[House Hearing, 119 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
AMERICA BUILDS: MAKING FEDERAL REAL ESTATE
WORK FOR THE TAXPAYER
=======================================================================
(119-11)
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, PUBLIC BUILDINGS, AND
EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON
TRANSPORTATION AND
INFRASTRUCTURE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED NINETEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
MARCH 5, 2025
__________
Printed for the use of the
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available online at: https://www.govinfo.gov/committee/house-
transportation?path=/browsecommittee/chamber/house/committee/
transportation
______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
61-312 PDF WASHINGTON : 2025
COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE
Sam Graves, Missouri, Chairman
Rick Larsen, Washington, Ranking Member
Eric A. ``Rick'' Crawford, Eleanor Holmes Norton,
Arkansas, Vice Chairman District of Columbia
Daniel Webster, Florida Jerrold Nadler, New York
Thomas Massie, Kentucky Steve Cohen, Tennessee
Scott Perry, Pennsylvania John Garamendi, California
Brian Babin, Texas Henry C. ``Hank'' Johnson, Jr., Georgia
David Rouzer, North Carolina Andre Carson, Indiana
Mike Bost, Illinois Dina Titus, Nevada
Doug LaMalfa, California Jared Huffman, California
Bruce Westerman, Arkansas Julia Brownley, California
Brian J. Mast, Florida Frederica S. Wilson, Florida
Pete Stauber, Minnesota Mark DeSaulnier, California
Tim Burchett, Tennessee Salud O. Carbajal, California
Dusty Johnson, South Dakota Greg Stanton, Arizona
Jefferson Van Drew, New Jersey Sharice Davids, Kansas
Troy E. Nehls, Texas Jesus G. ``Chuy'' Garcia, Illinois
Tracey Mann, Kanas Chris Pappas, New Hampshire
Burgess Owens, Utah Seth Moulton, Massachusetts
Eric Burlison, Missouri Marilyn Strickland, Washington
Mike Collins, Georgia Patrick Ryan, New York
Mike Ezell, Mississippi Val T. Hoyle, Oregon
Kevin Kiley, California Emilia Strong Sykes, Ohio,
Vince Fong, California Vice Ranking Member
Tony Wied, Wisconsin Hillary J. Scholten, Michigan
Tom Barrett, Michigan Valerie P. Foushee, North Carolina
Nicholas J. Begich III, Alaska Christopher R. Deluzio, Pennsylvania
Robert P. Bresnahan, Jr., Robert Garcia, California
Pennsylvania Nellie Pou, New Jersey
Jeff Hurd, Colorado Kristen McDonald Rivet, Michigan
Jefferson Shreve, Indiana Laura Friedman, California
Addison P. McDowell, North Laura Gillen, New York
Carolina Shomari Figures, Alabama
David J. Taylor, Ohio
Brad Knott, North Carolina
Kimberlyn King-Hinds,
Northern Mariana Islands
Mike Kennedy, Utah
Robert F. Onder, Jr., Missouri
Vacancy
------ 7
Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings, and
Emergency Management
Scott Perry, Pennsylvania, Chairman
Greg Stanton, Arizona, Ranking Member
Mike Ezell, Mississippi Eleanor Holmes Norton,
Kevin Kiley, California District of Columbia
Tom Barrett, Michigan Kristen McDonald Rivet, Michigan
Robert P. Bresnahan, Jr., Shomari Figures, Alabama
Pennsylvania John Garamendi, California
Kimberlyn King-Hinds, Dina Titus, Nevada
Northern Mariana Islands Laura Friedman, California,
Mike Kennedy, Utah Vice Ranking Member
Robert F. Onder, Jr., Missouri, Rick Larsen, Washington (Ex Officio)
Vice Chairman
Sam Graves, Missouri (Ex Officio)
CONTENTS
Page
Summary of Subject Matter........................................ v
STATEMENTS OF MEMBERS OF THE COMMITTEE
Hon. Mike Ezell, a Representative in Congress from the State of
Mississippi, and Member, Subcommittee on Economic Development,
Public Buildings, and Emergency Management, opening statement.. 1
Prepared statement........................................... 2
Hon. Greg Stanton, a Representative in Congress from the State of
Arizona, and Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Economic
Development, Public Buildings, and Emergency Management,
opening statement.............................................. 3
Prepared statement........................................... 5
Hon. Rick Larsen, a Representative in Congress from the State of
Washington, and Ranking Member, Committee on Transportation and
Infrastructure, opening statement.............................. 6
Prepared statement........................................... 8
WITNESSES
David Marroni, Director, Physical Infrastructure, U.S. Government
Accountability Office, oral statement.......................... 10
Prepared statement........................................... 11
David Winstead, Board Member, Public Buildings Reform Board, oral
statement...................................................... 17
Prepared statement........................................... 18
APPENDIX
Questions to David Marroni, Director, Physical Infrastructure,
U.S. Government Accountability Office, from Hon. Greg Stanton.. 41
Questions to David Winstead, Board Member, Public Buildings
Reform Board, from Hon. Greg Stanton........................... 44
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
February 28, 2025
SUMMARY OF SUBJECT MATTER
TO: LMembers, Subcommittee on Economic Development,
Public Buildings, and Emergency Management
FROM: LStaff, Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public
Buildings, and Emergency Management
RE: LSubcommittee Hearing on ``America Builds: Making
Federal Real Estate Work for the Taxpayer''
_______________________________________________________________________
I. PURPOSE
The Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings,
and Emergency Management of the Committee on Transportation and
Infrastructure will hold a hearing on Wednesday, March 5, 2025
at 2:00 p.m. E.T. in 2167 of the Rayburn House Office Building
entitled, ``America Builds: Making Federal Real Estate Work for
the Taxpayer.'' The hearing will examine strategies to
transform Federal real estate by consolidating, relocating, and
selling unused and underutilized spaces. It will build on the
Committee's work during the 118th Congress, highlighting recent
reforms to compel Federal agencies to maximize or relinquish
unused space. Participants will include the General Services
Administration (GSA), the Government Accountability Office
(GAO), and the Public Buildings Reform Board (PBRB). The
hearing will also examine the findings of GAO's 2023 report on
the Federal Government's utilization of its real estate
portfolio, a report which GAO conducted at the Committee's
request.
II. BACKGROUND
FEDERAL BUILDING FUND
In 1972, Congress authorized and established the Federal
Buildings Fund (FBF) under the Public Buildings Act Amendments
of 1972 (P.L. 92-313).\1\ GSA funds new construction,
alterations and repairs, building maintenance, and lease
payments, as well as the Public Buildings Service (PBS),
through commercially equivalent rental payments by GSA's tenant
agencies into the FBF.\2\ While the FBF is funded through
agency rents paid to GSA, it is not a true revolving loan
fund.\3\ The funds are made available via annual appropriations
bills.\4\ GSA has not had full access to the FBF since 2011,
when appropriators began using the FBF to offset other
unrelated costs in the Financial Services and General
Government appropriations bill.\5\ The FBF accrued $11.9
billion in revenue in 2021, 59 percent of which was generated
by five customer agencies: the Department of Justice, the
Department of Homeland Security, the Federal Judiciary, the
Social Security Administration, and the Department of the
Treasury.\6\
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\1\ Pub. L. No. 92-313, 86 Stat. 216.
\2\ GSA, Federal Buildings Fund (Feb. 1, 2021), available at
https://www.gsa.gov/reference/reports/budget-performance/annual-
reports/2020-agency-financial-report/managements-discussion-and-
analysis/financial-statements-summary-and-analysis/federal-buildings-
fund.
\3\ See 40 U.S.C. Sec. 592(c)(1).
\4\ Id.
\5\ GSA, Fiscal Year 2024 Congressional Justification, Federal
Buildings Fund (2024), available at https://www.gsa.gov/reference/
reports/budget-and-performance/annual-budget-requests/previous-
congressional-justifications/fy2024-congressional-justifications.
\6\ GSA, 2021 Agency Financial Report (2021), available at https://
www.gsa.gov/system/files/GSA_AFR_FY21.pdf.
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FEDERAL REAL ESTATE PORTFOLIO
GSA currently manages more than 8,300 owned and leased
assets, totaling over 365 million square feet, and 500 historic
buildings.\7\ GAO reports that operating, maintaining, and
leasing office space costs more than $8 billion annually.\8\
GSA has made efforts to reduce the amount of leased space, but
the portfolio remains underutilized. With more than half of
GSA's operating leases (96 million square feet) expiring in the
next five years, GSA must pivot to an efficient, cost-
effective, and modern portfolio.\9\ While reviewing 24
headquarters buildings in 2023, GAO found that 17 of the
agencies under review were utilizing 25 percent or less of
their capacity.\10\ That same year, anonymized cell phone data
showed an average building occupancy of 12 percent from January
to September due to the sustained prevalence of remote and
hybrid work models among the Federal workforce.\11\
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\7\ Press Release, GSA, GSA Accelerates Efforts to Right-size
Federal Real Estate with Plans for 1.5 Million Square Feet in
Reductions and More than $475 Million in Cost Avoidance to Taxpayers
(Dec. 4, 2024), available at https://www.gsa.gov/about-us/newsroom/
news-releases/gsa-accelerates-efforts-to-rightsize-federal-real-estate-
12042024.
\8\ GAO, GAO-24-106919, Federal Real Property: Actions Needed To
Better Assess Office Sharing Pilot's Broader Applicability (2024),
available at https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-24-106919.
\9\ GSA, Inventory of GSA Owned and Leased Properties (Sept. 9,
2022), available at https://www.gsa.gov/tools-overview/buildings-and-
real-estate-tools/inventory-of-gsa-owned-and-leased-properties.
\10\ GAO, GAO-23-107060, Federal Real Property: Preliminary Results
Show That Increased Telework and Longstanding Challenges Led to
Underutilized Federal Buildings (2023), available at https://
www.gao.gov/products/gao-23-107060.
\11\ PBRB, Public Buildings Reform Board Final Interim Report to
Congress (Mar. 21, 2024), available at https://www.pbrb.gov/files/2024/
03/3.21.24-FINAL-PBRB-Interim-Report.pdf.
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There have also been increasing reports of ``shadow'' or
``dark'' space in Federal buildings and leases--unassigned,
unused space.\12\ On January 20, 2025, the White House directed
all departments and agencies of the Executive Branch to
terminate remote work arrangements and require employees to
return to work in-person at their respective duty stations.\13\
Given all these factors, GSA has a unique opportunity to
significantly reduce space and dispose of underutilized and
unused Federal real estate.
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\12\ GSA, Unused & Underused Space (Jan. 25, 2023), available at
https://www.gsa.gov/real-estate/gsa-properties/unused-underused-space.
\13\ The White House, Return to In-Person Work (Jan. 20, 2025)
available at https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/
return-to-in-person-work/.
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ECONOMIC IMPACT IN THE D.C. METROPOLITAN AREA
At the end of 2024, office occupancy in Washington, D.C.
hit a new post-pandemic low of 19.9 percent.\14\ The high
vacancy rates have significant economic implications for the
District, particularly in the downtown area, as a surplus of
available office space can lead to a decline in property
assessment values.\15\ The D.C. government found that 86
percent of its commercial office buildings are expected to lose
more than $12 billion in real estate value, which would have a
significant negative effect on municipal tax rolls.\16\
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\14\ Jeff Clabaugh, Upside to Downsizing for D.C.'s Office Market?,
WTOP News (Jan. 13, 2025), available at http://wtop.com/business-
finance/2025/01/upside-to-downsizing-for-dcs-office-market-more-trophy-
demand/.
\15\ Daniel Muhammad, D.C. Office of Revenue Analysis, The
Increasing Levels of Vacant Office Space: The Achilles' Heel of DC's
Office Market, (July 15, 2024), available at http://ora-cfo.dc.gov/
blog/increasing-levels-vacant-office-space-achilles%E2%80%99-heel-dcs-
office-market.
\16\ Id.
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ALTERNATIVE FINANCING
Following scoring rules changes in 1991, the Office of
Management and Budget (OMB) prohibited GSA from negotiating
discounted purchase options in its leases.\17\ Discounted
purchase options provide the ability for the Federal Government
to decide at the end of a lease whether it wants to purchase
the property at a discounted purchase price, negotiated and
included in the initial leasing term, rather than continuing to
lease, which effectively causes the government to pay beyond
the cost to construct the building outright while garnering no
equity.\18\ Although GSA is allowed to negotiate purchase
options for full market value, those purchase options do not
account for the funding the Federal Government may have already
invested in a leased property.\19\
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\17\ Dorothy Robyn, Reforming Federal Property Procurement: The
Case for Sensible Scoring, Brookings (Apr. 24, 2014), available at
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2014/04/24/reforming-federal-
property-procurement-the-case-for-sensible-scoring/.
\18\ Id.
\19\ Id.
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The Department of Transportation (DOT) headquarters in
Southeast Washington, D.C., is a prime example. GSA sold 11
acres of land to JBG Companies, with an agreement for JBG to
construct a new building, and upon completion, GSA would lease
the space through a 15-year operating lease set to expire in
2021.\20\ When the lease expired, GSA had two options: lease
the space for an additional ten years or purchase the property
at fair market value.\21\ However, due to massive
redevelopment, real estate value had increased an average of 41
percent in Southeast Washington, D.C., since 2009.\22\ Not only
did GSA have no equity with an annual lease payment of $64.5
million over the 15 year term, but they had to pay a much
higher cost for fair market value than would have been
negotiated in 2006 when the lease agreement was signed.\23\
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\20\ Andy Winkler, et al., Fixing Federal Infrastructure: The $750
Million DOT Headquarters and the Perverse Effects of Budget Scoring,
Bipartisan Policy Center, (July 13, 2017), available at https://
bipartisanpolicy.org/blog/fixing-federal-infrastructure-the-750-
million-dot-headquarters-and-the-perverse-effects-of-budget-scoring/.
\21\ Id.
\22\ Id.
\23\ Id.
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H.R. 2220, to Amend title 40, United States Code, to Modify
the Treatment of Certain Bargain-Price Options to Purchase at
Less than Fair Market Value, was enacted in December 2022 (P.L.
117-257). This law conforms GSA's leasing authority to OMB
scoring rules that would allow for GSA to negotiate discounted
purchase options.\24\ However, OMB refused to allow GSA to
implement the legislation. On May 10, 2023, the Committee sent
a letter to OMB urging the agency to implement H.R. 2220.\25\
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\24\ Pub. L. No. 117-257, 136 Stat. 2371.
\25\ Letter from Sam Graves, Chairman, H. Comm. on Transp. &
Infrastructure to Shalanda Young, Director, OMB (May 10, 2023) (on file
with Comm.).
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OMB has also prohibited GSA from utilizing, or even
testing, the use of Public-Private Partnerships (P3s) to
attract private investment in Federal building projects.\26\
While GSA has the legal authority to execute such arrangements,
OMB will score these activities as ``capital'' leases, instead
of operating leases.\27\ ``Capital'' leases require GSA to
obligate the entire cost of the multi-year lease upfront, as
opposed to an operating lease which is scored on an annual
basis.\28\ P3s would provide options for the Federal Government
to leverage the value of owned land to replace aging facilities
and make a profit.\29\
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\26\ Kim Slowey, P3s: A growing alternative with potential to
capitalize on `privatized innovation' Construction Dive (Mar. 23,
2016), available at https://www.constructiondive.com/
news/p3s-a-growing-alternative-with-potential-to-capitalize-on-
privatized-inno/416190/ [hereinafter Slowey].
\27\ GSA, PBS Leasing Desk Guide, Appendix F, Determination of
Operating or Capital Lease Classification for Budget Scoring (2023),
available at https://www.gsa.gov/
system/files/General/
Appendix_F_Determination_of_Operating_or_Capital_Lease_
Classification_for_Budget_Scoring_C.pdf.
\28\ Kurt Stout, Federal Leasing 101: What is Scoring?, Colliers,
(June 25, 2015), available at https://knowledge-leader.colliers.com/
kurt-stout/federal-leasing-101-what-is-scoring/.
\29\ Slowey, supra note 27.
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III. PRIOR COMMITTEE ACTIONS
FREEZE/REDUCE THE FOOTPRINT
In 2013, the Obama Administration's OMB announced the
``Freeze the Footprint'' initiative, which directed Federal
agencies to offset requests for new space with disposal of
unneeded space.\30\ Subsequently, in 2015 the initiative
progressed into ``Reduce the Footprint'' with targeted
reductions to the Federal Government's real estate profile.\31\
These efforts did result in the shrinking of the Federal
footprint, with an 8.2 million square footage reduction from
fiscal year (FY) 2016 to FY 2020, but did little to assess
actual space utilization, and instead focused on the official
number of employees assigned to a given building.\32\
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\30\ Press Release, The White House, Freezing the Footprint, (Mar.
14, 2013), available at https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2013/
03/14/freezing-footprint.
\31\ OMB, Performance.Gov, Reduce the Footprint, (Mar. 25, 2015),
available at https://obamaadministration.archives.performance.gov/
initiative/reduce-footprint.html.
\32\ OMB, Performance.Gov, Real Property Metrics, GSA, available at
https://www.performance.gov/real-property-metrics/; see also GAO, GAO-
22-105105, Federal Real Property: GSA Could Further Support Agencies'
Post-Pandemic Planning for Office Space Use (2022), available at
https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-22-105105.
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FEDERAL ASSETS SALE AND TRANSFER ACT (FASTA) AND THE FASTA REFORM ACT
OF 2023
In 2016, FASTA was enacted, which established a temporary
board--the Public Buildings Reform Board (PBRB)--composed of
non-governmental experts to make recommendations to OMB on the
sale, disposal, or redevelopment of high value, underused or
unneeded Federal real property.\33\ OMB would then approve or
disapprove the packages of proposals and, if approved, GSA
would execute the recommendations, allowing agencies to retain
a portion of the proceeds.\34\ Under FASTA, agencies would be
able to retain a portion of the sale proceeds from such
transactions as an incentive to dispose of excess properties,
but they would not be able to access those funds until after
the termination of the Board.\35\ FASTA also codified the
Federal Real Property Profile (FRPP) government-wide database
of real property and made it available to the public.\36\
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\33\ FASTA Reform Act of 2023, Pub. L. No. 114-287, 130 Stat. 1463.
\34\ Id.
\35\ Id.
\36\ Id. at Sec. 21.
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In 2024, Congress passed the FASTA Reform Act of 2023,
which extended the authorization and enhanced the authority of
the PBRB and required the board to report annually to Congress
on Federal properties it recommends for disposal.\37\ The FASTA
Reform Act enables agencies to access these incentive funds
more quickly, fostering better collaboration and increasing the
efficiency of the Federal property management system for
taxpayers.\38\
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\37\ FASTA Reform Act of 2023, Pub. L. No. 118-272.
\38\ Id.
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PUBLIC BUILDINGS REFORMS IN THE WATER RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT ACT OF 2024
Last Congress, Title III of the Thomas R. Carper Water
Resources Development Act (WRDA) of 2024 introduced new
authorities to improve the management of Federal real
estate.\39\ In addition to the FASTA Reform Act, other reforms
were enacted to ensure that the Federal real estate portfolio
is better aligned with current operational needs.
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\39\ WRDA, Pub. L. No. 118-272.
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The Utilizing Space Efficiency and Improving Technologies
(USE IT) Act of 2023 mandates GSA and OMB establish
standardized methods for measuring office occupancy across
Federal agencies.\40\ The Act introduces a government-wide 60
percent occupancy metric, directing Federal agencies to
consolidate, repurpose, or sell underused office space to
increase operational efficiency and reduce real estate
costs.\41\ This initiative aims to maximize space utilization,
particularly in light of the ongoing shift to hybrid and remote
work models.\42\ The USE IT Act also specifically directs that
department and agency headquarters buildings in the National
Capital Region be consolidated and excess space sold to meet
the minimum 60 percent occupancy metric.\43\
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\40\ Utilizing Space Efficiency and Improving Technologies Act of
2023, Pub. L. No. 118-272.
\41\ Id.
\42\ PBRB, Public Buildings Reform Board Final Interim Report to
Congress (Mar. 21, 2024), available at https://www.pbrb.gov/files/2024/
03/3.21.24-FINAL-PBRB-Interim-Report.pdf.
\43\ Utilizing Space Efficiency and Improving Technologies Act of
2023, Pub. L. No. 118-272.
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The Federal Use It or Lose It Leases (FULL) Act requires
GSA and tenant agencies to annually report their office space
utilization rates to Congress.\44\ Under the FULL Act, if an
agency's utilization rate falls below the 60 percent threshold
for six months out of a year, the tenant agency would be
required to return that underused space to GSA.\45\ This
provision creates an incentive for agencies to actively manage
their real estate holdings and reduce the financial burden of
maintaining vacant or underutilized property.
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\44\ Federal Use It or Lose It Leases Act, Pub. L. No. 118-272.
\45\ Id.
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IV. PARTICIPANTS
LDavid Marroni, Director, Physical Infrastructure,
Government Accountability Office
David Winstead, Board Member, Public Buildings
Reform Board
AMERICA BUILDS: MAKING FEDERAL REAL
ESTATE WORK FOR THE TAXPAYER
----------
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 5, 2025
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public
Buildings, and Emergency Management,
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 2:03 p.m. in
Room 2167, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Mike Ezell
(Member of the subcommittee) presiding.
Mr. Ezell. The Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public
Buildings, and Emergency Management will come to order.
I ask unanimous consent that the chairman be authorized to
declare a recess at any time during today's hearing.
Without objection, so ordered.
I also ask unanimous consent that Members not on the
subcommittee be permitted to sit with the subcommittee at
today's hearing and ask questions.
Without objection, so ordered.
As a reminder, if Members wish to insert a document into
the record, please also email it to [email protected].
I now recognize myself for the purpose of an opening
statement for 5 minutes.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. MIKE EZELL OF MISSISSIPPI,
MEMBER, SUBCOMMITTEE ON ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT,
PUBLIC BUILDINGS, AND EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT
Mr. Ezell. I want to thank our witnesses for being here
today to discuss how we can make Federal real estate work for
the American taxpayer.
At the beginning of last Congress, this subcommittee hosted
a roundtable with industry stakeholders to help Members better
understand current market trends in office space and how to
right-size the Federal real estate portfolio.
Building on that roundtable, this subcommittee held a
hearing that highlighted a report published by the Government
Accountability Office on the use of space for Federal agencies
in their headquarters buildings. The information that GAO
uncovered in this report was shocking. While many Federal
workers' workspace was underused, I don't think any of us
expected to see just how devastating the usage numbers are. GAO
found that a majority of the agencies reviewed used 25 percent
or less of their headquarters building space. In the case of
some agencies, the utilization rate was closer to 9 percent.
Let that number sink in, 9 percent.
Even under the Trump administration's return to the office
directives, we know there will be unused space, because in the
same report, at least one agency admitted that even if 100
percent of their employees returned to the office, 33 percent
of their space would still be empty.
As Mr. Marroni has testified in previous hearings, the
Federal Government spends $2 billion a year to operate and
maintain Federal office buildings, regardless of whether the
building is being used. This means that American taxpayers are
literally paying billions for Federal office space just to sit
empty.
In response to the findings from GAO, subcommittee members
put forward a slate of bills to improve the use of office
space, increase the transparency, and hold agencies
accountable. Two key pieces of legislation enacted included,
first, the USE IT Act, which sets targets for space usage,
requires deployment of technology to count actual employees
using Government space, and establishes timelines, meaning if
agencies don't use their space, they will lose it. Secondly,
the FASTA Reform Act strengthens the authority of the Public
Buildings Reform Board to identify Federal properties that
should be sold.
On January 5, 2025, these reforms and others put forth by
committee members became law as part of the Water Resources
Development Act, or WRDA, of 2024. With some deadlines in those
reforms approaching quickly, I look forward to working with
GSA, OMB, and the Public Buildings Reform Board on WRDA
implementation. I am pleased that the Trump administration hit
the ground running by identifying the waste in Federal real
estate and promptly taking action to ensure that taxpayer
dollars are not wasted on empty buildings.
This is not a partisan issue: even the mayor of Washington,
DC, has highlighted the negative impact of empty Federal
offices on the local economy here in DC.
American taxpayers expect Congress to hold the Federal
Government accountable for all of its wasteful spending, and I
look forward to working with the Trump administration to
achieve results for our constituents. Getting a handle on the
waste in Federal real estate can save the taxpayers billions of
dollars annually. Members of both parties should be supportive
of this goal.
[Mr. Ezell's prepared statement follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Mike Ezell, a Representative in Congress
from the State of Mississippi, and Member, Subcommittee on Economic
Development, Public Buildings, and Emergency Management
I want to thank our witnesses for being here today to discuss how
we can make federal real estate work for the American taxpayer.
At the beginning of last Congress, the Subcommittee hosted a
roundtable with industry stakeholders to help Members better understand
current market trends in office space and how to right-size the federal
real estate portfolio. Building upon that stakeholder roundtable, the
Subcommittee held a hearing that highlighted a report published by the
Government Accountability Office (GAO) on space utilization for federal
agencies in their headquarters buildings. The information that GAO
uncovered in their report was shocking.
While many knew federal space was underused for a long time, I
don't think any of us expected to see such devastating usage numbers.
Specifically, GAO found that a majority of the agencies reviewed used
25 percent or less of their headquarters buildings' space. In the case
of some agencies, that utilization rate was closer to nine percent. Let
that number sink in, nine percent.
Even under the Trump Administration's return to the office
directives, we know there will still be unused space because in that
same GAO report, at least one agency admitted that even if 100 percent
of their employees returned to the office, 33 percent of their space
would still be empty.
As Mr. Marroni has testified to in previous hearings, the federal
government spends two billion dollars a year to operate and maintain
federal office buildings, regardless of whether the building is being
used. This means that American taxpayers are literally paying billions
for federal office space to just sit empty.
In response to the findings from GAO, Subcommittee Members put
forward a slate of bills to improve the utilization of office space,
increase transparency, and hold agencies accountable. Two key pieces of
legislation enacted included: First, the USE IT Act, which sets targets
for space usage, requires deployment of technology to count actual
employees using government space, and establishes timelines, meaning if
agencies don't use their space, they will lose it. Secondly, the FASTA
Reform Act strengthens the authority of the Public Buildings Reform
Board to identify Federal properties that should be sold.
On January 5, 2025, those reforms and others put forth by Committee
Members became law as a part of the Thomas R. Carper Water Resources
Development Act (WRDA) of 2024. With some deadlines in those reforms
approaching quickly, I look forward to working with GSA, OMB, and the
Public Buildings Reform Board on WRDA's implementation.
I am pleased that the new Administration hit the ground running by
identifying the waste in federal real estate and promptly taking action
to ensure that taxpayer dollars are not wasted on empty buildings.
This is not a partisan issue--even the Mayor of Washington, DC, has
highlighted the negative impact of empty federal offices on the local
economy here in the Nation's capital. American taxpayers expect
Congress to hold the federal government accountable for all of its
wasteful spending, and I look forward to working with the Trump
Administration to achieve results for our constituents.
Getting a handle on the waste in federal real estate can save the
taxpayers billions of dollars annually. Members of both parties should
be supportive of this goal.
Mr. Ezell. I now recognize the ranking member, the
Honorable Mr. Stanton, for 5 minutes for an opening statement.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. GREG STANTON OF ARIZONA,
RANKING MEMBER, SUBCOMMITTEE ON ECONOMIC DEVEL-
OPMENT, PUBLIC BUILDINGS, AND EMERGENCY MANAGE-
MENT
Mr. Stanton. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And before
I talk about the issue at hand, I just want to speak on behalf
of all Members of Congress that are present.
We lost a colleague last night. Our colleague, Sylvester
Turner, a brandnew Congress Member representing Houston, the
former mayor of Houston, and before that, a member of the State
legislature, sadly passed away after the State of the Union.
And I just--I have known him for many, many years as a former
mayor myself. In fact, he and I had a chance to work together
when Houston hosted the Final Four, and then Phoenix was the
next city to host the Final Four the next year. So he trained
me up, if you will, on how to be a good host for the Final
Four. He is a legend of public service in Texas, and we are
glad to have the time that we had with him here in the United
States Congress. We offer our condolences to his family and to
all of the people of Houston. We will miss him.
Today, we are here to talk about the General Services
Administration's Public Buildings Service. GSA is the agency in
charge of managing Government buildings, essentially the
Federal Government's real estate agent.
Now, many public buildings are underutilized. That is a
sentiment shared by both Republican and Democratic
administrations in the past. But rather than going through the
proper channels to measure building utilization, the Trump
administration moved straight to the lease termination and
building disposal stage, announcing plans to dispose of more
than 400 buildings and terminate 2,500 leases, more than half
of the GSA's real estate portfolio.
To be clear, this Congress, in a bipartisan way, agrees
that we need improved efficiency. In fact, as the chair
mentioned, the 2024 Water Resources Development Act, which was
signed into law by President Biden in January, directed GSA,
the Office of Management and Budget, and Federal agencies to
measure building utilization over a 2-month period and dispose
of space if utilization was below 60 percent.
There is a logical and orderly way to do this, but the
Trump administration clearly has no intention of following the
WRDA directive. Instead, there has been mass confusion.
Landlords are getting termination letters that their
tenants know nothing about. Parties in the middle of lease
negotiations don't know what to do.
These space disposals are happening at the same time
President Trump has mandated a return to work for all Federal
employees at the same time that they are making mass layoffs
among Federal employees. This appears to be a policy at war
with itself.
Federal employees are returning to the offices that are
being disposed of.
Landlords are getting termination notices for leases that
are still in the firm term period.
Constituents are concerned that they will not have access
to VA health centers, Social Security field offices, or
customer service for IRS needs if they want to do anything face
to face.
All of this is happening, and the GSA staff can't or won't
communicate. In fact, to get information, we have had to rely
on word of mouth from Federal employees and reports on the DOGE
website, which lists hundreds of lease terminations--Social
Security offices, VA offices, and IRS offices--while we are in
the swing of tax season.
In my home State of Arizona, the list includes the Small
Business Administration, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the
Railroad Retirement Board, the Forest Service Supervisor's
Office--the entity that processes permits and disseminates
information for the entirety of the Tonto National Forest
northeast of my district, the largest national forest in our
State.
The Forest Service building is an important hub for
monitoring Tonto. If this building is shuttered, we don't know
where this work will be done. It is a concern for those of us
as we enter the fire season in the State of Arizona. The loss
of those buildings can have implications. With the loss of a
supervisor's office, this could mean problems for communication
and coordination for wildfire response in our national forests.
As you can tell, I have a lot of questions about all of
this. And a few weeks ago, I met with the GSA's new
Commissioner of Public Buildings, Mike Peters, who was leading
the Trump administration's Federal real estate right-sizing
efforts. Commissioner Peters, at that meeting with me, accepted
an invitation to participate in this hearing, and for some
reason--we don't know why--he has changed his mind, and he is
not present today. I don't understand. We need to provide
oversight over this process.
Commissioner Peters has a responsibility to be here to
explain this to Congress so that we can provide our appropriate
oversight duties. So instead of asking Commissioner Peters my
questions, I will pose my questions to the two witnesses who
are here today--and thank you for being here--Dave Winstead
from the Public Buildings Reform Board and David Marroni from
the Government Accountability Office.
Mr. Marroni, thank you for testifying before the
subcommittee and sharing your research and knowledge of Federal
real estate. I admire your fortitude.
Mr. Winstead, thank you for your public service on the
Public Buildings Reform Board, and I look forward to hearing
how the Board identifies underutilized Federal assets and how
the process of recommending disposals to GSA and OMB can be
improved upon.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
[Mr. Stanton's prepared statement follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Greg Stanton, a Representative in Congress
from the State of Arizona, and Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Economic
Development, Public Buildings, and Emergency Management
Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding this hearing.
Today, we're here to talk about the General Services
Administration's Public Buildings Service. GSA is the agency in charge
of managing government buildings--essentially the federal government's
real estate agent.
Now, many of these public buildings may be underutilized--that is a
sentiment that has been shared by both Republican and Democrat
Administrations in the past. But rather than going through the proper
channels to measure building utilization, the Trump Administration
moved straight to the lease termination and building disposal stage,
announcing plans to dispose of more than 400 buildings and terminate
2,500 leases--more than half of the GSA's real estate portfolio.
To be clear, Congress--in a bipartisan way--agrees we need
efficiency. In fact, the 2024 Water Resources Development Act, which
was signed into law by President Biden in January, directed GSA, the
Office of Management and Budget and federal agencies to measure
building utilization over a two-month period and dispose of space if
utilization was below 60 percent.
There is a logical way to do this. But the Trump Administration
clearly has no intention of following the WRDA directive. Instead,
there has been mass confusion.
Landlords are getting termination letters that their tenants know
nothing about. Parties in the middle of lease negotiations don't know
what to do.
These space disposals are happening at the same time President
Trump mandated a return to work for all federal employees. This is a
policy at war with itself.
Federal employees are returning to offices that are being disposed
of.
Landlords are getting termination notices for leases that are still
in firm term.
Constituents are concerned that they will not have access to VA
health centers and Social Security field offices.
All of this is happening, and GSA staff can't or won't communicate.
In fact, to get information, we've had to rely on word-of-mouth
from federal employees and reports on the DOGE website, which lists
hundreds of lease terminations--Social Security offices, VA offices and
IRS offices--while we're in the swing of tax season.
In my home state of Arizona, the list includes the Small Business
Administration, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Railroad Retirement
Board and the Forest Service supervisor's office--the entity that
processes permits and disseminates information for the entirety of
Tonto National Forest northeast of my district, the largest national
forest in the state.
The Forest Service building is an important hub for monitoring
Tonto. If this building is shuttered, we do not know where this work
will get done.
The loss of these buildings can have implications--with the loss of
the supervisor's office, I have concerns about what this could mean for
communication and coordination of wildfire response in the National
Forest.
As you can tell, I have a lot of questions about all of this.
A few weeks ago, I met with GSA's new Commissioner of Public
Buildings Mike Peters who is leading the Trump Administration's federal
real estate right-sizing efforts.
Commissioner Peters accepted an invitation to participate in this
hearing, and then he changed his mind.
I don't understand. We need to provide oversight of this process.
Commissioner Peters has a responsibility to be here.
Instead of asking Commissioner Peters my questions, I will pose my
questions to the two witnesses who are participating today: David
Winstead from the Public Buildings Reform Board and David Marroni from
the Government Accountability Office.
Mr. Marroni, thank you for once again testifying before this
subcommittee and sharing your research and knowledge of federal real
estate. I admire your fortitude.
Mr. Winstead, thank you for your service on the Public Buildings
Reform Board. I look forward to hearing how the Board identifies
underutilized federal assets and how the process of recommending
disposals to GSA and OMB can be improved upon.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Ezell. The gentleman yields back. I now recognize Mr.
Larsen, the ranking member.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. RICK LARSEN OF WASH-
INGTON, RANKING MEMBER, COMMITTEE ON TRANSPOR-
TATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE
Mr. Larsen of Washington. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Congratulations. You have now two chairmanships on this
committee.
Mr. Ezell. I am telling you.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Larsen of Washington. Congratulations. I want to thank
Ranking Member Stanton, as well, and thank you for holding this
timely hearing on the state of Federal real estate.
So, recent administration actions to reduce both telework
and the Federal real estate footprint have created confusion
and upheaval within the Federal real estate landscape. And the
proposed changes have the potential to have a negative impact
on the workforce, on communities where the workforce lives, the
private-sector landlords, and on construction contractors.
Now, the GSA owns 1,500 buildings and has about 7,500
private-sector leases. According to press reports, the
administration plans to reduce GSA's owned and leased portfolio
by 50 percent.
In justifying this push for property disposals, GSA's new
Public Buildings Commissioner has pointed to ``guidance'' from
the 2024 WRDA bill, which many of us worked on. But WRDA did
not direct the GSA to jump immediately to large-scale
disposals. The WRDA bill directed GSA and OMB to work with
agencies to measure building occupancy over a 2-month period
before making any recommendations for space disposals.
Congress gave GSA steps 1 through 5, but GSA is skipping
from step 1 directly to step 5. That is causing confusion and
chaos in the Federal real estate market. The lease terminations
are happening quickly and at the same time as there is a
return-to-office mandate, as well as the firings, as well as
the RIFs. But how can an agency know how much space they
require if they don't know how many employees they will have?
The only certainty we have is a certain lack of clarity
from the administration. These actions are reckless and
potentially very costly for taxpayers. For example, last week,
the National Transportation Safety Board was notified that its
lease was going to be terminated in 4 months. It is my
understanding, although we don't have any proof of this in
writing, it is my understanding that the termination decision
has now been reversed. It is fortunate that the NTSB was not
put in this position of having only 4 months to move not just
their offices but their laboratory space while also
investigating 1,195 transportation accidents and incidents at
the same time, including the recent mid-air collision near
Reagan National Airport.
After consistently declining to provide staff with
information about building disposals, late yesterday, GSA
shared a list of 400-plus ``non-core assets being considered
for divestment from Government ownership.'' The list included
the Bonneville Power Administration, or BPA, headquarters
building in Portland. Many utilities in Washington State and
throughout the Pacific Northwest, including the largest public
utility in my district, get large amounts of their power from
the BPA system.
The selling of the building would be very disruptive to
BPA's operations and, therefore, to ratepayers throughout the
Pacific Northwest, especially disruptive to all the employees
who have been ordered to return to work, to work in the office,
which is fine, and I support that they do that, but they need a
place to go to.
Now, BPA leases the building from the GSA and pays for the
lease with ratepayer money, not taxpayer money. I pay for the
lease space at BPA because I pay rates to my public utility
district. I don't think anyone else in this room does that.
Selling this building would not lead to taxpayer savings from
the BPA budget.
People are confused about GSA's activities, and Congress
has little visibility into what exactly GSA is doing. And I
don't know if GSA knows what it is doing. My own staff is
largely getting news of GSA activities from the press, from a
Reddit thread titled ``GSA RIF megathread''--you will never
hear me say that again----
[Laughter.]
Mr. Larsen of Washington [continuing]. And occasionally
from ex-GSA employees. One building owner was told that GSA was
terminating a lease, but because that lease was still in its
firm term, GSA was obligated to pay for the space until 2029.
GSA's actions have led to confusion amongst the project
managers, general contractors, and engineers who are working on
construction projects for GSA's Public Buildings Service. GSA
recently rescinded the P100 Facilities Standards which
established the design, architecture, engineering, fire
protection, historic preservation, and performance requirements
for new buildings and major repair and alteration projects.
How does this rescission of the design standards impact
construction and renovation projects? Do they need to be
redesigned? Do contracts need to be redrafted?
Delay and risk are challenging for contractors and
expensive for the Government, and therefore for taxpayers.
On January 24th, GSA paused all acquisitions and lease
activities, including the National Deep Energy Retrofit
program, and according to one publicly traded energy company,
``the current NDER pause may have detrimental impacts on
projects currently in construction. We''--that is, this
company--``have spent substantial sums on project design,
engineering, material procurement, and employee hiring. A
prolonged pause of these projects will negatively impact
business investment and chill business certainty.''
So, I too am disappointed that Mr. Peters is not with us
today, but I do have some questions that we are sending to him:
If agency headcounts are in flux, how does GSA know how
much space agencies need?
Does GSA have the funding and authority to pay expenses
associated with closing offices, eliminating leases, and
relocating agencies to new space?
As GSA cuts its own budget and staff, who is going to do
the labor-intensive work of terminating leases and relocating
agencies? Is GSA going to hire contractors to replace Federal
employees?
So, Director Marroni and Mr. Winstead, I hope you can
answer some of these questions. I don't expect you to be able
to answer all those questions, but based on your experience, I
hope we can get some insight into that. I look forward to your
testimony and hope you will be able to answer some of my
questions.
And with that, I yield back.
[Mr. Larsen of Washington's prepared statement follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Rick Larsen, a Representative in Congress
from the State of Washington, and Ranking Member, Committee on
Transportation and Infrastructure
Chairman Ezell and Ranking Member Stanton, thank you for holding
this timely hearing on the state of federal real estate.
Recent Administration actions to reduce both telework and the
federal footprint have created confusion and upheaval within the
federal real estate landscape. The proposed changes have the potential
to have a negative impact on the federal workforce, communities,
private sector landlords and construction contractors.
The General Services Administration (GSA) owns 1,500 buildings and
has about 7,500 private-sector leases.
According to press reports, the Administration plans to reduce
GSA's owned and leased portfolio by 50 percent.
In justifying this push for property disposals, GSA's new Public
Buildings Commissioner has pointed to ``guidance'' from the WRDA 2024
bill.
But WRDA did not direct GSA to jump immediately to large-scale
disposals. The WRDA bill directed GSA and OMB to work with agencies to
measure building occupancy over a two-month period before making
recommendations for space disposals. Congress gave GSA steps one
through five, but GSA is skipping from step one directly to step five.
That is causing confusion, chaos, in federal real estate.
The lease terminations are happening quickly and at the same time
as return-to-office mandates, firings and RIFs.
But how can an agency know how much space they require if they
don't know how many employees they will have?
The only certainty we have is a certain lack of clarity.
The administration's actions are reckless and potentially costly
for taxpayers.
For example, last week the National Transportation Safety Board was
notified that its lease was going to be terminated in four months. It
is my understanding, although I don't have any proof of that in
writing, that the termination decision has now been reversed.
It is fortunate that the NTSB was not put in the position of having
only four months to move offices and laboratory space while
investigating 1,195 transportation accidents at the same time--
including the recent midair collision near Reagan National Airport.
After consistently declining to provide my staff with information
about building disposals, late yesterday, GSA shared a list of 400-plus
``non-core assets being considered for divestment from government
ownership.''
The list included the Bonneville Power Administration's (BPA) HQ
building in Portland.
Many utilities in Washington state and across the Pacific
Northwest, including the largest public employer in my district, get
large amounts of their power from BPA and hundreds of federal employees
work in that building.
Selling the building would be very disruptive to BPA's operations
in the Pacific Northwest, especially as all employees have been ordered
to return to work. I support that, but they need a place to go to.
BPA leases the building from GSA and pays for the lease with
ratepayer money--not taxpayer money--I pay for the lease space at BPA
because I pay rates through my public utility district, and I don't
think anyone else in this room does that. Selling this building would
not lead to taxpayer savings from the BPA budget.
People are confused about GSA's activities, and Congress has little
visibility into what exactly GSA is doing. I don't know if GSA knows
what it is doing.
My own staff is largely getting news of GSA's activities from the
press, from a Reddit thread titled ``GSA RIF Megathread'' and
occasionally from ex-GSA employees.
One building owner was told that GSA was terminating a lease, but
because that lease was still in its firm term, GSA was obligated to pay
for the space until 2029.
GSA actions have also led to confusion amongst the project
managers, general contractors and engineers who are working on
construction projects for GSA's Public Buildings Service (PBS).
GSA recently rescinded the P-100 Facilities Standards which
establish the design, architecture, engineering, fire protection,
historic preservation and performance requirements for new buildings
and major repair and alteration projects.
How does the rescission of the design standards impact construction
and renovation projects? Do they need to be redesigned? Do contracts
need to be redrafted? Delay and risk are challenging for contractors
and expensive for the government, and therefore for taxpayers.
On January 24th, GSA paused all acquisitions and lease activities
including the National Deep Energy Retrofit program (NDER). According
to one publicly traded energy company, ``the current NDER pause may
have detrimental impacts on projects currently in construction. We have
spent substantial sums on project design, engineering, material
procurement, and employee hiring. A prolonged pause of these projects
will negatively impact business investment and chill business
certainty.''
I, too, am disappointed that GSA's new Commissioner of Public
Buildings Mike Peters is not with us today. I have questions we are
sending to him:
If agency headcounts are in flux, how does GSA know how
much space agencies need?
Does GSA have the funding and the authority to pay
expenses associated with closing offices, eliminating leases and
relocating agencies to new space?
As GSA cuts its budget and staff, who is going to do the
labor-intensive work of terminating leases and relocating agencies? Is
GSA going to hire contractors to replace federal employees?
So, Director Marroni and Mr. Winstead, I hope you can answer some
of these questions. I don't expect you to be able to answer all of
these questions, but based on your experience, I hope we can get some
insight on that. I look forward to your testimony and hope that you
will be able to help answer some of my questions.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Mr. Ezell. The gentleman yields. I would now like to
welcome our witnesses and thank them for being here today.
Briefly, I would like to take a moment to explain our
lighting system to our witnesses. There are three lights in
front of you. Green means go, yellow means you are running out
of time, and red means conclude your remarks.
I ask unanimous consent that the witnesses' full statements
be included in the record.
Without objection, so ordered.
I ask unanimous consent that the record of today's hearing
remain open until such time as our witnesses have provided
answers to any questions that may be submitted to them in
writing.
Without objection, so ordered.
I also ask unanimous consent that the record remain open
for 15 days for any additional comments and information
submitted by Members or witnesses to be included in the record
of today's hearing.
Without objection, so ordered.
As your written testimony has been made part of the record,
the subcommittee asks that you limit your oral remarks to 5
minutes.
With that, Mr. Marroni, you are recognized for 5 minutes
for your testimony.
TESTIMONY OF DAVID MARRONI, DIRECTOR, PHYSICAL IN-
FRASTRUCTURE, U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OF-
FICE; AND DAVID WINSTEAD, BOARD MEMBER, PUBLIC
BUILDINGS REFORM BOARD
TESTIMONY OF DAVID MARRONI, DIRECTOR, PHYSICAL IN-
FRASTRUCTURE, U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OF-
FICE
Mr. Marroni. Thank you, Chairman Ezell, Ranking Member
Stanton, and members of the subcommittee. I am happy to be here
today to discuss GAO's views on how to make Federal real
property work better for the American taxpayer.
For more than 20 years, we have identified the management
of Federal real 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 unneeded
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 right-size the
Federal Government's property holdings. There have been
important actions in recent years to take advantage of these
opportunities, but progress has been slow. Agencies have stayed
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 real property.
As it does so, it is important that GSA and other agencies
balance the goal of speedy reductions with the need for
deliberate planning and analysis to help ensure the most
effective result for the American taxpayer. There are a lot of
moving parts right now that will shape Federal real property
for years to come.
First, the Trump administration's return-to-office policy
and its planned reductions in force are still early in their
implementation. By summer, there will be clearer information on
the size and shape of the Federal workforce and what that means
for real property needs.
Secondly, under the USE IT Act, agencies are now required
to measure building utilization across their portfolios for the
first time. As a result, by this summer, GSA and agencies will
have important new data to inform long-term decisions on the
Federal real property portfolio.
Third, it will take time and money to move out of one
property and to consolidate into another. GSA and other
agencies need to think through which of the reductions to
prioritize, and a funding strategy to implement those
reductions in a way that makes the most sense. Gauging how much
space is really needed under new workforce policies and then
proceeding with reductions in a deliberate and planned-out
manner could generate substantial savings and mitigate the risk
of mistakes and unexpected mission impacts.
In conclusion, right-sizing the Federal Government's real
property holdings is long overdue. As GSA and other agencies
move forward with reductions, they should do so deliberately
and in a strategic way that balances speed and thoughtful
analysis and 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 mission.
Mr. Chairman, that concludes my opening remarks. I will be
happy to take any questions.
[Mr. Marroni's prepared statement follows:]
Prepared Statement of David Marroni, Director, Physical Infrastructure,
U.S. Government Accountability Office
Federal Real Property: Congress and Agencies Have Acted To Address Key
High-Risk Issues but Challenges Remain
Highlights
What GAO Found
Better management of the federal government's real property
portfolio is needed to effectively dispose of underused buildings,
collect reliable real property data, enhance the security of federal
facilities, and improve the condition and configuration of federal
buildings. These management challenges have led GAO to include Managing
Federal Real Property on GAO's High-Risk List since 2003.
Underused buildings. Federal agencies have long struggled
with underused space, which costs millions of dollars. Enacted in
January 2025, the Utilizing Space Efficiently and Improving
Technologies Act requires agencies to measure building utilization and
plan to dispose of underused space. This Act, combined with effective
implementation, would address GAO's 2023 recommendation on the need for
governmentwide guidance on measuring space utilization.
Data reliability. Without reliable data, it is difficult
to support effective real property management and decision-making. The
General Services Administration has worked with federal agencies to
improve its Federal Real Property Profile database but has not yet
fully corrected property location data. The Department of Defense
improved its real property data as well, but further efforts are
needed, including better coordination with military services to fill
key vacant real property positions.
Facility security. The Department of Homeland Security
has taken steps to improve facility security, but more progress is
needed. Contract guards did not detect prohibited items being brought
into federal facilities in about half of GAO's 27 covert tests in 2024.
This is a rate comparable to the Federal Protective Service's (FPS) own
covert testing results. In addition, FPS has not yet fully deployed the
Post Tracking System. Under development since 2013, the system was
supposed to verify that all guards are qualified but faces technical
and data reliability problems.
Building condition. This year GAO added ``Building
Condition'' to the existing real property high-risk area. The federal
government's annual maintenance and operating costs for its 277,000
buildings were about $10.3 billion in fiscal year 2023. Further,
federal agencies have deferred maintenance and repairs on many
buildings, creating a backlog. GAO found that these needs had more than
doubled, from $170 billion to $370 billion between fiscal year 2017 and
2024. In addition, agency officials told GAO that headquarters
buildings are poorly configured and need renovations to meet present-
day workforce requirements.
Why GAO Did This Study
The federal government's real property holdings are vast and
diverse, costing billions annually to occupy, operate, and maintain.
GAO added federal real property to its High-Risk List in 2003 for
several reasons.
These reasons include that the government retained more real
property than it needed, did not have reliable property data to support
decision making, and struggled to secure federal buildings.
This statement discusses key actions taken by Congress and the
executive branch since the High-Risk update in 2023 and actions needed
to address four federal real property issues: (1) underused buildings,
(2) data reliability, (3) facility security, and (4) building
condition. This statement is based on GAO's prior work and reflects
GAO's 2025 High-Risk update, released in February 2025.
What GAO Recommends
While the government has implemented many of GAO's recommendations
on key real property issues, 57 GAO recommendations in this area are
not yet fully implemented. Actions to implement these recommendations
can help address underused property, unreliable data, insecure
facilities, and unsafe building conditions.
__________
Chairman Perry, Ranking Member Stanton, and Members of the
Subcommittee:
The federal government owns over 460 million square feet of office
space that cost billions annually to occupy, operate, and maintain. For
22 years, managing federal real property has remained on GAO's High-
Risk List. The reasons for this include that the government has
retained more property than it needs; it has not had reliable real
property data to support decision-making, and it has struggled with
facility security. This year, we added another reason that federal real
property is high risk--building condition.
Since federal real property was added to GAO's High-Risk List, the
highest levels of government have given serious attention to these
issues, but more work remains. While federal agencies have addressed
many of our recommendations on key real property issues, we have 57
recommendations that have not been fully implemented related to
underused property, data reliability, facility security, and building
condition. Most of these recommendations were made over the past 5
years.
This statement discusses key actions taken by Congress and the
executive branch since the High-Risk update in 2023 and actions that
would help improve federal real property management. This statement is
based on GAO's prior work and reflects GAO's 2025 High-Risk update,
released on February 25, 2025.\1\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ GAO, High-Risk Series: Heightened Attention to High-Risk Areas
Could Yield Billions More in Savings and A More Efficient and Effective
Government, GAO-25-107743 (Washington, D.C.: Feb 25, 2025).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
We conducted the work on which this statement is based in
accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. Those
standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain
sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our
findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe the
evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and
conclusions based on our audit objectives.
Underused Buildings
Federal agencies have long struggled to determine how much space
they need to fulfill their missions. Issues with underused space were
further complicated with increased telework during and following the
COVID-19 pandemic. Retaining this underused space costs millions of
dollars and is one of the main reasons that federal real property
management has remained on GAO's High-Risk List since 2003. The
following are key actions that Congress and the executive branch have
taken to address underused buildings since our High-Risk update in
2023.
Enacted in January 2025, the Utilizing Space Efficiently
and Improving Technologies (USE IT) Act requires agencies to measure
building utilization and plan to dispose of underused space.\2\
Specifically, it requires that agencies measure the utilization of
public buildings by comparing the capacity of each space to the number
of people who are working in the building. If building utilization
remains below 60 percent capacity for two consecutive years, the
General Services Administration (GSA), in consultation with the Office
of Management and Budget (OMB), must take steps to reduce the amount of
underused space. This Act, combined with effective implementation,
would address our 2023 recommendation on the need for governmentwide
guidance on measuring space utilization.\3\
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\2\ Thomas R. Carper Water Resources Development Act, Pub. L. No.
118-272, S. 4367, 118th Cong., div. B, tit. III Sec. 2302 (2025).
\3\ GAO, Federal Real Property: Agencies Need New Benchmarks to
Measure and Shed Underutilized Space, GAO-24-107006 (Washington D.C.:
Oct. 26, 2023).
GSA initiated a full portfolio assessment in November
2023 to identify real property assets for disposal. As of December 4,
2024, GSA had identified 34 assets to begin the disposal process. GSA
estimates that disposing of these buildings will reduce GSA's inventory
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by over 6 million square feet and save $1.8 billion over 10 years.
In addition, the Federal Assets Sale and Transfer Act of
2016 (FASTA) established a temporary process to help the federal
government identify and dispose of unneeded federal real property.\4\
As of December 2024, the FASTA process had identified 12 properties for
disposal, 10 of which sold for a total of $194 million. In October 2022
we reported that GSA had not developed an approach to leveraging
knowledge from setbacks that agencies experienced implementing the
FASTA process.\5\
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\4\ Pub. L. No. 114-287, 130 Stat. 1463 (codified as amended 40
U.S.C. Sec. 1303 note.) FASTA originally included three rounds, but
recently enacted legislation directed an additional, fourth round to
identify additional properties. Thomas R. Carper Water Resources
Development Act, Pub. L. No. 118-272, S. 4367, 118th Cong., div. B,
tit. III Sec. 2301 (2025).
\5\ GAO, Federal Real Property: GSA Should Leverage Lessons Learned
from New Sale and Transfer Process, GAO-23-104815 (Washington D.C.:
Oct. 7, 2022).
The following steps would help to address some of the government's
challenges with underused space:
OMB should continue to assist agencies in monitoring
utilization to help identify unneeded space, as recommended in our
October 2023 report.\6\ The USE IT Act includes additional requirements
which may assist in this work.
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\6\ GAO-24-107006.
GSA should help federal agencies improve the disposal of
underused property by applying lessons from the FASTA process to
improve future disposal efforts, as recommended in our October 2022
report.\7\
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\7\ GAO-23-104815.
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Data Reliability
Without reliable data, it is difficult to support effective real
property management and decision-making. GSA relies on federal agencies
to submit accurate data to the Federal Real Property Profile, the
governmentwide database of federal real property that GSA uses to
manage buildings, structures, and land. We have identified problems
with the reliability of federal real property data since we first
placed the management of federal real property on the High-Risk List.
The following are key actions that the executive branch has taken to
address this issue since our High-Risk update in 2023.
GSA has worked with federal agencies to improve the
reliability of federal real property data. In 2020, we reported that 67
percent of addresses in the Federal Real Property Profile database were
incorrectly formatted or incomplete.\8\ GSA took actions to improve its
process for validating and verifying addresses in this database. In
2023, we found that over 98 percent of addresses were correctly
formatted, but that location data continue to have errors. In August
2024, the Federal Real Property Council, an interagency council of
which GSA is a member, published program guidance to help federal
agencies improve the quality of data they submit to the Federal Real
Property Profile.\9\ The guidance instructs agencies to concentrate
their initial data quality improvement efforts on data elements such as
property type and property use because these elements are most easily
verified with external information. GSA established a strategic
initiative to improve real property data accuracy through data
standards and management in its strategic plan for fiscal years 2022-
2026. GSA also implemented a tool that alerts agencies to potentially
incorrect location data in the Federal Real Property Profile database.
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\8\ GAO, Federal Real Property: GSA Should Improve Accuracy,
Completeness, and Usefulness of Public Data, GAO-20-135 (Washington,
D.C. Feb. 6, 2020).
\9\ Federal Real Property Council, Agency-Level Federal Real
Property Profile Data Quality Improvement Program Guidance (August
2024).
The Department of Defense (DOD) has worked to improve
monitoring of its real property data. In November 2018, we found that
DOD was not effectively recording and reporting data, which led to
inaccurate and incomplete real property information.\10\ Subsequently,
DOD has defined and documented the data elements that are most
significant for decision-making and is taking a department-wide
approach to improving its data quality. In addition, the Navy, Air
Force, and Army improved monitoring of their respective processes for
recording all required real property information. However, DOD has not
yet prioritized and coordinated with the military services to identify
opportunities for filling vacant real property positions. This has
contributed to workload backlogs and prevented them from sufficiently
maintaining their real property data.
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\10\ GAO, Defense Real Property: DOD Needs to Take Additional
Actions to Improve Management of Its Inventory Data, GAO-19-73
(Washington, D.C. Nov. 13, 2018).
The following steps would help to address federal real property
data challenges:
GSA should take steps to fully implement our 2020
recommendation to help federal agencies improve their data reliability
by implementing the data quality standards identified in the Federal
Real Property Council's August 2024 guidance and ensure street address
information is accurate.\11\ In the meantime, we are continuing to
assess federal real property data and plan to issue new work on the
topic.
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\11\ GAO-20-135.
DOD should take steps to fully implement our 2018
recommendation to develop a strategy that identifies and addresses
risks to real property data quality and information accessibility.
Facility Security
Past attacks on federal buildings demonstrate that the security of
federal facilities remains a high-risk issue. The challenges inherent
in addressing threats to federal facility security have persisted since
we placed the management of federal real property on the High-Risk
list. The following are key actions that Congress and the executive
branch have taken to address facility security since our High-Risk
update in 2023.
In November 2023, President Biden issued Executive Order
14111, superseding and updating Executive Order 12977, which
established the Interagency Security Committee (ISC) now chaired by the
Department of Homeland Security (DHS).\12\ This update clarifies the
Committee's oversight role in monitoring agencies' compliance with
ISC's physical security standards.
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\12\ Exec Order No. 14111, 88 Fed. Reg. 83,809 (Dec. 1, 2023).
Congress passed legislation and the ISC took action to
improve oversight of Federal Protective Service (FPS)-recommended
security countermeasures to protect federal facilities, as we
recommended in May 2023.\13\ Specifically, the Improving Federal
Building Security Act of 2024 requires facility security committees to
inform DHS of their decisions to implement FPS recommendations within
90 days.\14\ In January 2025, the ISC updated its annual questionnaire
to include questions that will assess agencies' implementation of FPS-
recommended countermeasures. The ISC has also developed standard
operating procedures to assess how agencies document risk acceptance
when they do not implement FPS-recommended countermeasures in their
facilities.
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\13\ GAO, Federal Facilities: Improved Oversight Needed for
Security Recommendations, GAO-23-105649 (Washington, D.C. May 8, 2023).
\14\ Pub. L. No. 118-157, Sec. 2(a), 138 Stat. 1719, 1719 (to be
codified 40 U.S.C. Sec. 1315 note).
In response to recommendations we made after the January
2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, the Capitol Police Board and the
Capitol Police developed procedures to obtain outside assistance in an
emergency as well as to either implement recommended security
countermeasures or document risk acceptance if those countermeasures
are not implemented.\15\
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\15\ GAO, Capitol Attack: The Capitol Police Need Clearer Emergency
Procedures and a Comprehensive Security Risk Assessment Process, GAO-
22-105001 (Washington, D.C. Feb. 17, 2022).
The federal government has shown sustained leadership commitment to
improving the security of federal buildings, but challenges remain to
ensure that federal facilities remain safe. These challenges and our
key recommendations to address them are highlighted below.
FPS employs contract guards at 2,500 federal facilities.
In 2024, we conducted 27 covert tests at selected federal facilities
and found that FPS's contract guards failed to detect prohibited items
about half the time.\16\ These results, which are consistent with FPS's
findings in its internal covert testing program, raise questions about
how effectively the guards detect prohibited items. We recommended that
FPS collect more consistent data about the causes of test failures,
analyze those data, and then use that analysis to improve contract
guards' detection capabilities.
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\16\ GAO, Federal Facility Security: Preliminary Results Show That
Challenges Remain in Guard Performance and Oversight, GAO-24-107599
(Washington, D.C. Jul. 23, 2024).
In 2024, we also found the data system that FPS uses to
verify if contract guards are qualified to stand post--the Post
Tracking System--continues to face technology and data reliability
challenges.\17\ In 2025, we recommended that DHS determine whether to
replace the Post Tracking System, which has been under development
since 2013, or make corrective actions to address problems with the
system.\18\
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\17\ GAO-24-107599.
\18\ GAO, Federal Protective Service: Actions Needed to Address
Critical Guard Oversight and Information System Problems, GAO-25-
107047U (Washington, D.C. Jan. 28, 2025).
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Building Condition
In the 2025 High-Risk Update, we added building condition as a
High-Risk topic for federal real property due to large increases in the
cost of addressing deferred maintenance in federal buildings. The
federal government's annual maintenance and operating costs for its
277,000 buildings exceeded $10.3 billion in fiscal year 2023. Since
this is a new High-Risk topic, we are focusing on our recent findings
and actions needed to improve the condition of federal buildings.
Federal agencies are taking steps to improve building condition and
configuration, but the challenges led us to include the topic in the
High-Risk update.
DOD and federal civilian building repair backlogs have
more than doubled, going from $171 billion to $370 billion from fiscal
year 2017 through 2024 (see fig. 1). Unless this trend reverses,
federal assets will continue to deteriorate and need premature
replacement, which can be significantly more expensive than the cost of
repairs had they not been delayed.
Figure 1: U.S. Department of Defense and Federal Civilian Agencies'
Reported Estimates of Deferred Maintenance and Repairs, Fiscal Years
2017 2024
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
In 2023, we determined that federal agencies' spaces are
not well configured to meet modern office needs.\19\ If agencies
continue to operate in poorly configured office buildings, they will
continue to underuse space, spending unnecessary operating funds.
Agencies ranked budget shortages to reconfigure space as the top
challenge to increasing utilization of their headquarters buildings.
For example, U.S. Department of Agriculture officials said they would
need millions of dollars to update their two-building headquarters to
support higher density and possible office sharing.
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\19\ GAO-24-107006.
In 2023, we reviewed four agencies and found they did not
fully communicate the potential costs of maintenance backlogs to
Congress.\20\ For example, none of the agencies provided sufficient
information in their financial and budget documents to explain how much
of their backlog compromised agency missions. As a result, Congress and
the public do not have a clear picture of the anticipated costs to
address the deferred maintenance that may impact critical government
functions. We recommended that GSA and the Departments of Health and
Human Services, Interior, and Energy fully communicate repair needs to
Congress and the public.
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\20\ GAO, Federal Real Property: Agencies Should Provide More
Information about Increases in Deferred Maintenance and Repair, GAO-24-
105485 (Washington, D.C. Nov. 16, 2023).
In 2023, we found that military barracks were in poor
condition, including some with safety risks like sewage overflow and
inoperable fire systems.\21\ We recommended that the Department of
Defense clarify guidance, and that the service branches update minimum
health and safety standards. We also recommended that DOD update and
clarify guidance on assessing barracks conditions, obtain complete
funding information, and increase oversight of barracks programs. DOD
has implemented several of our recommendations, including updating
guidance on how the military branches should conduct condition
assessments for barracks.
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\21\ GAO, Military Barracks: Poor Living Conditions Undermine
Quality of Life and Readiness, GAO-23-105797 (Washington, D.C. Sept.
19, 2023).
In 2024, the GSA Inspector General found that GSA has not
effectively monitored its maintenance contractors to ensure they
implemented required maintenance and repairs. Specifically, operations
and maintenance contractors did not complete all work orders for
service requests and preventive maintenance.\22\ In some cases,
operations and maintenance contractors marked work orders as complete
even though the work was not actually completed. The Inspector General
recommended that GSA improve its oversight of contractors.
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\22\ GSA Office of Inspector General, Building Maintenance
Contracts Are Not Complying with Their GSA Contracts Due to Poor
Performance and Ineffective Oversight, Report Number A230032/P/2/R24004
(Washington, D.C.: May 3, 2024).
Chairman Perry, Ranking Member Stanton, and Members of the
Subcommittee, this completes my prepared statement. I would be pleased
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
to respond to any questions that you may have at this time.
Mr. Ezell. Thank you, Mr. Marroni.
Mr. Winstead, you are recognized for 5 minutes for your
testimony.
TESTIMONY OF DAVID WINSTEAD, BOARD MEMBER, PUBLIC
BUILDINGS REFORM BOARD
Mr. Winstead. Chairman Ezell, Ranking Member Stanton,
Delegate Norton, who chaired the subcommittee when I was Public
Buildings Commissioner--so, good to see you again--I am David
Winstead, and I am a member of the Public Buildings Reform
Board. As I mentioned, I did have the pleasure of serving as
Public Buildings Commissioner about 15 years ago.
I wanted to thank this committee for creating this Board,
supporting its extension, which, as a result, we are really
realizing the potential to save billions of dollars for the
Federal taxpayer by recommending assets that are truly no
longer needed to house Federal employees and have value in
terms of redevelopment on a local level.
The Board has independently analyzed 47 properties and a
total of 35 million square feet. Our Board is a very diverse
Board and a very bipartisan Board. Two former Members of
Congress, Nick Rahall and Mike Capuano, are members of the
Board; myself; the former staff director of this subcommittee;
and two major real estate executives that have holdings in New
York City and around the country. And our strategy is really to
right-size--help GSA and work with OMB to right-size the
portfolio. We are reviewing these targeted buildings under the
FASTA authority based on reinvestment needs, occupancy levels,
building significance, as well as the mission of that agency.
Consolidation recommendations will be targeted towards
higher quality Federal buildings that Congress has appropriated
funds for that we have had the opportunity to re-invest and
have a longer life cycle, and also the flexibility of leased
options during the interim transition.
We are reaching out to every Member of Congress in the
districts where these assets lie. We are reaching out to the
county commissioners and mayors of those jurisdictions, as
well. So we are doing that in preparation for our
recommendations.
As has been stated, the Federal portfolio average age is
over 50 years. And if you look at what they need in terms of
renovation costs, most of these buildings that, really, have
had deferred maintenance for decades, would cost $700 to $1,000
per square foot to renovate. And so each year GSA sees a
deferral, if you will, of $2 billion of capital liability
because they do not have the appropriated funds to invest in
those buildings.
The Government really has two options. One is disposal of
buildings that really are no longer needed, and secondly,
provide for consolidation of employees in buildings that do
have a life cycle that justifies their maintenance and
reinvestment. There are really two groups of buildings in that
category, pre-war properties and post-war properties.
Very interestingly, as an aside, one of the top architects
in the District of Columbia looked at some of the pre-air-
conditioned historic buildings and said many of those lend
themselves to housing renovation and reconversion, more than
some of the last-50-year buildings.
So we are really under our final review of looking at a
series of assets. In the next round, we hope that we will
identify approximately $18 billion in cost avoidance over 30
years.
The Board found in 2023 that there was a 70-percent
decrease in occupancy in these Federal buildings. An example of
that is the Department of Commerce, where if you count the
number of Federal employees in that building on an average
daily basis, it is about $330,000 to house that Federal
employee. Another one was the Department of Labor, $182,000 per
year to house that employee. And we are therefore looking at
properties in the District, primarily Miami, L.A., Boston, and
Atlanta, and we are doing outreach to those communities now.
As an example of one of the recommendations that might be
on our report, there is an older building in L.A. called the
Wilshire Building, and it houses the FBI and the passport
office. It is not seismically stable. They haven't had the
money to renovate it. So we are looking at innovative ways to
report that asset out and to have it redeveloped. The
university, UCLA, is an adjoining landowner and needs expanded
space, so there are opportunities there.
Just in conclusion, I did, with the testimony, put a list
of some of the properties that we are currently evaluating. We
anticipate we will have a report to Congress within a month or
so, and we will be happy to answer any questions that might
come up when that report comes out. So thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[Mr. Winstead's prepared statement follows:]
Prepared Statement of David Winstead, Board Member, Public Buildings
Reform Board
Chairman Perry, Ranking Member Greg Stanton and Members of the
Subcommittee, thank you for giving me the opportunity to update you on
the progress of the Public Buildings Reform Board and highlight
important changes we have already experienced since the passing of the
Public Buildings Reform legislation. My name is David Winstead and I am
a Board member of the Public Buildings Reform Board.
I wanted to thank this committee for creating this Board,
supporting its extension, and as a result, we are finally going to
begin realizing the Board's potential to save billions of taxpayer
dollars. Since the Board was established in late 2016, we have
recommended the sale of approximately $775 million in proceeds of
federal real property. Since we submitted our last round of
recommendations in 2022, the Board independently analyzed 47 properties
totaling 35 million square feet. Out of this, the PBRB analysis has
identified approximately $19 billion in cost avoidance over 30 years
which it plans to submit for recommended disposal. And the Board
recognizes this is just the start of the consolidation opportunities
that abound.
Our strategy to right size the portfolio recognizes the poor
physical condition of many buildings and the financial constraints on
federal real estate. We reviewed buildings based on reinvestment needs,
occupancy levels, and building significance or criticality. Buildings
that have high renovation needs, low occupancy levels, and low
significance are at the top of our list for disposal.
Our recommendations will assume appropriations for consolidations
may be limited. Consolidation recommendations will be directed towards
quality owned buildings that require little renovation and leased
locations.
The average age of the Federal portfolio is over 50 years. Most of
them require full renovations that cost between $700 and $1000 per
foot. This can average close to $72 billion in capital needs if we
assume a $400 per square foot average for the 180 million square foot
GSA owned portfolio. Each year, GSA accrues about $2 billion in new
capital liabilities as these portfolio ages. There is little prospect
that Congress will provide anywhere near this level of appropriations.
Therefore, the government has two options: house employees in
failing, aging buildings or, dramatically increase disposals of its
inventory. We believe disposal is the only financially viable choice.
This will also provide the opportunity for consolidating space and
providing better working environments for federal employees by
relocating them to owned buildings in better condition, or leased
commercial space.
There are two groups of buildings we are proposing for disposal:
pre-war properties that have extremely high renovations costs, low
occupancy and not particularly significant; and post-war buildings.
Most of these post-war buildings, particularly in Washington, DC, were
low-cost construction, and are at the end of their useful lives, and
now require whole building renovation. The taxpayer has realized their
money's worth out of these facilities and is now time to monetize these
properties for future taxpayer benefit.
We lately have been working very closely with the General Services
Administration and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to
collaborate on our next round of recommendations, which are due to OMB
no earlier than December 27, 2024. Our plan is to introduce our next
round of recommendations sometime this spring. The Water Resources
Development Act also allows us to submit a third round of
recommendations before our sunset date of December 31, 2026.
In our next round, we have identified approximately $19 billion in
cost avoidance over 30 years. The Board recognizes this is just the
start of the consolidation opportunities that abound.
To illustrate this tremendous opportunity, the Board found in 2023
that there was a 70% decrease from pre-COVID levels in occupancy in a
study of a group of department headquarters buildings in Washington,
DC.
Another example is the Department of Commerce headquarters building
in Washington, DC, the Herbert C. Hoover Building, which costs
taxpayers an average of $332,428, including deferred maintenance, in
2023 per assigned employee. The Frances Perkins Building, Department of
Labor Headquarters, in Washington, DC, cost the taxpayer on average of
$182,346 in 2023 per person in operating and maintenance costs and GSA
rent. By comparison, 200 square feet of leased Class B office space in
Washington, DC, would cost approximately $9,600 per person annually.
The Board has conducted portfolio studies in other regions as well,
including Miami, FL; Los Angeles, CA; Boston, MA; and Atlanta, GA. One
property we are considering for disposal recommendation is the Wilshire
Federal Building in Los Angeles, CA. This 55-year-old building required
extensive work including modernization of HVAC and electrical systems,
asbestos remediation, and window upgrades. GSA requested funds in 2022
to address these deficiencies, although the property is deemed a
seismically high-risk building. The PBRB has conducted market analyses
to determine housing alternatives for the tenant agencies and to allow
the government to take advantage of depressed office market conditions
in Los Angeles.
The Board's analysis also demonstrated time and again that market
conditions are uniquely set to provide federal agencies the opportunity
to move into spaces which are often of better quality than the federal
offices. Our analysis has demonstrated that:
Federal divestment from under-utilized properties
provides cities and towns opportunities to address critical needs such
as housing shortages.
The commercial office market is soft, and federal
dispositions will need to be made context dependent.
Consolidations offer agencies the opportunity to create
healthier, more efficient, safer, and operationally supportive
workspaces.
The current set of properties the Board is assessing for its second
set of recommendations is comprised of (17 million) SF of office space
in 11 cities across the U.S. The greatest preponderance of properties
is in Washington, DC, where decades of underinvestment combined with
underutilization have created a situation where there are billions of
dollars of capital liabilities accruing to the taxpayer to support a
dwindling work force. The Board is preparing its list of
recommendations in D.C. that encompasses approximately (15 million)
gross square feet of space, mostly concentrated around the National
Mall. This is a huge amount of space that can be turned back to the
private sector, some of which can be repurposed for badly needed
housing, some could be used by the Smithsonian for additional museums,
and some could be redeveloped into modern office space. A renewal of
the monumental core could promote a connection between the National
Mall and the Waterfront, providing tourists with facilities and food
options currently not available on the mall, provide increased tax
revenues to the city, and support growth. However, the sale of such a
huge amount of space must be done carefully and within a reasonable
context that supports market absorption of space. Done correctly, our
recommendations will provide enhanced tax revenue for local governments
and provide redevelopment opportunities. With careful planning and
disposition the Board estimates that taxpayer savings could be ($6.5
billion over 30 years).
The list of properties we are considering will be submitted with
our testimony.
List of properties under consideration by the PBRB as of Feb 24,
2025:
Lipinski FB, Chicago, IL
Captain Williams Coast Guard, Boston, MA
LaBranch FB, Houston, TX
Kefauver FB, Nashville, TN
Peachtree Summit, Atlanta, GA
Brickell FB, Miami, FL
4700 River Road, Riverdale, MD
7th and D St SW, Washington, DC
Cohen FB, Washington, DC
Under Consideration: NCR
1800 F St NW, Washington, DC
Theodore Roosevelt FB, Washington, DC
Perkins FB, Washington, DC
Orville Wright, Washington, DC
Wilbur Wright, Washington, DC
Jamie L. Whitten Building, Washington, DC
Forrestal FB, Washington, DC
Agriculture South, Washington, DC
J. Edgar Hoover FB, Washington, DC
Robert Weaver Building, Washington, DC
Under Consideration: Rest of the Country
Wilshire FB, Los Angeles, CA
312 N. Spring Street, Los Angeles, CA
Anthony J. Celebrezze FB, Cleveland, OH
United States Custom House, Philadelphia, PA
Mr. Ezell. Thank you both for your testimony. We will now
turn to questions from the panel. I will recognize myself for 5
minutes for questions.
Question 1, Mr. Marroni, to give some context, in 2023, you
testified before this subcommittee detailing the results of
GAO's review of the actual utilization of agency headquarters
buildings here in Washington, DC. At that time, you found that
a majority of the buildings had a utilization rate of 25
percent or less, and some as low as 9 percent. Is that correct?
Mr. Marroni. Yes.
Mr. Ezell. Today, you point out that the Federal Government
spends about $10.3 billion a year just maintaining and
operating Federal buildings. With that, deferred maintenance
has doubled from $170 billion in 2017 to $370 billion today. Is
that correct?
Mr. Marroni. Yes, that is correct.
Mr. Ezell. Mr. Winstead, you mentioned in your testimony
that the Department of Commerce headquarters in Washington, DC,
in 2023 cost the taxpayers an average of $322,428 per employee,
and the Labor Department headquarters $182,346 per employee,
compared to the average cost per person in the private sector
being $9,600. This is a massive liability.
To both of you, I would like for both of you to try to
answer: How did we get to this point, and how do we get this
massive liability off the books and reduce the cost of Federal
real estate?
Mr. Marroni. Sure. So this is a longstanding challenge. We
have had this on our high-risk list for 20 years.
A number of reasons how we got here. One would simply be
agencies did not have an incentive to dispose of their real
property, the funding needed. The upfront costs needed to
consolidate, to move, to relocate is something that agencies
often didn't have, and it would have come out of their mission.
Other reasons include simply the age of the buildings. They
have gotten older, they were created at a different time for a
different workplace, these agencies and these buildings that no
longer really fit their needs. And so huge buildings, smaller
workforce, they don't need the same amount of space to do the
work they did 50 years ago.
And the end result is also deferred maintenance to these
buildings. These buildings, in many cases, are not well
maintained, in poor condition. And so what is the solution to
that?
One solution is targeting buildings that do have those high
deferred maintenance backlogs and that are not well used. Those
should definitely be top targets for disposal. That kills two
birds with one stone. You are getting rid of some of your
liabilities, and you are also getting rid of some underused
space that you can consolidate into more appropriate
facilities.
Mr. Ezell. Mr. Winstead, anything to add?
Microphone.
Mr. Winstead. The GSA portfolio is roughly 180 million
square feet of owned and about the same of leased.
And I think all of us must recognize the reality of the
market and what happened during COVID, candidly. The onset of
telework, which was 100 percent in the early years of COVID,
and then the adoption of new work practices did increase the
number of people teleworking. Our law firm gave up 50 percent
of its space between COVID and today, 2025, because more
lawyers are working from home.
And so what we are really dealing with is an aged
inventory, where we have really got to focus on the best
maintained core buildings that are worth the Federal Government
taxpayer to invest in, and then we have really got to look at
backfilling space that is available.
But the reality is, in the marketplace now, more people are
teleworking, and that really vacated a lot of these buildings
for the last 3 or 4 years.
Mr. Ezell. As both of you know, Congress enacted
significant Federal real estate reforms as part of the 2024
WRDA, including the USE IT Act. These reforms mandate that
agencies either use their space or lose it. I understand,
however, GAO and the Public Buildings Reform Board have both
found challenges in how GSA sells properties.
Can you discuss this issue you see in how GSA prepares and
places properties up for sale, and is this process too
bureaucratic?
Mr. Marroni. So again, we have reported for years that this
has been also a longstanding problem.
A complicated process to dispose of a Federal building.
There are many steps to take. Those are policy choices,
ultimately, to go through the public benefit conveyance system,
to go through some of the statutory requirements that are in
place now. So that is something Congress could certainly
consider.
Other parts of the disposal process also is how GSA puts
the properties up for sale, what sales strategies it uses to
dispose of properties. Typically, it defaults to an online
auction site. That may not always be the best method to take.
And putting up properties as-is sometimes may not be the best
approach, either. Thinking about ways to make it clear to
buyers what they would be getting so that you might have a bar
to market to put in, say, put in sales offers.
Mr. Winstead. In terms of the process of GSA, it has proven
to be very, very lengthy and drawn out. We recommended 3 years
ago 12 major assets for disposal, and GSA worked their way
through them, and all but 1 is sold now. It is actually on the
market. But it is a very protracted process.
In the wisdom of Congress, they exempted our high-value
round from both title V and public benefit conveyance. The
assets we report out now are exempted from public benefit, so
you really are able to streamline, you know, you can't have
local government or other Federal agencies raise their hand for
the assets we report out.
So we feel strongly that our recommendations, with the
analysis that we have done around them, will allow GSA to move
much more expeditiously through the disposal process and really
get rid of that property, return it to the tax roll for
redevelopment and housing, affordable housing. So that is
really what our report is targeted at, is making strong
recommendations, both reporting to Congress about our
recommendations, but also to GSA.
Candidly, I think many of the members of the Board, two
former Members of Congress, are disappointed in some of the
methods GSA has proceeded on. In reality, a public auction
process is not monitored by the highest real estate interests,
and REITs, and other investors in the country. They just don't
look at a public auction site. So we are recommending to GSA,
because of these complicated assets, some of the ones that we
may report out of here in the District, are large, older
buildings no longer needed. And there is a better way, more
expeditious way to do it, and also, in our judgment, bring in
advisory groups to help them determine highest and best use,
and get the best value back.
Mr. Ezell. The gentleman yields. I now recognize Mr.
Stanton for 5 minutes of questioning.
Mr. Stanton. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. In your
statement, you made a strong case as to why we need to do this,
so why we need to improve efficiency in our public building
utilization and why we needed to analyze that and dispose of
buildings that are no longer needed.
As we have made clear, that is exactly why we passed what
we passed in the 2024 WRDA. That was done in an overwhelmingly
bipartisan way. And we are improving those processes, and we
are in agreement. We want to make sure that we get the highest
and best use of those buildings, and those that are appropriate
for public benefit we utilize for public benefit. These are all
things that we agree on in a bipartisan way.
I guess the issue that we are dealing with right now is we
are in the world of DOGE, and we are trying to figure out how
DOGE overlays with the bipartisan policy that we passed through
this committee. I mean, I think the theory of DOGE is move fast
and break things, which may or may not work in certain
instances. But disposing of public properties, there is a very
good reason why we go through the process, and that is to make
sure that we are protecting the taxpayers, that we get the most
value of those buildings.
So with that, I am going to ask the question to Mr.
Marroni: return to work. Was GSA, as far as you know, consulted
before the return-to-work Executive order was signed by the
President?
Mr. Marroni. I do not know.
Mr. Stanton. If the agency headcounts are in flux, how does
GSA know how much space agencies need?
Mr. Marroni. That is a challenge. It is important to know
what your workforce is going to be.
Mr. Stanton. It is a point I made at the beginning, which
is that it is unfortunate Mr. Peters is not here. GSA should be
here, answering these appropriate questions so that we could do
our duty of oversight over the Administration.
Mr. Marroni, GSA does have a new Public Buildings
Commissioner, and soon after he took the position, he said,
``It is clear that the footprint of non-DoD Federal buildings
should be reduced by at least 50 percent.'' That is a pretty
remarkable statement for being on the job for only a short
period of time. How could the new Commissioner possibly know
that key information after only 4 days on the job?
Mr. Marroni. I don't know. It does take some analysis to
figure out what you need.
Mr. Stanton. Have you personally seen any data that would
lead you to determine that a 50-percent reduction was
warranted?
Mr. Marroni. We have not done that analysis.
Mr. Stanton. Mr. Winstead, do you have any idea--I am kind
of moving in a different direction here, but it is important.
It was listed as recently as yesterday as one of the items I
think has been removed--it has been a moving target about what
is on the DOGE list, what is not on the DOGE list--do you have
any idea what the current administration's plans are for the
FBI's headquarters?
Mr. Winstead. Congressman, I do not. This--the House is--I
do not. I can't speak for GSA. Obviously, there have been plans
and actions in the past to move the FBI headquarters to
Greenbelt, Maryland, I guess, is the recommendation. I do not
know what the current status is.
Mr. Stanton. Mr. Winstead, as you well know, based on your
vast experience, not all Federal space is the same. In addition
to general office space, agencies have specialty spaces:
science labs, warehouses, data centers, SCIFs, shooting ranges,
and more. Should the Federal Government own specialty space and
lease all-purpose office space, in your opinion?
Mr. Winstead. Congressman, yes. When I was Commissioner,
specialized governmental space that has high security demands,
FBI field office, Federal courthouse, border stations, firing
ranges, those are specialized uses that, when I was
Commissioner and the Congress oversaw a budget, those were
preserved and should be, in my judgment, preserved as federally
owned space.
Mr. Stanton. And many times a Government agency that has
long-term leases is going to make tenant improvements, major
improvements, sometimes very specialized improvements because
of the nature of the work that they do. Should the GSA dispose
of lease space where the tenant agencies have made significant
investments and tenant improvements like holding cells,
evidence rooms, counterintelligence equipment? What are your
thoughts on that?
Mr. Winstead. I think that in the decision about what the
continued tenancy costs are, evaluating investment by that
agency and the tenant fit-outs is very important. There are
cases where specialized equipment has been paid for by the
taxpayer through the agency's budget, and so a very careful
analysis needs to be made to justify moving an agency out of a
utilized, fully utilized--more than 60 percent--when there is
specialized equipment.
There are wonderful cases in maybe your district and
elsewhere where there are leased facilities. A large part of
the 32 field offices of the FBI were done under a lease
process. So there you are leveraging private sector efficiency,
but it is a leased space but a specialized Government use.
Mr. Stanton. All right, thank you very much.
Let me just reiterate that it is so important that Mr.
Peters appear before this subcommittee. I am going to ask
Chairman and Chairman Perry, as well, to have another hearing
as soon as possible so that we can get substantive answers on
these very fair questions. A lot of angst associated with
public buildings these days, with return-to-work, termination,
large-scale terminations, and the desire to sell off
underutilized assets as quickly as possible, so GSA needs to be
here ASAP.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Mr. Ezell. The gentleman yields. The Chair now recognizes
Mr. Bresnahan.
Mr. Bresnahan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I didn't know if I
heard a Barrett or Bresnahan there.
Mr. Ezell. I will just----
Mr. Bresnahan. So yesterday we found out that three Federal
buildings in my district are being considered for sale by the
GSA and classified as non-core assets. Three buildings. Roughly
an hour ago, Bloomberg reported that the list of properties
potentially for sale was taken off of GSA's website and the
decision reversed. In my district, this list originally
includes the Wilkes-Barre Federal Building, the Social Security
Administration Data Operations Center in Plains Township, and a
maintenance building in Wilkes-Barre.
The Social Security Data Center employs nearly 1,400
workers, and I want to express my extreme frustration that I
learned about this on the news, not from the GSA or the
administration.
Mr. Winstead, you had mentioned that you were going to be
notifying Members of Congress as to how the course of action
would proceed. When was the Member of Congress going to be
notified that there could be implications to facilities inside
of his district?
Mr. Winstead. Congressman, the list that came out of GSA
that has now been pulled off the website was, as I understand
it--I am not speaking for GSA--was the result of a long-term
review by the portfolio office. That is distinguishable--we
hope that more assets will come our way to be considered under
the more expeditious sales process of FASTA. But we were not
involved in that side of it.
But I will tell you, it is very important, in any asset
that comes through FASTA, that we are engaging broadly with the
community and listening to both the agency need in that
location, as well as engage with the elected officials on the
local, State, and Federal level.
Mr. Bresnahan. And I think that brings me to my next
question is some of our concerns is we need the PBRB and the
GSA to ensure the sale would support our local communities and
not become a strain. And I am very familiar with these two
different physical structures, but definitely have grave
concerns when this is kind of a shell shock, and we are sprung
into action behind the eight ball.
So obviously, I know you are not speaking on behalf of the
GSA, but I would welcome another conversation to make sure that
we are all lockstep on what the future plans are for these
buildings.
My next question for Mr. Marroni, the Director of Physical
Infrastructure, correct?
Mr. Marroni. Correct.
Mr. Bresnahan. You had mentioned in your testimony about
some deferred maintenance costs on the facilities. Whose
responsibility is that to make sure the buildings are
maintained and adequately upkept to remain marketable?
Mr. Marroni. So that is going to be GSA and the agencies,
depending on who has control of that facility.
Mr. Bresnahan. Do they provide guidance, or does your
office provide guidance? How does that work?
Mr. Marroni. In terms of--GSA has policies and procedures
for that, and agencies that have control of that would, as
well, in terms of how they maintain facilities.
Mr. Bresnahan. What is the most common form of deferred
maintenance that you have observed?
Mr. Marroni. I don't know if there is a most common I could
point out. There is a range of things, everything from basic
repairs to your elevators being out to major structural
repairs. It depends on the building.
Mr. Bresnahan. Back to Mr. Winstead. In your testimony, you
have identified $19 billion in cost avoidance over 30 years on
recommended properties to dispose of, approximately $633
million per year in Federal savings. How does the annual cost
savings compare to impacts on local economies and services like
Head Start or other benefits within the community?
Mr. Winstead. I think, Congressman, the assets that we
report out are largely surplus and underutilized, right? So we
are not talking about--it is not like the BRAC process. We are
not talking about moving jobs. We are just talking literally
about housing Federal employees in better buildings, better
workspace.
So I think the real opportunity for the assets that we are
looking at and will be reporting to Congress, number one,
everybody will be notified and all their input will be
considered. But it really is--we are trying to engage very,
very much not just with the elected officials, but with the
community in that area.
For example, 40 percent of the GSA inventory is in
Washington, DC. We have reached out to Eleanor Norton, Delegate
Norton, 2 years ago on this. We are talking to the mayor
constantly, the director of planning for the District, the
National Capital Park and Planning. So we are really trying to
get everybody's involvement in what is the best option and what
is the best redevelopment potential for those properties.
So I really don't see a negative downside to this, these
buildings. Even with the return of Federal employees, these
buildings are no longer needed, basically. So how do you turn
them back? What tools do the Federal Government, local
government, and the developer bring to the table to redevelop
it with more vibrancy, better amenities, more housing, maybe
some office space--probably not--and it goes on the local tax
roll.
One of the things the District is suffering from is a huge
drop in property tax valuations right now. I mean, everybody
is, most metropolitan areas are.
So I think that, looking at the potential, we are
actually--we are analyzing what is the highest and best use. It
is a buyer that would take that through the process. But we are
trying to get a handle on taking this asset or building, what
is the best use and what is the value.
Mr. Bresnahan. Thank you both for being here.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Dr. Onder [presiding]. The Chair recognizes Ranking Member
Larsen for 5 minutes.
Mr. Larsen of Washington. Thank you. Thank you very much,
Mr. Chair.
Mr. Winstead and Mr. Marroni, I will answer Representative
Bresnahan's question about when are they planning to tell us.
Never. And I think the process that we hope they use is one
when they notify us sooner than never next time.
And we passed this bill as part of the Water Resources
Development Act and developed it in a bipartisan way under the
leadership of Scott Perry, Representative Perry, so that there
was a process, because we wanted to be very clear to GSA we
have too much space, they need to methodically look at the
space, look at the numbers of people, and then make some
decisions about what to keep and what not to keep. But as I
noted in my opening statement, it seems that instead of doing
steps 1 through 5, they, the GSA, just started at step 1 and
jumped to step 5 of the USE IT Act. And it seems like that is
where we are right now.
But I do think that, for Mr. Marroni, thinking about the
bill, the law that we passed that was part of WRDA--it is
really not WRDA, it was a bill we tacked onto it--can you talk
to me about how, like, given what we put out, how many months
would it have taken GSA to just kind of walk through that
process to get to where GSA got overnight?
Mr. Marroni. So under the USE IT Act, within 6 months of
the law passing, which was in January----
Mr. Larsen of Washington [interposing]. January.
Mr. Marroni [continuing]. So basically June, they would
have needed to--agencies would need to start measuring their
utilization. So that is a really key data point. So by summer.
Mr. Larsen of Washington. By summer. I don't know--it is
not your job to answer this question, but it doesn't seem to me
why we can't wait until summer for that, because there is
bipartisan support for that bill. It is not like they are
racing against Congress catching up with them. We told GSA to
do this. We want them to do this. And it seems like they are
racing ahead to do something for some other reason, and I don't
know what it is, but we have a process we put in place. We just
want them to use it. And then, if we don't like the answer,
shame on us, right, for passing the law. But that would be the
answer.
Can you talk to me a little bit about the 2019 relocation?
I think you were asked to look at the moving of Department of
Ag and Bureau of Land Management staff from DC to Kansas and
Colorado. You studied that. Can you talk to us about, did that
reduce cost? Did it attract highly qualified staff? What was
your assessment of the move of those two parts to different
parts of the country?
Mr. Marroni. So I am familiar with that report.
Mr. Larsen of Washington. Okay.
Mr. Marroni. Not in detail.
What I can say is that any relocation is going to involve
real property costs. There are going to be transactional costs
for the move. I would say there are other issues as well to
consider, in addition to real property. But we can certainly
get back to you with information on that.
Mr. Larsen of Washington. Can you get back specifically
about that, just to learn some lessons? There might be some
good reasons and some really bad reasons to move folks or
functions out of DC or back into DC, as well.
Mr. Winstead, if you could just answer for me, your first
round of recommendations from the group was 47 properties. Is
that right?
Mr. Winstead. Congressman, the first round was the 12 high-
valued assets, which----
Mr. Larsen of Washington [interposing]. Twelve high-value
assets.
Mr. Winstead [continuing]. Have all been sold, but for one
in Palo Alto, which is now on the market.
Mr. Larsen of Washington. Okay. And then what is the next
step?
Mr. Winstead. The next is the report we will be sending to
you, to Congress and OMB, and obviously working weekly with
GSA, of properties that are in the second round that we have
analyzed. We have attached a page in my testimony that
highlights some of the buildings that we have been analyzing,
so these are the ones that are going to be addressed in that
report. And----
Mr. Larsen of Washington [interrupting]. And some of those
buildings, if not all of those buildings, are on the list of
400-plus, the list that was put online and taken offline.
Mr. Winstead. Right.
Mr. Larsen of Washington. Is that right?
Mr. Winstead. Yes, but many others, right? These are only
maybe 50 assets, so there are a lot of others that appeared on
the list that GSA posted.
Mr. Larsen of Washington. I am talking about your list. The
ones on your list were on the GSA list that was pulled off.
Mr. Winstead. I assume so.
Mr. Larsen of Washington. Yes.
Mr. Winstead. Yes, I assume so. Because we----
Mr. Larsen of Washington [interrupting]. They are. For the
record, they are.
Mr. Winstead. Because we--okay.
Mr. Larsen of Washington. Is that your last set of
recommendations, or do you have another set of recommendations
after this----
Mr. Winstead [interrupting]. Oh, then we have another
round. So we will be reporting this next round out within a
month or so, and then we will have another round at the end of
2026. Congress extended the Board until the end of 2026.
And I think what is significant about that, Congressman, is
we really are seeing the impacts of telework. And obviously,
the directive of Federal employees coming to the office how
many days a week will have an impact on that. But I think 2
more years will give us even more time to look at assets in
more detail, and then in that last round, really recommend
properties that are no longer needed.
And we do have the authority----
Mr. Larsen of Washington [interrupting]. Yes, thank you.
Mr. Winstead. All right.
Mr. Larsen of Washington. Sorry, I have run out of time. I
just--want to just note that this spaghetti-on-the-wall
approach is just not working for the administration. But if
they worked with the law that we passed and they work with you
all, I mean, by the end of 2026, we will all have a fairly
decent story to tell about the amount of leased space and owned
space that we got rid of. It may not be what everyone wants,
but we will all be able to tell that story, and make it a good
story, and it will line up with the numbers of people that we
are expecting to come back into offices, as well.
It is flummoxing to me why there is this head-long rush
from the GSA to do these things that they are having to pull
back on anyway. We can help them do that. We are committed to
the law we passed.
So I would just note that and yield back.
Mr. Winstead. Well, I do think that the WRDA----
Mr. Larsen of Washington [interrupting]. I have to yield
back, so you are----
Mr. Winstead [interposing]. Oh.
Mr. Larsen of Washington. Yes, thanks.
Dr. Onder. Yes, the Chair yields to himself 5 minutes.
Mr. Marroni, the GAO's 2023 report found that 17 of 24
agency headquarters buildings were operating at 25 percent or
less capacity. What structural or bureaucratic barriers do we
have that prevent agencies from consolidating or relinquishing
underutilized spaces?
Mr. Marroni. I mean, in terms of consolidation, the main
factor is just having the planning and the funding to do it.
There is not--agencies could consolidate. It does take time, it
does take money, but they could consolidate.
Dr. Onder. Right. And the Office of Management and Budget
has prohibited GSA from negotiating discounted purchases on
leases, often forcing Government to pay more over time. What
impact has this had on long-term costs, and how could that be
changed to save the taxpayer?
Mr. Marroni. I didn't hear the first part.
Dr. Onder. Yes, the first part, OMB has prohibited the GSA
from negotiating discounted purchases on buildings, and often
that forces the Government to pay more than they might have
otherwise. How could that be addressed?
Mr. Marroni. So how it could be addressed if it is a
policy? I am not familiar with that specific policy.
Dr. Onder. Okay.
Mr. Marroni. But if it is a policy, it could be addressed
by Congress, through law, or by OMB.
Dr. Onder. Got it, okay.
And then the Utilizing Space Efficiently and Improving
Technologies Act, the USE IT Act, mandates a 60-percent
occupancy threshold for Federal buildings. How can Congress
ensure that agencies comply with that requirement?
Mr. Marroni. Right. Well, I think an important role for
this subcommittee in itself is holding hearings, holding
oversight with GSA and the other relevant agencies to make sure
that they are following through on what is required by statute.
Dr. Onder. Okay, thank you.
And Mr. Winstead, you mentioned that the Board's analysis
had saved $19 billion in cost avoidance over 30 years. Can you
walk us through those savings and what factors contributed the
most to those savings?
Mr. Winstead. Congressman, what we have done with the
assets, some of which appear on the last page, is we have gone
in basically assessing what the deferred maintenance has been,
and we have analyzed what is needed if we--if the Government
decided to keep that building, what would it take to reinvest
it, to bring it up to workspace that the Federal employee can
function. So that is how we are doing it, we are looking at
basically the condition of the building, the utilization of the
building, deferred maintenance in the building. And if those
judgments say keep the building, then what is needed to be
appropriated by Congress to the public building fund to bring
that building up to standard.
And obviously, part of this is backfilling the buildings. I
think Congress has been very--in the recent legislation said 60
percent utilization, data every year on what is being done in
these buildings, housing plans from each Federal agency in
terms of how they are using the space, how many employees are
there.
But the other thing that needs to be done is the
communication of the bottom line of our reports from GSA has to
reach the top levels of Federal agencies. It has got to
really--a decision--because some of the things we are looking
at are underutilized Federal buildings here in DC, some of
which have agencies' names on them, and they are no longer
justified to be maintained. So convincing that Secretary,
Assistant Secretary, administration that it is in the best
interest of the taxpayer for them to move into another Federal
building that is better maintained----
Dr. Onder [interposing]. Right.
Mr. Winstead [continuing]. And sell that building for
redevelopment.
So that is the analysis, and we have a lot of analyses of
the committee. All these assets have been totally analyzed, and
we can send that to the committee, as well, how we have
calculated those costs and that are backed up our decision to
surplus the building.
Dr. Onder. Thank you.
I yield back. Ms. Norton is recognized for 5 minutes.
Ms. Norton. I strongly oppose OMB and OPM's recent decision
to Federal agencies to ``propose relocations of agency bureaus
and offices from Washington, DC, and the National Capital
region to less likely parts of the country.''
I also strongly oppose the many bills that have been
introduced this Congress to relocate the headquarters of four
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. On Monday, I
introduced a bill to prohibit such relocations.
However, there are specific Federal buildings in DC that
GSA should dispose of and move the employees from those
buildings into other buildings in DC. These disposals would
save the Federal Government money, generate tax revenue for DC,
increase housing supply in DC, and create new mixed-use
neighborhoods in DC. Congress has passed many of my bipartisan
bills to transfer unused and underutilized Federal buildings
and land in DC to the DC government or the private sector,
including the Webster School, with Chairman Perry; what became
The Wharf and The Yards; and most recently, the RFK Stadium
campus. I first introduced a bill in 2014 to facilitate the
redevelopment of the Southwest Federal Center into a mixed-use
neighborhood.
Mr. Winstead, please discuss the opportunity to dispose of
Federal buildings in the Southwest Federal Center to create a
new mixed-use neighborhood and connect the National Mall and
The Wharf.
Mr. Winstead. Delegate Norton, as you know, because we
have--it is in the report and we have briefed you, there are a
number of buildings that are--Forrestal Building is the
building right on L'Enfant Plaza, but there is the Whitten
Building, the Agriculture South, that--many of the people that
have looked at it--that are still very underutilized. And a lot
of the NCPC, the mayor's office, your office, and the
Department of Planning for the District have looked at it, and
I think it is a wonderful opportunity to basically begin, as
many people view it, opening up the Mall to the waterfront.
The Forrestal Building is one of those where it is costing
$130,000 a year to house the Federal employees that show up. If
you were able to take down the Forrestal Building, it would
develop--there would be four parcels. There are ways to develop
it for affordable housing, for mixed use, for amenities. But
one of the visions that an architect at SOM has is it would
really create a connection between the Mall and the waterfront.
He described it as sort of the Spanish Steps of Washington, DC.
You would get out into L'Enfant Plaza, and you could go down
the steps and get over to the waterfront.
So these are some of the visions that are options, if you
will, that need to be studied carefully by the Department of
Planning for the District, by NCPC. But that is happening. ULI
has advised our Board on some of these options, so I think it
is--in that case, it is very exciting. You are taking grossly
underutilized buildings, there are other opportunities to
redevelop them if they are historic. One of the buildings in
Southwest has already opened as a residential building. It was
an historic building.
So I think that there are some great opportunities. We are
working closely with all the players in the District in terms
of what the impact of surplusing these properties is. Number
one, the timing of them. There is concern generally that we
don't want to--all these assets shouldn't come on the market at
one time. They should be reported out, but maybe a phasing.
Southwest assets I have just mentioned near Agriculture are a
first phase, in my judgment.
So I think there are, I think, some very exciting things
that people are envisioning. We have developers that have
advised through ULI and NCPC, and I think your staff has
probably seen those reports.
Ms. Norton. Mr. Winstead, how would the disposal of Federal
buildings in the Southwest Center positively impact Federal
taxpayers and the Federal Government?
Mr. Winstead. Well, the Board makes its recommendations to
GSA, and their disposal division is the one that handles them.
But we have in the past and will continue to make very specific
recommendations of how they could be surplused and sold for
redevelopment in a phased way.
The other thing the Board is saying is we have a couple
major real estate people just understanding what the highest
and best use of that asset is, really saying, what is it? Is it
some residential? Is it some museums for the Smithsonian? In
terms of the Forrestal Building, it is adjacent to the
Smithsonian.
So--and how do you phase it? What should be brought to the
market first? We will be working closely with the director of
planning in the District and others to try to help and support
that. It is really their actions. Our report and our action is
really reporting them out. But we are looking at phasing, and
we are looking at engaging users, investors, and getting their
best ideas.
Dr. Onder. The gentleman from California, Mr. Kiley, is
recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Kiley of California. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I don't know
that there could be a more potent symbol of Government waste
and inefficiency than the spectacle of Federal office buildings
just sitting there, empty, with taxpayers footing the bill.
I am seeing that GSA manages more than 8,300 owned and
leased assets, totaling over 365 million square feet--that is
easy to remember, it is 1 million square feet for every day of
the year; that the cost of operating, maintaining, and leasing
office space costs $8 billion annually. And yet a report last
year showed an occupancy rate, an average building occupancy
rate, of just 12 percent, 12 percent.
So it is interesting because we have this emerging set of
talking points here in the Capitol among some that know the
Federal Government is perfect, there is no need to modernize
it, no need to scale it back, no need to improve efficiency in
the use of taxpayer resources. And then yet you can view
alongside that sentiment this picture of all these Federal
buildings just sitting there being paid for with no one in
them. We even have reports of shadow or dark space in Federal
buildings and leases, which are just not used at all, and not
even assigned, simply just sitting there. This is something
that American taxpayers have every right to be outraged about.
And I think that, Mr. Winstead, you put sort of a cost per
employee on office space for some departments. Would you mind
repeating those numbers? I believe it was in the hundreds of
thousands.
Mr. Winstead. Yes, Congressman. In our report in March of
last year, there was data in it that showed, based on the
occupancy, as you suggest, 20 percent or average of 20 percent,
what is the cost to GSA of maintaining that building per
employee, and it varied from Commerce, 160, to Department of
Energy, 130. But it is totally----
Mr. Kiley of California [interrupting]. An employee that is
actually present, or per just employee----
Mr. Winstead [interrupting]. That show up.
Mr. Kiley of California. That show up.
Mr. Winstead. Per employee that show up----
Mr. Kiley of California [interposing]. Right.
Mr. Winstead [continuing]. Versus per day during the course
of the year.
Mr. Kiley of California. Because for every one that shows
up, four don't show up is what----
Mr. Winstead [interposing]. Yes.
Mr. Kiley of California. Yes.
Mr. Winstead. And in a private-sector office building, the
cost of employee space is about $10,000 a year.
Mr. Kiley of California. Interesting.
Mr. Winstead. So----
Mr. Kiley of California [interrupting]. So the average cost
is over 10 times higher for the Government than for the private
sector.
Mr. Winstead. Yes, more than that. And again, it is an
impact of COVID, it is an impact of telework policy and work
habits since telework happened. It is obviously an impact of
OPM and their directive in terms of Federal employees' presence
in the office. But it really has, in the last 2 or 3 or 4 years
since we have been looking at this, it has really gotten worse,
right, in terms of the utilization.
Mr. Kiley of California. I mean, that is fascinating,
because even the private sector has had underutilization
issues. And you are saying, even given that, we are paying 10
times more per employee than they are in the private sector.
Mr. Winstead. In the instance of those buildings----
Mr. Kiley of California [interposing]. Right.
Mr. Winstead [continuing]. At the time we looked at
utilization versus the cost the GSA pays to maintain that
building per year, yes, it is over 10 times.
Mr. Kiley of California. I also found it interesting that
the GAO has noted that agencies are reluctant to share their
headquarters with other agencies, and they cite a lack of
mission alignment, which is a little hard for me to understand.
Because after all, these are all agencies that are serving
Americans, are part of the Federal Government. That seems like
enough of a mission alignment.
But even if there was none whatsoever, I walk into
buildings all the time that have completely unrelated
businesses working next to each other. But also, maybe it would
be good if the agencies were talking to each other a little
more. One of the problems that we have in our bureaucracy is
that things are so siloed. So you get an approval from this
agency, but then you are waiting years to get one from this
agency, or you ask this agency to get the approval and they say
they need to wait for that agency, and apparently they have no
way to talk to each other and coordinate. So maybe if they
could pick up the paper and walk it across the hall to someone
down the hall, that might make the Federal Government work
better together a little bit.
So what do you think, Mr. Marroni, is there something to be
said for trying to get agencies under the same roof?
Mr. Marroni. Oh, definitely. Agencies--that reluctance is
not acceptable.
Mr. Kiley of California. Thank you very much. Hopefully,
that is something that we can work on. And I think that we can
not only save taxpayers a lot of money, but send a message
about the newfound paradigm of efficiency and modernization
that we are trying to usher in at the Federal level.
I yield back.
Dr. Onder. The gentlewoman from Michigan, Ms. McDonald
Rivet, is recognized for 5 minutes.
Ms. McDonald Rivet. Thank you very much. I am trying to put
these pieces together when we are talking about data
collection.
And so, very clearly, we have to be the best stewards of
taxpayer dollars, and we should not be paying for space that is
not utilized. We should not be paying for buildings that have
very low occupancy.
What I am a little concerned about--so Mr. Winstead, you
talked about the data that you have been collecting and the
work that you have been doing--which sounds excellent, by the
way--about the impact of telework. But we are seeing return to
work, we are seeing telework ended very abruptly. And just this
week, we are starting to see reports in the news that are
talking about the messiness of that due to poor planning. We
have got workers showing up in places where there are no desks,
no Wi-Fi, no lights, and there is a lot of chaos that is
happening right now.
So I am really encouraged, Mr. Marroni, when you were
talking about the collection of data, that we should be able to
have something solid to work from. But when I think about the
data that you are both talking about over the last several
years, as well as what is being collected right now when we
have got mass chaos on the return-to-work policy, isn't the
data you are collecting now going to be somewhat invalid 2, 3
months from now? Isn't there a place where, in the best
interest of efficiency and saving taxpayer dollars, we want to
be logical and methodical in this?
What validity will your data have this summer with so much
chaos in the landscape right now?
Mr. Marroni. You need good data to make good decisions.
That has been a problem in real property for a long time. And
with the use of that, there is a chance to have utilization
data for the first time.
When we did our study in 2023, we could only really do
headquarters buildings because, once you got outside of the
National Capital region, that data really didn't exist. So the
use of data is a really important step to both set benchmarks
and get the kind of data you are describing. And that data is
really important if you are deciding what buildings to dispose
of, because understanding the utilization profile is really
essential, in addition to knowing how many people are going to
be coming into those buildings.
Ms. McDonald Rivet. Of course, no argument here. My
question is around the data collection.
So as we are seeing a little bit of a hiccup around this
return to work, how are those data collected, and in what
timeline?
So can you really count utilization if people are in
offices where there are no lights or no Wi-Fi, as we try to
work through this?
Mr. Marroni. So under the law, agencies will be required to
at least use badging data, swipe data. So understanding the
problems you are highlighting for people working in those
spaces, if they don't----
Ms. McDonald Rivet [interrupting]. I am sorry sir, but over
what time period?
Mr. Marroni. Pardon?
Ms. McDonald Rivet. Over what time period?
Mr. Marroni. Over what time period? The badging data, I
believe, they are required to start measuring in 6 months. So
June, summer.
Ms. McDonald Rivet. They start measuring in June?
Mr. Marroni. Yes. They have to start measuring in June, and
use at least badge swipe data. They can use other technologies,
as well. That is part of the law. But badge swipe data would
allow you, if someone is coming into the building, regardless
of the quality of the workspace they are in, it would give you
a sense of how many people are coming into the building.
Ms. McDonald Rivet. Okay. Thank you. I yield back.
Dr. Onder. The gentleman from Alabama, Mr. Figures, is
recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Figures. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Marroni, I think most of my questions will be for you,
and I just want some clarity, because I am down in Mobile,
Alabama, and that is where I am from. My district covers a few
other cities, including Montgomery, Alabama. But we hear
through media reports of different facilities being identified.
Some are on the DOGE list, some are not on the website. And so,
in hopes of getting some clarity around the process of how
these decisions are being made, I am hoping that we can get
some understanding here.
Do you personally communicate with anybody on the DOGE
team?
Mr. Marroni. Personally communicate with DOGE? We have not.
Mr. Figures. Oh, is that just for you and your component
office, or is that for the entire organization?
Mr. Marroni. So GAO, I know, has had some limited
interactions with DOGE. But in our overall work, most of our
work is with GSA, since they are the action on Federal
property.
Mr. Figures. Right. But during the GSA process for
acquisition, you guys are in contact with GSA.
Mr. Marroni. For any of our audit work that is on Federal
real property, we are almost certainly going to be in contact
with GSA.
Mr. Figures. And before the DOGE process, did you guys have
a role in the--let's call it getting rid of any physical
property?
Mr. Marroni. So our role is to investigate and look at ways
to do disposals more effectively and efficiently, just overall
Government operations more effectively and efficiently.
So we have been involved over the years in looking at this
challenge of underused space, of how to dispose of that
property, and right-size real property holdings, but as an
independent auditor, not as a--involved in the----
Mr. Figures [interposing]. Yes.
Mr. Marroni [continuing]. Decisionmaking process.
Mr. Figures. Got it. But you guys have that expertise in
that----
Mr. Marroni [interrupting]. We do have that expertise.
Mr. Figures [continuing]. In terms of investigating, yet
you guys are not being consulted in the process currently.
Mr. Marroni. No, although we typically would not be. We are
not involved in executive branch decisionmaking.
Mr. Figures. Yes.
Mr. Marroni. So we ask questions based on our audit
objectives, and we want information back on those questions,
but we aren't involved in the decisionmaking process.
Mr. Figures. Absolutely. And Mr. Winstead, I do have one
for you, as well. As we are making these--my concern is that
these decisions are being made so fast, and I am in, I think,
the same boat as everybody, I don't think anybody wants us to
be sitting on unused real estate and paying for it. But I get
the feeling that these decisions are being made so fast, and
so--just in such a rush that there is not sufficient
investigation going on or sufficient collaboration going on in
terms of what are the long-term needs or what are the possible
needs of leases that we are terminating.
And I am also--we are getting reports that DOGE is saying
that they terminated leases that were terminated months ago, if
not years ago, before the Trump administration came in. And so
it just leads me to being very concerned about communication
and streamlined communication as the decisionmaking process is
going forward with which leases to terminate.
Again, if we don't need it, we should terminate it, but can
you talk to us a little bit about the suggestions that you
would provide in terms of making sure that the decision process
is being as informed as it can possibly be?
Mr. Winstead. Sure, Congressman. So with the assets that I
referred to in this report and that we were really examining
and have been, we have done it over a longer period of time,
and this isn't something that has just happened. We have really
been looking at it for 2\1/2\ years.
And our engagement with the administration is both directly
with the Commissioner on a weekly basis, and also OMB on a--not
a weekly, but a regular basis in terms of what we are finding,
in terms of the sustainability of that building and the lack of
need for it over the long term, so that our recommendations are
fully vetted with the agency and that their review, GSA's
independent review of their portfolio, can consider what we are
looking at in the assets that we have targeted as the highest
value that grossly--most of them totally unutilized, and the
best return to that host jurisdiction in terms of redeveloping
that property for--it goes on that local tax roll, it creates
new construction jobs, and that kind of thing.
So we are very much engaged, coordinating with the
Commissioner of Public Buildings Mike Peters, his team, and
also the new OMB people that are overseeing GSA.
Mr. Figures. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back. Or Mr. Chairman, I am sorry.
Dr. Onder. The chairman recognizes the gentleman from
Tennessee, Mr. Cohen.
Mr. Cohen. Thank you, sir.
I was watching my television, and I saw Mr. Stanton asking
questions about this issue, and it is something that concerns
me because I was informed by my staff yesterday that they got
some Bloomberg report that showed that the GSA and Mr. Genius
from South Africa were proposing closing the Memphis Federal
Building, which contains our courthouse, our U.S. attorney, our
U.S. marshals, the Corps of Engineers, probation office, and my
office. So it came as a bit of a shock to me.
I knew some of the judges had been trying to find a new
building for Memphis to have a courthouse, where--I don't think
we are very high up on the prospective courthouse list, and it
seems like we should at least be on the list for a new
courthouse before they get rid of the courthouse we are in. The
Federal building we have now is 98 percent occupied. The judges
claim that there are a lot of problems in the building, and
they have shown me pictures of the vents with lots of black
gook in it and whatever. They tote those around with them like
Hugh Hefner probably would have carried centerfolds. And it is
pretty strange, but that is what they do.
I have no problem with the Federal Building. I have been
there for 18-plus years and have never had a problem. They say
they might have a problem with the security, and that the
elevators could take the prisoners up and down and from holding
tanks to court. There has never been a prisoner, I think, ever
escape or ever try to escape in 35, 40 years. All of a sudden,
oh, we have got to have a new building.
Do either of you all know anything about the Memphis
Federal Building, and how it got put on the list, and what the
story is?
Mr. Marroni. No, not me.
Mr. Winstead. Congressman, I do not know what the current
review by GSA is on that property.
I will tell you that GSA, from my background, 15 years ago,
the Federal courthouses and the mixed-tenanted Federal
courthouses, where there is other--a lot of the renovation that
has been driven was really to improve the security in that
courthouse in terms of the flow between the visitors, the
members of the jury, the judges, and the defendants. So GSA put
in billions of dollars over the last 15 years upgrading
courthouses.
I don't know the Memphis specifically. I haven't had the
pleasure of going there. But there could be some issues there
about the value of maintaining and renovating that building
versus a new courthouse. That is the only thing I can--but at
95 percent occupancy, I mean, that is a utilized building.
Mr. Cohen. Right.
Mr. Winstead. I mean, that is highly utilized. So it is not
on the parameters that the committee and the new legislation
directs that--it is higher than 60 percent.
Mr. Cohen. So----
Mr. Winstead [interrupting]. But there could be some
rationale about the safety of that building because of the
court function and the need to separate. The older courthouses
do not have the separation that the newer courthouses do.
Mr. Cohen. Yes, well, it is more difficult to get into the
building with the security we have and the limited entrance
they have now than it would be to get into Charlie Palmer's by
giving steak away, and Charlie Palmer isn't here anymore, the
Capital Grille, or whatever.
So yes, I was just shocked. And I guess--I don't know if
GSA is out there listening. GSA, if you are listening, please
find the tapes, the letters--it was the letters. Well, the
emails. The emails, yes. But I imagine they are listening.
The Congressman has more to do with that building than the
judges. The judges have--I don't know how they found the time
to spend all this time trying to find a new building when they
have got all these cases to deal with, but it seems like if
they are going to sell a building--and they have to have a
buyer, and there hasn't been a lot of buyers for buildings in
that neighborhood recently--but they should at least have a
place to put the courts and the other offices that are housed
there now before they decide they are going to sell the
building and tear it down.
Mr. Winstead. Absolutely. And I am sure GSA is monitoring
this, so I know that they will get back to you.
Mr. Cohen. Thank you, GSA. My name is Steve Cohen, C-o-h-e-
n.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Cohen. I am on the third floor of the Odell Horton
Building, which I had named for Odell Horton, a famous jurist,
an African-American jurist, and named for him because he is an
inspiring figure for young people who want to go into the law.
And he was a great judge, and a great prosecutor, and African
American, and don't tear him down. Thank you, GSA.
Dr. Onder. The chair recognizes the gentlelady from New
Jersey, Ms. Pou.
Ms. Pou. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you
to our Ranking Member Stanton for letting me participate in
this very important meeting, and especially the timely--what a
timely hearing it is.
I want to ask our witnesses if you would please turn around
and see if you--do you know the man who is in that portrait
right there that I am pointing to?
So let me just tell you who he is. He is Robert Roe, one of
my predecessors in Congress. Bob Roe was the chairman of this
committee. Then it was called the Public Works Committee. I
asked because Bob Roe's name adorns the Federal building in my
home city of Paterson, the same Federal building we just
learned just today is on a list of 440 properties to be
disposed by the Trump administration. The IRS and the Social
Security Office have public offices facing there at this very
moment, serving the people of the third largest city in the
State of New Jersey and all of our other neighboring towns.
The lines to access needed services form very early in the
morning. The Roe Building is a critical resource for our
community. Just last year in October, the GSA awarded a
contract for $5.8 million, courtesy of the Inflation Reduction
Act, for the much-needed renovations and repair. So now, less
than 6 months later, the proposed sale of the Roe Building
strikes me as totally nonsensical, and I will vigorously, as
you can see, will indeed oppose this.
So I want to ask, and I want to start with Mr. Winstead,
can you please explain to me and to this body here how the list
of the buildings to be sold was compiled?
And can you explain the Trump Government's criteria and
rationale?
Mr. Winstead. Congresswoman, that building, the Roe
Building, is not on the list that our Board is looking at. It
was issued on a list that came out, I think, Tuesday.
Ms. Pou. Right.
Mr. Winstead. And then was withdrawn. I think--again, I
think that GSA will fully get in touch with you on that, and I
will, obviously, convey that, as well.
So that list was withdrawn, I think, last night.
Ms. Pou. So let me just say, well, first of all, I am very
happy to hear that. But to be honest with you, for us to be
hearing--I know one of my fellow colleagues spoke about it just
before I did--to hear that these lists or these properties--to
hear from the public, which is how I actually learned about it,
because it was in the newspaper, not because anyone notified--
and the fact that, if it was in fact withdrawn, we get
absolutely no notification and information.
So I really believe, Mr. Chairman, and our two folks that
are here today presenting testimony, we really have to have a
better line of communication so that we can avoid these things
from happening.
I am very happy to hear that. I look forward to GSA
communicating with my office to letting us know what is the
real status. Believe me when I tell you, we are dealing with
one of the most highly needed--and I listened very carefully to
your point earlier, when you were mentioning or responding that
it is based on the highest and best use of the building. There
could be no better use for that building than for the use of
making sure that they are providing the much-needed services to
the people of our district. And they are doing their jobs.
So I am going to just be looking out for that, and thank
you so very much for your comment. So I will be looking out for
that. Thank you.
I yield back. Thank you.
Dr. Onder. Thank you.
The gentlelady yields back. Are there further questions
from any of the members of the subcommittee who have not yet
been recognized?
Seeing none, that concludes our hearing for the day.
I would like to thank all of the witnesses who appeared
before us today. The subcommittee stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 3:26 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
Appendix
----------
Questions to David Marroni, Director, Physical Infrastruc-
ture, U.S. Government Accountability Office, from Hon.
Greg Stanton
Question 1. GSA is turning off the 654 electric vehicle charging
stations installed at federal buildings and selling its fleet of 25,000
electric vehicles purchased under the Biden Administration for almost
$1 billion.\1\ How does destroying and selling off equipment that the
government has already paid for benefit the taxpayer?
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\1\ https://www.eenews.net/articles/trumps-reversal-of-ev-program-
could-carry-a-hefty-price-tag/
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Answer. We have not been asked to evaluate the Trump
administration's plans for electric vehicle charging stations or the
consequences for the federal budget. We are not aware of any official
administration plans to sell electric vehicles currently in the federal
fleet.
A March 2025 General Services Administration (GSA) Order changed
GSA policy to allow for the discontinuation of ``non-mission critical''
electric vehicle supply equipment infrastructure.\2\ Under this new
order, customer agencies must provide GSA a written determination
stating that they have a mission-critical need to charge electric
vehicles at federally-owned facilities under GSA's control. If an
agency already has parking with electric vehicle charging capabilities,
GSA is to ensure the charging stations remain operational as long as
the mission-critical need exists. This policy does not authorize any
new installations of electric vehicle supply equipment but allows
agencies to apply for an exemption for mission-critical needs.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ General Services Administration, GSA Order: Electric Vehicle
Supply Equipment (EVSE) in Federally Owned Facilities Under GSA's
Jurisdiction, Custody, and Control. GSA Order PBS 5605.1B. (Washington,
D.C.: March 3, 2025).
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In December 2024, we reported on the costs and benefits of
operating and maintaining electric vehicles in the federal fleet.\3\
Agency officials told us that reaching the zero emission vehicle goals
set by the Biden administration would largely depend on the
availability of charging infrastructure.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ GAO, Federal Vehicle Fleet: Efforts are Underway to Facilities
the Transition to Zero Emission Vehicles, GAO-25-106972, Washington,
D.C. (Dec. 17, 2024).
Question 2. In 2019 the Trump Administration moved some Department
of Agriculture and Bureau of Land Management staff from Washington, DC
to Kansas and Colorado. The Administration said the relocations were
necessary to ``find highly qualified staff, place resources closer to
users, and reduce costs.'' \4\ Last week the Trump Administration
directed federal agencies to suggest relocations of offices out of the
National Capital Region to less expensive areas of the country. GAO
closely studied the 2019 USDA and BLM relocations. Did they reduce
costs and attract highly qualified new staff to the agencies? How did
the moves impact agency operations and what was the quantifiable
benefit of ``placing resources closer to users''?
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\4\ https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-22-104540
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Answer. The relocation of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) from
Washington, D.C. to Grand Junction, Colorado was announced in July 2019
and completed in August 2020. In November 2021, we reported on changes
to BLM's workforce because of the relocation and the agency's workforce
planning efforts.\5\ We found that the relocation affected the number
of vacancies, the makeup of existing staff, and agency operations at
BLM. Specifically, we found that BLM headquarters vacancies increased
from 121 in July 2019--before the relocation was announced--to 326 in
March 2020--after the relocation was announced but had not yet been
completed. Furthermore, we found that from January 2016 to January 2021
the number of headquarters staff with at least 25 years of service
declined from 171 to 113. BLM officials told us that the loss of
experienced staff negatively affected their ability to conduct their
duties. For example, one staff member said that the loss of
institutional knowledge about laws and regulations meant that BLM was
not able to provide knowledgeable input on proposed rules and
legislation.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\ GAO, Bureau of Land Management: Better Workforce Planning and
Data Would Help Mitigate the Effects of Recent Staff Vacancies, GAO-22-
104247, Washington, D.C. (Nov. 16, 2021).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In September 2021, the Secretary of the Interior announced that
BLM's national headquarters would return to Washington, D.C., and Grand
Junction, Colorado, would become the bureau's Western headquarters. The
scope of GAO's report did not include possible benefits or costs of
BLM's headquarters relocation.
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) relocated two of
its research agencies--the Economic Research Service (ERS) and the
National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA)--from Washington,
D.C. to Kansas City, Missouri in September 2019. Our December 2022
report reviewed the changes in workforce size and productivity
following the relocation.\6\ With regard to agency staffing, we found
that the agencies initially each lost over half of their staff, with
vacancies in key positions such as managers and economists. The decline
in managers impacted the agencies' hiring because they did not have a
sufficient number of managers to help make decisions on hiring. Two
years after the effective date of the relocation, the agencies had
hired enough staff in key positions such that, by the end of fiscal
year 2021, they had reached or exceeded the levels of staff that they
had as of the end of fiscal year 2018. However, two years after the
relocation, the agencies' workforce was composed mostly of new
employees with less experience at ERS and NIFA than the prior
workforce.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\6\ GAO, Agency Relocations: Following Leading Practices Will
Better Position USDA to Mitigate the Ongoing Impacts on Its Workforce,
GAO-23-104709 , Washington, D.C. (Dec. 14, 2022).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Regarding agency operations, in fiscal years 2019 and 2020, ERS
produced fewer research reports and journal articles than in previous
years, and NIFA experienced delays in processing grants in fiscal year
2020. At ERS, as staffing increased in 2021--2 years after the
relocation--the number of research reports and journal articles also
increased substantially, with research report numbers similar to
numbers for the few years prior to the relocation. At NIFA, the
agency's processing timeliness for grants had recovered to previous
fiscal years' levels by fiscal year 2021. The scope of GAO's report did
not include possible benefits or costs of USDA's relocation.
Question 3. GAO has had GSA real estate on the high-risk list for
many years. What is your assessment of the Trump Administration's
priorities for the federal real estate portfolio? What do you think of
GSA shrinking space BEFORE agencies understand the impact of President
Trump's recent return to work order, early resignation offer, and mass
firings?
Answer. Federal real property management has been on GAO's High
Risk List since 2003 in large part due to underused space. Federal
agencies have long struggled to identify and shed unneeded space. In
this administration, GSA is taking a more proactive approach to
shedding space. However, agencies need reliable data to support real
property management and decision-making. The Utilizing Space
Efficiently and Improving Technologies (USE IT) Act now requires
agencies to measure building utilization and plan to reduce underused
space, but those measurements are not yet complete.\7\ Agencies are
required to begin collecting utilization data by July 3, 2025 and
publicly report utilization data in January 2026. The Act directs the
Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and GSA to notify any agency that
fails to achieve an average 60 percent building utilization of its
excess capacity. At that point, agencies will need to start planning to
consolidate or dispose of properties. After 2 years, GSA could take
steps to dispose of those underused spaces.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\7\ The USE IT Act was enacted as division B, title III, of the
Thomas R. Carper Water Resources Development Act of 2024, Pub. L. No.
118-272, div. B, tit. III, Sec. 2302, 138 Stat. 2992, 2318 (2025). The
USE IT Act requires covered agencies to begin collecting utilization
measurements beginning no later than July 3, 2025, 180 days after the
date of enactment. Sec. 2302(b)(2).
Question 4. President Trump recently ordered all federal workers to
return to their offices. Was GSA consulted before the Return-to-Work
Executive Order was signed by the President? If agency headcounts are
in flux how does GSA know how much space agencies need?
Answer. GAO is not aware of the timing or nature of any Trump
Administration consultations with GSA regarding orders for federal
employees to return to offices. However, it would be difficult to fully
understand agency space needs until the agencies complete the USE IT
Act-mandated utilization measurements later in 2025. GSA is currently
moving forward on disposing of some owned spaces that are already known
to have low utilization.
Question 5. In 2024 OMB established a space utilization standard of
150 square feet per person. Is 150 square feet per person still the
requirement or is the Trump Administration using a different metric?
Answer. The USE IT Act, enacted in January 2025, sets the
utilization standard at 150 useable square feet per person to measure
building utilization. The Act required GSA and OMB to establish
standard methodologies for measuring occupancy in public buildings and
federally-leased spaces by March 5th, 2025. As of April 2nd, 2025, GSA
posted a list of occupancy data collection tools that agencies can use
to meet the requirements of the USE IT Act on their website, but it did
not post information on the standard methodologies.
Question 6. The Administration has announced its intent to downsize
the government, move some Federal employees/agencies out of DC, and
sell some building assets. This would seem to require significant
planning for space consolidation and reconfiguration of the offices and
buildings that the agencies will retain and occupy. Can GSA support
these consolidation needs with half of their staff? How can GSA ensure
that contractors meet their obligations and provide quality services
with a 50% reduction in staff? Does GAO see this as a risk of waste,
fraud, and abuse by the contractors?
Answer. GSA officials told us that GSA's restructuring is ongoing,
and a full reorganization will not be completed until later this year.
Until then, it is difficult to determine how many staff it will retain
or how it plans to meet its obligations. As we have reported, a highly
skilled federal workforce is critical to address challenges, and skills
gaps within federal agencies impede the government from achieving
desired results.
The government is responsible for overseeing contractors and
monitoring their performance and compliance with the terms and
conditions of contracts. For example, to confirm their employees'
eligibility to work in the U.S., most federal contractors must use the
E-Verify program. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) expects
agencies to ensure that their contractors comply, but not all agency
officials are aware of this expectation. Also, the Department of
Homeland Security previously gave agencies a quarterly list of
contractors enrolled in and using E-Verify. However, it discontinued
this report in 2022 due to data accuracy issues. Without clear
expectations and useful data, agencies may not be checking their
contractors' compliance with this requirement.\8\
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\8\ GAO, Federal Contracting: Agencies Can Better Monitor E-Verify
Compliance, GAO-24-106219, Washington, D.C. (October 3, 2023).
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In a separate example from our 2024 report, the Department of
Veterans Affairs (VA) increasingly relies on contractors for a wide
range of services. But if contractors perform certain functions--e.g.,
providing legal advice or supporting budget prep--without additional
oversight, they could pose risks to government decision-making and
accountability. OMB has issued guidance to help agencies determine
which contracted services need this oversight, but VA has yet to fully
implement this guidance.\9\
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\9\ GAO, VA Acquisition Management: Oversight of Service Contracts
Needing Heightened Management Attention Could be Improved, GAO-24-
106312, Washington, D.C. (Jan. 25, 2024).
Question 7. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) and the
Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) provided GSA with funding to repair and
construct Land Ports of Entry and utilize emerging and sustainable
technologies in construction projects. What percentage of BIL and IRA
funding has GSA obligated? Has GSA frozen any IRA or BIL funding? If
so, how would that impact projects that are already underway? Are all
the projects with approved prospectuses proceeding as approved?
Answer. According to GSA-provided data, as of January 31st, 2025,
GSA had obligated roughly 49% of legislated funding from Inflation
Reduction Act (IRA). According to GSA-provided data, all IRA
disbursements remain on hold and IRA obligations are limited to active
construction projects. GSA documents state that programs funded under
the IRA are currently under review to comply with GSA's new core asset
strategy and with Executive Order 14154--Unleashing American
Energy.\10\
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\10\ Exec. Order No. 14154, 90 Fed. Reg. 8,353 (2025)
Question 8. For 25 years, GSA has spelled out the requirements for
major Federal projects in a policy titled P100. This policy has
encapsulated Federal statutory and regulatory requirements, and other
buildings provisions, to enable effective design and construction that
meets these needs. Among other things, the P100 requires third party
certification to verify that key aspects such as energy efficiency are
met. GSA's new leadership recently revoked the P100. How might this
affect efficiency and resilience of Federal buildings?
Answer. GSA rescinded PBS P100 on February 24, 2025--replacing the
368-page set of standards with an 11-page interim list of laws,
executive orders, codes, regulations, and standards for use by
contracting officers, project teams, and others in developing contract
documents for design, construction, renovation, or maintenance
projects. However, GSA documents state that the interim standards are
not a fully complete list of all applicable laws and regulations and
stated it is the responsibility of contractors to comply with all
requirements. GSA also indicated that the standards are interim until a
process is developed to update the P100 in accordance with the Water
Resources Development Act (P.L. 118-272).\11\ GAO has not evaluated the
changes this rescission could have on the efficiency and resilience of
federal buildings.
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\11\ The Thomas R. Carper Water Resources Development Act of 2024
included a provision directing GSA to revise the process by which the
P100 is updated or changed. Pub. L. No. 118-272, div. B, tit. III Sec.
2309, 138 Stat. 2992, 3227 (2025).
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Questions to David Winstead, Board Member, Public
Buildings Reform Board, from Hon. Greg Stanton
Question 1. GSA uses brokers to negotiate leases and assist in
property disposals. Brokers must be paid commission while GSA employees
do not. Should GSA increase its use of brokers to dispose of
properties?
Answer. The scale of the surplus federal buildings that the PBRB
are analyzing are too large and complicated, to reach maximum sales
return to the taxpayer through a public auction process. An outside
broker retained on a property-by-property basis, with specific
knowledge of the local market, and contacts with the right potential
buyers is absolutely needed to maximize sales return. The broker fee
should be substantially below the usual brokerage fee for a federal
lease, and experts have suggested 1%.
Question 2. If GSA is increasing building disposals and lease
eliminations, who is going to do the labor-intensive work of disposing
of leases and space and relocating agencies? Will GSA need to hire
contractors to assist with the expanded workload?
Answer. The current transition and reduction in federal work force
will require that GSA has competent warranted contracting officers to
deal with the expedited sale of FASTA assets, and approval of leases.
In addition, workplace experts are needed to reconfigure space for the
relocation of federal employees moving to more cost-effective federal
buildings or leased space.
Question 3. GSA and the FBI have been working on a plan to replace
the Hoover Building since 2011 because ``the Hoover Building does not
fully support the FBI's long-term security, space, and building
condition requirements; is not designed to meet the needs of today's
FBI; is nearing its life-cycle age; and is exhibiting signs of complete
deterioration.'' \1\
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\1\ https://www.gsa.gov/about-us/newsroom/congressional-testimony/
written-statement-of-elliot-d-doomes-commissioner-of-the-public-
buildings-service-of-the-us-general-services-administration-before-the-
subcommittee-on-economic-development-public-buildings-and-emergency-
management-of-the-committee-on-transportation-12122023
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FBI Director Kash Patel recently told senior FBI officials of plans
to relocate up to 1,000 employees from Washington, DC to field offices
around the country and move an additional 500 to Huntsville,
Alabama.\2\ What plans does the Trump Administration have for the FBI's
current headquarters?
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\2\ https://federalnewsnetwork.com/workforce/2025/02/kash-patel-
sworn-in-at-white-house-as-new-fbi-director-calls-it-the-greatest-
honor/
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Answer. GSA needs to respond.
Question 4. To meet Biden-era goals of achieving net-zero building
emissions by 2050, GSA building owners to report building energy
consumption, greenhouse gas emissions and water usage to the EPA. Is it
true that GSA will no longer include the reporting requirements in new
leases that are 25,000 square feet or greater or where the federal
government occupies 75% or more of the total building? How will this
policy shift impact building owners? Doesn't using less water and less
energy save money for building owners and lower operations costs? How
does this decision benefit taxpayers?
Answer. GSA needs to respond. However, the Real Estate Roundtable's
Sustainability Committee has worked closely with EPA and DOE, over
recent years, to ensure that federal LEED requirements are achievable,
and reflect the current depressed state of commercial office buildings
and their economics. More efficient HVAC, water and electrical/IT
systems, with solar and green roof options, have become more achievable
in recent years in major urban office markets, where ``green''
buildings can be seen as a competitive advantage in attracting tenants.
Also, more efficient federal buildings can indeed save money and
benefit taxpayers.
Question 5. Not all federal space is the same. In addition to
general office space, agencies use science labs, warehouses, data
centers, SCIFs, shooting ranges, and more. Should the federal
government own specialty space and lease all-purpose office space?
Should GSA dispose of leased space where tenant agencies have made
significant investments in tenant improvements such as holding cells,
an evidence room, or counterintelligence equipment?
Answer. Major investments from the Public Buildings Fund over the
past decade have been into more secure federal courthouses, and the
expansion of highly secure land ports of entry. These types of
facilities, as well as law enforcement and intelligence/national
security space, can be highly specialized, with unique security
requirements, and therefore, have been seen as prime core federal real
estate holdings. Generic office space, even incorporating SCIF
facilities, has been seen as more cost-effective to lease, where there
is great interest and competition from the private sector to provide
such space and facilities. Where the taxpayer has made major
investments in tenant build-outs and equipment in leased space, a
careful cost analysis must be conducted to justify relocation.
Question 6. As GSA eliminates space, should customer-serving
operations such as Social Security field offices and VA health
facilities be treated the same as general office space? How can GSA
ensure that the taxpayers who pay for these federal services will still
have access to them?
Answer. GSA needs to respond.
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