Maryland House Democrats Decry Transportation & Infrastructure Committee’s Advancement of Prospectus for Ronald Reagan Building

WASHINGTON, DC - Today, Congressman Steny H. Hoyer (MD-05) and U.S. Representatives Kweisi Mfume (MD-07), Jamie Raskin (MD-08), Glenn Ivey (MD-04), Sarah Elfreth (MD-03), April McClain Delaney (MD-06), and Johnny Olszewski (MD-02) released the following statement after the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure (T&I) advanced a General Services Administration (GSA) prospectus on moving the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) headquarters to the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center in Washington, D.C.:

"We have dire concerns about the General Service Administration's prospectus to convert the Ronald Reagan Building into the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) headquarters, which the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee approved today. That action contradicts the outcome of a decade-long process to select a site that meets the FBI's security and operational needs. Additionally, it violates multiple laws mandating that the GSA select one of three sites it had already identified as satisfying those requirements. That is still the law.

"The Reagan Building was never included among the three options because it was clear that it could never meet the FBI's need for a secure, consolidated campus with a Level V Federal Facility Security Standard. As the first federal building intentionally designed to accommodate private-sector tenants in addition to government agencies, the Reagan Building's open design features are uniquely ill suited to the FBI's requirements. So too is its exposed location between two high-traffic streets.

"The Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City had similar deficiencies, which contributed to the devastation of the 1995 bombing that claimed the lives of 167 people. Notably, the Reagan Building was designed before the Oklahoma City bombing revealed those flaws.

"There is a reason that the FBI set these security requirements and that the GSA conducted a rigorous site selection process to meet them: to keep the brave men and women of the FBI safe so that they can complete their essential national security and law enforcement mission. We all agree that the dilapidated J. Edgar Hoover Building is inadequate. The FBI needs a new home. Moving the Bureau from an inadequate 50-year-old building to an inadequate 30-year-old building makes no sense in either the short or long term.

"We remain certain that Greenbelt, Maryland, is the best site for the FBI. It offers space and security that simply cannot be found in the District of Columbia. That is why the GSA selected the Greenbelt site after years of rigorous and careful evaluation. We will continue fighting to provide the FBI with the world-class facility it needs and deserves."