The FBI just took a step closer to establishing a new headquarters in Washington, D.C.
The U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee advanced a plan on July 17 that designates $555 million to move the FBI headquarters to the Ronald Reagan Building. The decision reverses a vote earlier this month to preserve $1.4 billion for a new headquarters in Greenbelt.
The development comes after years of consideration on where the FBI headquarters should be located. The FBI and the General Services Administration announced plans on July 1 to relocate the bureau’s headquarters from the outdated J. Edgar Hoover Building to the nearby Reagan Building despite originally selecting a new site in Greenbelt in 2023, the Associated Press reported.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), who originally sided with committee Democrats in favor of financing a new Maryland headquarters, flipped her stance last week in support of the proposed Washington, D.C. campus after meeting with FBI director Kash Patel, according to The Washington Post.
[US Senate committee votes to preserve funding for Greenbelt FBI headquarters]
In response to the FBI’s request to move the headquarters, Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) introduced an amendment to the Justice Department’s annual funding bill. The amendment would have prevented the FBI from using congressional funds to build a new headquarters anywhere other than Greenbelt.
“This unauthorized use of funds is directly at odds with what has been passed by the Congress on a bipartisan basis and sets a dangerous precedent for executive branch overreach into Congress’s power of the purse,” Van Hollen wrote in a statement on July 17.
[Maryland officials oppose plans to keep FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C.]
But after his amendment passed the appropriations committee earlier in July, lawmakers were unable to come to a decision about the broader funding bill halting progress on the future FBI headquarters, The Washington Post reported.
Last week’s vote marked a win for President Donald Trump and the FBI, who view the construction of a new headquarters in Greenbelt as unnecessarily expensive and time-consuming, according to a statement released July 1 by the FBI and General Services Administration.
Van Hollen criticized the appropriations committee’s reversal and “grossly partisan” split in his statement following the vote, claiming Republicans’ loyalty to Trump came at the expense of the FBI’s security and welfare needs.
“But let me be clear: this fight is far from over,” he wrote. “We know this project will have additional costs, and the Congress will not support and sustain this abuse of power.”
