Washington, DC – U.S. Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD), a member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee (EPW), praised EPW Committee action today that will move the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) closer to consolidating the more than 20 FBI offices that are dispersed around the Greater Washington region to one location. The project is expected to bring greater physical and information security to the FBI, as well as provide an estimated annual cost savings of nearly $44 million when the project is finalized.

“The FBI urgently needs a new home.  The sheer over-crowding at the J. Edgar Hoover Building and the lack of physical and information security there and at 20 overflow offices scattered throughout the area at best complicates the FBI’s important work, and at worst severely compromises national security,” said Senator Cardin. “The Greater Washington Area has many viable options that will meet the specific requirements needed to restore efficiency and security to our nation’s premier law-enforcement agency while saving taxpayer resources. Such a move will be advantageous to the agency as a whole, as well as each of the 17,300 employees of the FBI headquarters, approximately 40 percent of whom currently reside in Maryland.”  

The EPW Resolution directs the General Services Administration to enter into a private sector lease.  The terms require a private firm to build a 2.1 million square foot, secure facility on federally owned land that would be leased to the FBI.  At the end of the lease term, the ownership of the building would be turned over to the Federal government at no additional cost. The FBI headquarters provision must also be approved by the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee before it is final.