MD Democrats blast committee spurning Greenbelt in FBI move

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WASHINGTON — Maryland lawmakers on Wednesday condemned a Senate committee’s approval of more than $1 billion for the FBI’s relocation to the Ronald Reagan Building in downtown Washington.

The party-line vote in the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee allocated funds to repair and alter the Pennsylvania Avenue building, the former home of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) that was dismantled earlier this year by the Trump administration.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Maryland, said in a statement that the GOP’s partisan approval endangers the FBI’s mission and presents “glaring security issues.” The previous selection of Greenbelt, Maryland, by the General Services Administration was based on the site’s ability to meet security needs in a campus-like headquarters, Van Hollen said.

The senator said the Senate panel’s Republicans approved “a prospectus with few details, no completed security plan, and an incomplete cost assessment for a new FBI Headquarters located in DC.”

GSA plans to use about $845 million of previously appropriated funds for the headquarters, along with $555 million from the FBI for the pre-construction, construction, and fit-out requirements, according to the prospectus filed on Sept. 19.

The new headquarters will consolidate about 6,000 FBI agents currently housed in the J. Edgar Hoover Building — five blocks from the Reagan Building — and six additional leased locations, according to the prospectus. The construction and move is scheduled to occur between 2025 and 2030 and will reportedly cost about $844 million.

Van Hollen also noted the prospectus’s inability to mention the so-called “Level V” security measures as required by the Interagency Security Committee, which sets the standards for all non-military federal facilities. Level V is the highest classification of security that requires a host of stringent protection measures.

Democrats, including Maryland Sen. Angela Alsobrooks, attempted to add language to the resolution before the committee that would prohibit spending on the new headquarters until an in-depth assessment of the Level V requirements occurred. However, the GOP majority rejected the language and moved forward with the resolution on a 10-9 vote.

Alsobrooks, who opposed the vote in committee, said her Republican colleagues ignored the safety concerns laid out by the FBI.

“The FBI made it abundantly clear — at the start of this relocation process — that their headquarters should be housed in a facility that meets the highest level of protection as designated by the ISC,” Alsobrooks said. “The location in Greenbelt, Maryland, meets those requirements, as determined by a lengthy, fair, transparent process that Republicans have now overturned.”

The years-long battle for a new FBI headquarters seemingly came to a halt in 2023, when GSA approved the relocation to Greenbelt. The Trump administration reversed that decision on July 1, when the GSA announced that the FBI would move to the Reagan Building, sparking outcries from Maryland Democrats.

The decision was made because the complex “saves Americans billions of dollars on new construction and avoids more than $300 million in deferred maintenance costs at the J. Edgar Hoover facility,” GSA Public Buildings Service Commissioner Michael Peters said in a July statement.

Republican West Virginia Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, chair of the committee, said she was in favor of abandoning the Greenbelt plan and supported using a building within GSA’s portfolio “instead of significant expense and time waiting for new construction.”

“I believe the GSA’s plan is a responsible and efficient way to address this year’s long-standing problem,” Capito said.

Audrey Keefe reports for Capital News Service.