Disposal of Unneeded Federal Buildings: Legislative Proposals in the 112th Congress

Garrett Hatch
Analyst in American National Government

Federal executive branch agencies hold an extensive real property portfolio that includes 429,000 buildings. These assets have been acquired over a period of decades to help agencies fulfill their diverse missions. Agencies hold buildings with a range of uses, including offices, health clinics, warehouses, and laboratories. As agencies’ missions change over time, so, too, do their real property needs, thereby rendering some assets less useful or unneeded altogether. Healthcare provided by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), for example, has shifted in recent decades from predominately hospital-based inpatient care to a greater reliance on clinics and outpatient care, with a resulting change in space needs. Similarly, the Department of Defense (DOD) reduced its force structure by 36% after the cold war ended, and has engaged in several rounds of base realignments and installation closures.

Real property disposition is the process by which federal agencies identify and then transfer, donate, or sell real property they no longer need. Disposition is an important asset management function because the costs of maintaining unneeded properties can be substantial, consuming financial resources that might be applied to pressing real property needs, such as repairing existing facilities, or towards other pressing policy issues, such as reducing the national debt.

In FY2009—the most recent data available—the government held 10,327 unneeded buildings and spent $134 million dollars to maintain them. Agencies have said that their disposal efforts are often hampered by legal and budgetary disincentives, and competing stakeholder interests. In addition, Congress is limited in its capacity to conduct oversight of the disposal process because it lacks access to reliable, comprehensive, real property data. The government’s inability to efficiently dispose of its unneeded property is a major reason that federal real property management has been identified by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) as a “highrisk” area since 2003.

This report begins with an explanation of the real property disposal process, and then discusses some of the factors that have made disposition relatively inefficient and costly. It then examines three bills introduced in the 112th Congress that would address those problems: the Federal Real Property Disposal Enhancement Act (H.R. 1205), the Excess Federal Building and Property Disposal Act (H.R. 665), and the Civilian Property Realignment Act (H.R. 1734). This report concludes with a discussion of policy options for enhancing both the disposal process and congressional oversight of it.


Date of Report: June 24, 2011
Number of Pages: 17
Order Number: R41892
Price: $29.95

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