Senate Subcommittee Approves $375M for FBI Relocation
Plan has contentious road ahead as lawmakers argue over new FBI HQ costs.
By Nick Trombola August 2, 2024 1:01 pm
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The FBI’s herculean effort to relocate its headquarters from the deteriorating J. Edgar Hoover building in Washington, D.C., is one step closer to reality after passing a Senate subcommittee vote on Thursday, but opposition may ultimately kill the move in its cradle.
The Senate’s Financial Services and General Government Subcommittee approved a 2025 appropriations bill that includes $375 million in funding toward the FBI’s planned move to a 61-acre, $4 billion mega-campus in Greenbelt, Md.
But the bill faces a tough road, including a full vote in the Senate, where Democrats have a razor-thin majority. It also faces opposition in the House of Representatives, where much of the Republican caucus has voiced opposition to the multibillion-dollar plan. Former President Donald Trump, for that matter, has also voiced his disapproval.
“Despite Republican theatrics in the House, I was proud to secure this funding on a bipartisan basis within our subcommittee bill — and was glad to receive bipartisan support from the full committee for its passage,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat who chairs the Financial Services and General Government Subcommittee, said in a statement. “From day one, moving forward on this has been a top priority of mine — and I’m committed to keeping it on track in order to deliver the new headquarters that our nation’s law enforcement deserves.”
The often contentious search for a new FBI headquarters has been going on for years, beginning under the Bush Administration in the mid-2000s. The FBI has called the J. Edgar Hoover building home since 1975.
The General Services Administration (GSA) selected the Greenbelt site late last year after an extensive selection process, arguing that the property, which is owned by the Washington Metropolitan Transit Authority (WMATA), offered the lowest cost to taxpayers and close Metro access for the thousands of employees expected to work there.
Other options on the location short list were the 80-acre former site of the Landover Mall in Landover, Md., and the 58-acre Franconia Warehouse Complex in Springfield, Va.
Yet just the GSA’s choice of the Greenbelt site sparked controversy. FBI Director Christopher Wray and Democrat and Republican lawmakers from Virginia raised concerns over the agency’s decision, claiming that a three-person panel at the GSA actually selected the Springfield site but were overruled by then-Public Buildings Service Commissioner Nina Albert, who was also a former WMATA executive.
Albert has since left the GSA for a new role as D.C.’s Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development.
Although Albert and others, such as D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, defended the decision, the GSA’s inspector general ultimately launched an inquiry into the agency’s choice late last year. Democratic Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine said via a spokesperson this week that the investigation is still ongoing, according to the Business Journal.
The Biden Administration’s 2025 budget proposal included full funding for the relocation project in Greenbelt through a federal capital revolving fund. Those funds would be repaid via annual discretionary appropriations over 15 years, per the Business Journal, along with $645 million already granted to the GSA for land purchases and construction.
Nick Trombola can be reached at ntrombola@commercialobserver.com.
