This week, after greater than a decade of debate, authorities officers selected a location for a brand new FBI headquarters, changing the J. Edgar Hoover Constructing that has stood in downtown Washington, D.C., for the reason that Seventies. The brand new constructing, which shall be positioned in Maryland, will be capable to accommodate hundreds of brokers and is anticipated to price billions.
The federal government has lengthy advocated for a brand new constructing, with the Authorities Accountability Workplace (GAO) noting in 2011 that the Hoover constructing was “nearing its life-cycle age and exhibiting signs of deterioration” and “do[es] not fully support the FBI’s long-term security, space, and building condition requirements.”
A way more budget-conscious resolution, which lawmakers appear to not have thought of, could be to easily shrink the scale of the FBI.
FBI officers needed to maintain the constructing in Washington, citing proximity to each the White Home and the Division of Justice (DOJ). The bureau even advised constructing a secondary facility in Maryland or Virginia to behave as “a command center for cyber operations.” However lawmakers from these states have been unswayed, inserting language right into a 2022 spending invoice that directed the Basic Providers Administration (GSA) to decide on a brand new headquarters web site from three choices: Greenbelt, Maryland; Landover, Maryland; and Springfield, Virginia.
On Thursday, the GSA introduced that it had chosen Greenbelt, the place it could construct a brand new facility along with a smaller facility in downtown Washington that might home as much as 1,000 brokers. The GSA famous that the Greenbelt location could be very near a Metro cease and would contain the most affordable and quickest timeline for acquisition and building.
Every of the proposed websites had issues: In line with an October DOJ inspector common report, the FBI was “concerned” that the Greenbelt web site “was half wetlands and the amount of buildable space was far less than what was anticipated when the site was selected.” The Springfield location, whereas most handy to entry the FBI coaching facility in Quantico, Virginia, “had multiple government agencies…that needed to be relocated, which the FBI believed would be costly, time-consuming, and logistically complicated.” FBI officers discovered all three choices missing, however favored the location in Landover, though it “had the worst mass transit access,” in keeping with the DOJ report.
Regardless of the location, the brand new headquarters will not be low-cost: In its FY 2024 price range proposal, the DOJ requested Congress for $3.5 billion for the brand new constructing, which it says would home “at least 7,500 personnel.”
However whereas lawmakers and authorities companies have been arguing over the place to accommodate these many employees, they’ve largely ignored the truth that they might merely cut back the FBI’s footprint.
Proponents of a brand new facility say that the Hoover constructing is simply too small to accommodate the scale of the present FBI. In a 2011 response to a GAO report, FBI Affiliate Deputy Director Thomas Harrington famous that the constructing “houses just 52% of headquarters staff with the remainder at 21 off-site leased locations.” Plans for the brand new headquarters consult with it as a “consolidation” effort meant to carry almost all brokers below one roof.
It is not clear that the FBI wants so many brokers within the first place. From its inception in 1908 till the Hoover constructing opened in 1975, the FBI operated inside the DOJ constructing. Throughout that point, it principally enforced interstate crimes like banking fraud or compelled labor.
Over time, the bureau’s mandate has elevated dramatically—and excessively. “When the FBI first occupied the Hoover Building, it was primarily a law enforcement organization,” the 2011 GAO report famous. “Since then, its mission has grown in response to evolving threats and now includes counterterrorism, counterintelligence, weapons of mass destruction deterrence, and cyber security.” Because the purview of federal legislation enforcement has expanded, particularly since 9/11, federal companies have expanded in flip.
Lawmakers have fought for over a decade about whether or not to consolidate the FBI’s large work drive at a multibillion-dollar facility in Maryland or Virginia. They need to have been contemplating a really totally different concern: tips on how to shrink the costly and expansive company.