quarter. So, it was a significant issue.
That was 2 years ago. We do not know what the picture looks
like today, because there is not good data. That should be
coming this summer.
Mr. Jack. And I am just curious; within those 17 to 24
agencies that use 25 percent or less of Federal office space,
you know, which agency was the most egregious, if you will, at
underutilizing office space?
Mr. Marroni. So, the worst agencies were HUD and SSA for
their headquarters buildings. But I will say, no one had a
great track record in terms of the utilization.
Mr. Jack. Thank you.
And, in your assessment, how much taxpayer money could have
been saved if the Federal Government had begun right-sizing its
property portfolio shortly after the pandemic shift to telework
became apparent?
Mr. Marroni. So, certainly, it could get substantial
savings. It is about $8 billion a year on owned and leased
office space, so any reduction is going to generate a lot of
money.
Mr. Jack. Thank you.
If I could ask some questions of Mr. Hart.
First off, I appreciate your opening testimony. And just
for the American public, I would love for you to walk through
USAspending.gov, walk through the parameters of it, how can we
use that.
Mr. Hart. Yes. Thanks for the question.
So, USAspending.gov was created through the Federal Funding
Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006. That was a
bipartisan bill that Coburn and Obama wrote. And what that bill
did is, it for the first time took all of the disparate data
bases among Federal agencies and put them together so that the
American people could see how Congress is spending their money.
And, again, this is a foundational, first principle of
American society, is that taxpayers have the right to inspect
the government's checkbook; the government does not have the
right to inspect their checkbook. So, transparency in the
Founders' vision is not a two-way street. It is that we have
tools to help hold government accountable, because it is their
money, it is taxpayers' money.
Mr. Jack. Well, in that vein, in the last minute of
questioning, I was alarmed, as I think some of our colleagues
were, in your opening testimony, about some of the expenditures
you walked through that were egregious examples of wasted
taxpayer money.
In your findings, over the course of your work, what was
the most egregious expenditure that you saw? And at the same
time, too, would love recommendations from you as to how best
we can correct that.
Mr. Hart. Yes. Well, it is a very target-rich environment.
I think the totality is quite egregious, where you are looking
at a billion dollars spent on furniture.
We talked about the picnic table as one, where the CDC told
the American people they cannot sit together, but yet they are
spending $230,000 on a picnic table that violates their own
standards. That rubs the American taxpayer the wrong way in
every way imaginable.
So, I think what you could do is really reorganize Federal
agencies. You know, the perfect political moment to cut
spending is always a mirage over the next election horizon, but
this body has the opportunity to do an agency reorganization
bill that will solve all of the problems we are talking about.
Because it is a scope-of-government question.
And to the question before, is that we spend about $80
million a year on leases. And that is not as much as the owned
property; that is a larger number.
But there are incredible opportunities for savings that
could be produced by having a smart, strategic agency
reorganization.
Mr. Jack. Thank you very much.
I yield back.
Ms. Greene. The gentleman yields.
I now recognize Mr. Garcia from California for 5 minutes.
Mr. Garcia. Thank you, Chairwoman.
And thank you to our witnesses.
I think we are, again, here at another hearing where House
Republicans are trying to help Elon Musk get cover for looting
our Federal Government. DOGE and, so far, this Committee has
not been about efficiency or better services; it has been an
attack on programs that we rely on, from public health to
Medicaid to the Department of Education and, of course, now to
office space.
And we all know that Elon Musk and Donald Trump are
attacking all the safeguards designed to make sure they just
cannot sell our government assets to their own companies, but
they can also sell them to their friends.
Our Committee is ignoring the biggest threat from the Trump
Administration so far, and that is their horrific economic
plan, MAGA-nomics.
Now, Mr. Kendall, we have been hearing testimony
complaining that the Federal Government spent $4.6 billion on
furniture since 2021. Do you know how much U.S. businesses will
pay every year in tariffs under Donald Trump's plan? Any idea?
Mr. Kendall. No, sir, I do not.
Mr. Garcia. OK. Well, U.S. businesses will be paying $654
billion a year, and that number will rise. And that is just in
1 year. That number, of course, is enormously much larger than
anything that we ever spent in furniture. We are looking at the
biggest tax increase in over 50 years.
Now, Mr. Kendall, the total value of all property held by
the Federal Government is about $330 billion, as stated. Is
that correct?
Mr. Kendall. I have no basis to challenge that number.
Mr. Garcia. OK. Great. So, do you know how much wealth has
been wiped out from the stock market in just 2 days after
Donald Trump's tariff announcement? Any idea, Mr. Kendall?
Mr. Kendall. It is in the trillions, but I do not know
the----
Mr. Garcia. Around $6.6 trillion.
So, I want to make sure what people should be understanding
here. Last week, we had the largest 2-day stock market fall in
history. We are talking about furniture and office space while
people are losing their retirement accounts, while the stock
market is crashing, while Medicaid is under attack, while
healthcare costs are going up.
We know that retirement accounts are being wiped out right
now as we are holding this hearing. Companies, many of them,
are no longer able to invest. People are losing their jobs. And
we are here talking about furniture while Donald Trump is
destroying the economy.
We also know that predicting a recession, which many are
now doing, is looking more and more likely, which we hope, of
course, does not actually happen.
And while all this was happening and Donald Trump was
imposing his tariffs plan and the prices of almost everything--
groceries, housing, clothing, computers--can be expected to go
up, Donald Trump, of course, the next day, left to go play
golf.
Now, Mr. Kendall, were you aware that, as markets were
crashing, Donald Trump the next day went out to play a few
rounds of golf?
Mr. Kendall. I do read the papers, so I did know that.
Mr. Garcia. And, perhaps, maybe instead he should have been
working with world leaders, our allies, to actually work on the
tariff crisis. But, instead, of course, he was of course on the
front page of The Wall Street Journal, which is a very
conservative paper, as we know.
I think it is clear that Donald Trump could not care less
about the harm he's doing, doesn't care about American workers
or the community. And, unfortunately, Republicans in Congress
want to debate office space and furniture while the President
torches our own American economy and the global economy.
We have businesses right now, back in my district and
across the country, that are getting hammered and suffering and
firing employees. But, instead, we are continuing to have these
really unfortunate, I think, hearings. It is crazy. It is
cowardly. We should stop the tariffs now.
And, with that, I yield back.
Ms. Greene. The gentleman yields.
I now recognize Mr. Burchett from Tennessee.
Mr. Burchett. Thank you, Chairlady. Thank you for your
indulgence in allowing me to be on this Committee. I come in
here usually ticked off, and I leave in worse condition, so
thank you for that.
Ms. Greene. You are welcome.
Mr. Burchett. If I ever have a counselor, I am going to
send you the bill.
Mr. Hart, do any Members of Congress, their spouses, or
their immediate family have any property ownership rights to
this property or any Federal land?
Mr. Hart. Congressman, I do not know the answer to that
question off the top of my head.
Mr. Burchett. OK.
Do spouses of Members of Congress own real property and
lease it to the Federal Government? And how would we find that
out? Because I think I know what you are going to say.
Mr. Hart. I believe the answer to that question is yes.
Mr. Burchett. You do?
Mr. Hart. I do believe that.
Mr. Burchett. Is there any way we could verify that
information?
Mr. Hart. Well, you go to USAspending and search--``Open
the Books,'' our website, and you can look up Members' names,
you can look up any person's name, and find that information.
Mr. Burchett. All right. I suspect that is being done as I
speak.
Mr. Marroni, how much underutilized space does the Federal
Government have?
Mr. Marroni. Cannot say. There is not good data. We just do
not have data. That is going to come this summer. Congress has
now required it. But prior to this, once you get outside of
headquarters, there was not measurement of how much----
Mr. Burchett. OK. I hate these studies. Every day we vote
on a new study and I suspect there is some warehouse, like in
``Raiders of the Lost Ark,'' at the end, where they were
putting--and our top people are looking at it, and there is
these studies that are just on these shelves in these vast,
vast warehouses.
Would you agree with that assumption?
Mr. Marroni. There are a lot of studies.
Mr. Burchett. Yes. All right. Remember, you are--whatever.
All right.
How much would the Federal Government save by allowing
unneeded leases to expire?
Mr. Marroni. The Federal Government spends about $6 billion
on leased office space, so depending on how many you let
expire, you would get substantial savings.
Mr. Burchett. As I sit up here, people chastise the thought
of making a profit. To me, that is not an evil thing. That
allows for more people to be employed. It seems that we have
forgotten exactly who we work for, and it is the people back
home who are struggling.
When I was Mayor of Knox County, one of the first things I
did was, I said, get me a list of all the property we own in
Knox County. And it was amazing to me. I mean, we had property
in neighborhoods, we had property--some of it was, obviously,
undevelopable. One was on the corner of a small airport. But it
was all over. We had something listed as a park, and it was
nothing further from a park. And we ended up selling a lot of
this property, and we paid cash for schools, crazy things like
that. We did not stay in debt.
And, to me, that just seems like the model that the Federal
Government should adopt. We should have a listing of the
property, and the people ought to be able to review that and
make better assumptions. Because I assume--I think they are a
lot more smarter than we give them credit for. And I suspect
that is part of the problem; they do not want to let them look
under--look behind the curtain, so to speak.
Would you agree with that?
Mr. Marroni. It is important to have that kind of data.
There is an inventory that's available online, but there are
significant issues with its reliability.
Mr. Burchett. Mr. Hart, would you care to address that?
Mr. Hart. We would like to enhance the transparency of all
of that data. I think it is one of the most important assets
that taxpayers should be able to review the cost so that they
can make good decisions.
And, again, the purpose of transparency is to empower
taxpayers. Transparency is not a two-way street. The government
does not have the right to inspect our checkbook. Taxpayers do
have the right to inspect the government's checkbook, because
it is their money.
Mr. Burchett. Mr. Kendall, would you care to offer your----
Mr. Kendall. I am all in favor of transparency. No
objection.
Mr. Burchett. It seems that our friends in the media always
strive for that, and then--and we get pretty gutless up here.
So, I would hope in the future we would address that.
Well, I will yield my 49 seconds back to you, Chairlady.
Thank you for your indulgence, ma'am.
Ms. Greene. Thank you, Mr. Burchett.
In closing, I want to thank our witnesses once again for
their testimony today.
I now yield to Ranking Member Stansbury for closing
remarks.
Ms. Stansbury. All right. Well, thank you very much, Madam
Chairwoman.
I hope that in some ways this hearing has been elucidating,
but I am going to be honest, just listening here today, I have
had trouble understanding the theory of the case.
Now, anyone who is in business knows that if you are going
to go in front of a boardroom and present your case, you have
got to have compelling data, you have got to have an analysis
of what you're trying to accomplish, you have got to have an
analysis of the money that you are going to save, and a
proposal and a plan for how you are going to execute that.
And I think the thing that is troubling about the entire
DOGE exercise is that it does not seem to have a coherent
theory, it does not appear to have a plan, it does not appear
to be utilizing data, and it does not appear to be executing on
any kind of coherent theory of how we are saving money for the
Federal Government because, as we learned here today, it will
actually cost the Federal Government more money if they sell
these vital assets to private companies, who will then lease
them back to Federal agencies for more money.
So, it is troubling to try to understand. And I think it
kind of goes along with the troubling theory of the case that
Donald Trump seems to have about the economy overall. Because,
as my colleague pointed out, we are sitting here talking about
microphones and furniture in an office building while the
economy is tanking and trillions of dollars in losses are
happening, and we know that the potential for both a recession
and costs are going to go up, which will cost the Federal
Government more money. So, what is the theory of the case here?
I have also heard conflicting theories just about this very
building that we are sitting in. Is this building too fancy, or
does this building need to be demolished to make way for
housing? It is not even clear what the argument is for this
building that we are sitting in having this field hearing in.
Now, what I think is interesting about what we heard here
today is that some of the quiet part was said out loud. In
fact, what was stated by some of the other Members on this
panel was that they would like to sell valuable real estate to
private developers, potentially demolish Federal buildings like
this, sell them potentially to private equity and developers,
and then they can lease back and make money off of it.
And that is exactly what this scheme is all about, because
this is what we are seeing across the entire DOGE effort and
across the Administration.
And this is not really about public interest. This is, as
we keep saying, the private equity model: privatize, buy low,
sell high, make lots of money. This is what the DOGE bros are
all about.
But we know that there is real data coming in July, as was
stated by the GAO, that will help us take a data-driven
approach. This is data that was demanded by Congress. It is
bipartisan. Let us come up with a plan if we are actually going
to deal with this bipartisan issue.
Now, I also want to point out some other ironies and
inconsistencies that we heard here today.
One of my colleagues quoted Milton Friedman, which I found
actually quite funny, because Elon Musk himself has also been
quoting Milton Friedman over the weekend, because he thought
that international trade was good and tariffs were bad.
Anybody? Anybody?
Donald Trump is crashing the economy over tariffs.
We also heard my colleagues across the aisle talk about
right-sizing and righting the fiscal ship. Well, they are
literally about to try to vote tomorrow on a budget proposal
that will increase the deficit by $37 trillion over the next 30
years. This would raise the debt ceiling by $4 trillion just
this year and would cost the United States the largest amount
of debt ever in the history of its 250 years.
So, again, I do not understand the theory of the case. If
what we are about here is trying to root out waste, fraud, and
abuse, make the government more efficient, save the government
money, then why on earth is Donald Trump trying to tank the
economy? What are they trying to do with the sell-off and
privatization of the Federal Government? What are they trying
to do with downsizing and firing thousands of Federal
employees?
So, I will close out by saying this: To my friends across
the aisle and to the Administration, hands off our Social
Security, hands off our Medicaid, hands off our Medicare, hands
off the VA, hands off our education, and hands off our vital
programs and the services and the Federal assets that make them
possible.
With that, I yield back.
Ms. Greene. I now recognize myself for closing remarks.
Thank you for our witnesses coming today. We greatly
appreciate it.
And thank you to the American people for tuning in, into
what is an extremely important issue.
Your Social Security is not under attack. Medicare is not
under attack. Veterans' benefits are not under attack. But our
very existence is under attack. And this has happened by dirty,
greedy, lazy politicians and bureaucrats who have plunged you
and chained you in $36 trillion in debt. You are under attack.
And you have been under attack by your own Federal Government.
We are here today, proudly, to talk about how we can reduce
this debt. And this is a bipartisan issue. Selling Federal
property and returning the money back to the American people is
the right way to protect you.
And, as Republicans, we believe in this, and we proudly
stand with President Trump, Elon Musk, and their DOGE efforts
to reduce the size of the Federal Government, reduce the
Federal debt.
And we are so grateful. And, definitely, America voted for
President Trump to stand up for Americans, the American worker,
and American companies with tariffs that return the order back
to America and defeat the globalists who have attacked American
interests, stolen intellectual property from American
companies, and have turned rural America into a graveyard of
factories that have been shut down and American jobs that have
been shipped overseas.
So, I want to say directly: Thank you, President Trump, for
standing up for us. And we will be so happy when you stick up
for us and make it fair again through these tariffs.
The Federal Government's management of its massive real
estate portfolio has been problematic for decades. Everyone
knows it. The United States is $36 trillion in debt. In Fiscal
Year 1924, the government spent over $1.8 trillion more than it
took in. And in Fiscal Year 1925, the interest on our debt is
expected to exceed $1 trillion.
Many Americans are suffering every day while the Federal
Government continues to recklessly spend hard-earned taxpayer
dollars to foot the bill of luxurious, high-end furniture for
offices or, on the flip side, carelessly waste billions on
unused buildings and leases.
Young people cannot afford to buy a house. For today's 27-
year-olds, only 33 percent own their homes, versus 40 percent
of baby boomers when they were 27. From 2019 to 2024, housing
prices in my home state of Georgia increased by up to 67
percent, as did areas all across the country. Everything went
up. Life became unaffordable.
Over the past 4 years under Democrats, overall inflation
hit 20 percent. The cost of food increased nearly 34 percent,
and the cost of energy increased nearly 33 percent, and credit
card debt was up nearly 50 percent. As Americans racked up
grocery bills, credit card debt, and could not afford to buy a
home, the Federal bureaucrats recklessly spend their money
without a care in the world.
In the last year, 7 in 10 Americans completed at least one
DIY project--do-it-yourself--and nearly 50 percent said it was
because they could not afford professionals to do it. Americans
were either renovating their own houses by themselves because
they cannot afford to hire a company to do it or, in many
cases, they will have to go without.
What do Federal bureaucrats do when they need to renovate a
conference room or redecorate an office? They spend $700,000
and $6.5 million of your money to do it. American businesses
cannot afford these types of upgrades, and the reality is that
the Federal Government is $36 trillion in debt and cannot
afford it either.
As we continue investigating waste, fraud, and abuse, we
can look no further, the unconscionable amount of spending that
the Federal Government spends on empty buildings and brand-new
high-end furniture and something as ridiculous as solar-powered
picnic tables.
Every year, taxpayers have to spend about $10 billion just
to operate and maintain it all. In addition, the backlog of
deferred maintenance that is now up to $370 billion.
In 2023, GAO reported that 17 of the 24 largest Federal
agencies used 25 percent or less of their headquarters
buildings' capacity, and none of these agencies ever utilized
more than 49 percent of the buildings' capacity in an average
week.
I just want to inform you that that all happened at the
same time when homeless rates skyrocketed, and veterans were
kicked out to make room for illegal aliens.
When you own property in the real world, if you breach a
term of your mortgage agreement, you mismanage your finances,
or you miss payments, the lender will repossess your property
and auction it off, while the Federal Government cannot miss
payments because they will just print more money. They have
grossly mismanaged their finances, and it is time for the
American people to evict Federal bureaucrats, repossess the
properties, and auction them off to the highest bidder.
Thankfully, the American people now have the President on
their side. While the previous Administration did little to
address the problems laid out here today, we are finally seeing
meaningful progress under President Trump. The early successes
of selling off unused properties and canceling wasteful leases
by the Department of Government Efficiency shows what can be
accomplished with strong leadership.
With Congress and the Trump Administration working
together, I am confident we can finally resolve this decades-
old problem and deliver the results and the money back to the
American taxpayers.
With that, and without objection, all Members have 5
legislative days within which to submit materials and
additional written questions for the witnesses, which will be
forwarded to the witnesses.
If there is no further business, without objection, the
Committee stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:47 a.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
[all]