Edgar Hoover FBI Building along Pennsylvania Avenue in downtown Washington, D.C., has significant structural and space issues. The FBI has said for years it needs a new headquarters since the J. The three locations are all just outside of Washington, D.C. The GSA has narrowed down the options for a new site to locations in Greenbelt, Maryland Landover, Maryland and Springfield, Virginia. House Republicans released that bill last month after adding $3.5 billion for the GSA to move forward with a “new, suburban Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) headquarters,” according to the GOP summary of the measure. The Financial Services and General Government bill is the measure that includes funding for the General Services Administration, which has been working for well over a decade to find a new location for the FBI’s headquarters. Senate, assuming it is added to an appropriations measure.Īnother hitch is that the annual Commerce-Justice-Science appropriations bill, which includes funding for the FBI and where Jordan suggested the policy riders go, may not be the correct place for such a provision. That language is especially partisan and unlikely to pass the Democratically controlled U.S. Jordan’s proposal would have the annual funding bill say that “centralization of FBI operations in the National (Capital) Region has led to duplication of activity best left to the respective field offices, contributed to reduced autonomy in local field offices, and allowed improper political influence to taint law enforcement investigations and activity.” About 1,500 employees worked there at the start of the year. The federal government has invested about $3 billion in the Huntsville FBI facility, according to al.com. The FBI moved an explosive analysis center to Redstone in 2016 and has moved thousands of jobs to the area, attracted in part by Redstone’s secure location. The Arsenal hosts NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center and the U.S. The Redstone Arsenal has been a major employer in the area since World War II. Huntsville, which overtook Birmingham to become Alabama’s largest city in 2021, has long been a hub for federal investment. Huntsville Mayor Tommy Battle said in a statement the city is “proud of the FBI presence in Huntsville and will support whatever Congress decides is best for the betterment of our country.” The attraction of Huntsville, Alabama “The operational plan should also consider the existing resources and infrastructure available at the FBI’s Redstone Arsenal Campus in Huntsville, AL,” Jordan suggested.Īn FBI spokesperson pressed back on the proposal, saying in a written statement that the “facilities at Redstone Arsenal cannot accommodate the minimum of 8,500 personnel planned to occupy the new HQ suburban and downtown facilities.” The language Jordan wants the House Appropriations Committee to add would require the FBI to “submit an operational plan within 90 days to move the FBI Headquarters out of the National Capital Region.” No other lawmakers signed onto the letter, so it wasn’t clear why several of the paragraphs said “we” instead of “I.” “We recommend that the appropriations bills eliminate any funding for the FBI that is not absolutely essential for the agency to execute its mission, including as a starting point eliminating taxpayer funding for any new FBI headquarter facility and instead examining options for relocating the FBI’s headquarters outside of the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area,” Jordan wrote in the letter. region, suggesting the Redstone Arsenal Campus in Huntsville, Alabama, as one option and thrusting himself into a years-long battle between Maryland and Virginia for the location of a new HQ. Jordan, instead, wants the federal law enforcement agency to look for locations outside the D.C. House committee that controls government spending to bar any federal dollars from going toward a long-planned rebuild of the FBI headquarters in the Maryland or Virginia suburbs outside Washington, D.C.
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