Legislation introduced by U.S. Rep. Jeff Denham (R-CA) on Thursday aims to identify federal properties that could be sold or consolidated to eliminate wasteful government spending.
The Federal Asset Sale and Transfer (FAST) Act of 2016, H.R. 4465, would establish an independent board, the Public Buildings Reform Board, to identify underused or vacant federal properties. The board would then recommend properties that should be consolidated or sold to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).
“Unused and under-utilized federal properties have been draining on our economy for years,” Denham said. “My bill will save us billions by cutting through red tape to change the poorly-managed property management system so that taxpayers no longer have to foot the bill for keeping the lights on in empty buildings.”
The federal government currently owns more than 254,000 buildings that total more than 2.5 billion square feet of space. It costs taxpayers $14.4 billion per year to maintain these properties, according to the Federal Real Property Summary.
Under the FAST Act, the Public Buildings Reform Board would be required to identify $8 billion in federal property that could be sold or consolidated over six years. Then, the board would then be dissolved, and federal agencies would have another six years to implement the board’s recommendations to the OMB.
The bill would also direct the General Services Administration to establish a database of all federal properties. The database would include information about whether federal properties have been classified as excess, surplus, underutilized or unutilized.
Denham leads a bipartisan group of original cosponsors in introducing the bill, including the chairmen and ranking members of the two committees of jurisdiction – Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) and Ranking Member Elijah Cummings (D-MD), and Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Bill Shuster (R-PA) and Ranking Member Peter DeFazio (D-OR). Reps. Lou Barletta (R-PA) and Andre Carson (D-IN) are also original cosponsors of H.R. 4465.
Denham, who previously served as chairman of the Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings and Emergency Management, has made reducing unnecessary publicly-held properties a priority during his entire career in public service. While serving in the California State Senate from 2002 -2010, Denham offered multiple pieces of legislation to inventory the state’s facilities and to sell-off underdeveloped and underutilized state-owned property, including San Quentin State Prison and the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, to raise revenue for the cash-strapped state.