Press Releases

Washington, D.C. – Legislation that will tackle the federal government’s inefficient use of its office space, get federal workers back in the office, and save money for the taxpayers was signed into law by the President on Friday.

S. 4367, the Thomas R. Carper Water Resources Development Act of 2024, which the House and Senate both approved in December, includes provisions to reform the General Services Administration (GSA), the agency that owns and operates a significant portion of the federal government’s real estate portfolio.  As a result of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee’s oversight of federal buildings throughout the 118th Congress, Members of the Committee introduced various bills to address the chronic underutilization of federal properties and office space. Many of those reform bills were included in S. 4367 under Division B, Title III – Public Buildings Reforms and can be read here.

The approved reforms include:

• Setting space occupancy standards to incentivize federal workers to return to the office or lose space.  The bill requires the General Services Administration (GSA) and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to implement a standard methodology of measuring occupancy and utilization of public buildings, and directs the consolidation and sale of underused space.
• Strengthening congressional oversight and public accountability of federal real estate projects.  For example, the bill requires a review of GSA’s Public Buildings Service (PBS) staffing structure and funding by requiring the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to submit to Congress a report on various aspects of the PBS.  The bill also increases transparency of public buildings projects and leases, including cost overruns and the impact of crime on building usage.
• Strengthening the authority of the Public Buildings Reform Board (PBRB), established by the Federal Assets Sale and Transfer Act of 2016 (FASTA), to increase the number of federal properties the Board recommends to be sold or redeveloped.
• Directing the sale of certain unused properties.

“The GSA reforms now signed into law focus on improving our management of federal real estate and have the potential to save the taxpayer billions of dollars by setting benchmarks for space utilization, directing the sale or consolidation of unused space, and strengthening congressional oversight of federal building projects,” said Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Sam Graves (R-MO).  “I appreciate the work of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Members who led on these issues throughout the 118^th Congress and introduced legislation to help shrink the size of the federal footprint, reduce hurdles to eliminating unused space, and improve the security of our federal buildings.”

The following pieces of legislation were introduced by T&I Members, approved by the Committee earlier in the 118^th Congress, and were enacted into law as part of S. 4367: the Utilizing Space Efficiently and Improving Technologies (USE IT) Act of 2023 and the FASTA Reform Act of 2023, both introduced by Subcommittee Chairman Scott Perry (R-PA); the Federal Use it or Lose it Leases (FULL) Act, introduced by Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-NC); the Impact of Crime on Public Build Usage Act of 2023 and the Federal Oversight of Construction Use and Safety (FOCUS) Act, both introduced by Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R-OR); the Public Buildings Accountability Act of 2023, introduced by Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-WI); and the Think Differently About Building Accessibility Act, introduced by Rep. Marc Molinaro (R-NY).