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90–964 PDF 2014

FEDERAL REAL PROPERTY: ELIMINATING WASTE 

AND MISMANAGEMENT OF REAL PROPERTY ASSETS 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT 

AND GOVERNMENT REFORM 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

JULY 29, 2014 

Serial No. 113–143 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov 

http://www.house.gov/reform 

(II) 

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM 

DARRELL E. ISSA, California, Chairman 

JOHN L. MICA, Florida 

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio 

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee 

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina 

JIM JORDAN, Ohio 

JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah 

TIM WALBERG, Michigan 

JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma 

JUSTIN AMASH, Michigan 

PAUL A. GOSAR, Arizona 

PATRICK MEEHAN, Pennsylvania 

SCOTT DESJARLAIS, Tennessee 

TREY GOWDY, South Carolina 

BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas 

DOC HASTINGS, Washington 

CYNTHIA M. LUMMIS, Wyoming 

ROB WOODALL, Georgia 

THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky 

DOUG COLLINS, Georgia 

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina 

KERRY L. BENTIVOLIO, Michigan 

RON DESANTIS, Florida 

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland, Ranking 

Minority Member 

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York 

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of 

Columbia 

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts 

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri 

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts 

JIM COOPER, Tennessee 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia 

JACKIE SPEIER, California 

MATTHEW A. CARTWRIGHT, Pennsylvania 

TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois 

ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois 

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois 

PETER WELCH, Vermont 

TONY CARDENAS, California 

STEVEN A. HORSFORD, Nevada 

MICHELLE LUJAN GRISHAM, New Mexico 

Vacancy 

LAWRENCE J. BRADY, Staff Director 

JOHN D. CUADERES, Deputy Staff Director 

STEPHEN CASTOR, General Counsel 

LINDA A. GOOD, Chief Clerk 

DAVID RAPALLO, Minority Staff Director 

(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Hearing held on July 29, 2014 ............................................................................... 1 

WITNESSES 

The Hon. David Mader, Controller, Office of Federal Financial Management, 

U.S. Office of Management and Budget 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 8 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 10 

Mr. Michael Gelber, Deputy Commissioner, Public Buildings Service, U.S. 

General Services Administration 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 14 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 16 

Mr. David J. Wise, Director, Physical Infrastructure Team, U.S. Government 

Accountability Office 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 21 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 23 

Mr. James M. Sullivan Director, Office of Enterprise Office Management, 

U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 35 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 37 

APPENDIX 

Answers to Reps. Mica and Meadows questions for the record from Mr. 

Michael Gelber, GSA, submitted by Rep. Mica ................................................. 62 

VA response to QFRs ............................................................................................... 64 

OMB response to QFRs ........................................................................................... 67 

(1) 

FEDERAL REAL PROPERTY: ELIMINATING 

WASTE AND MISMANAGEMENT OF REAL 

PROPERTY ASSETS 

Tuesday, July 29, 2014, 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS, 

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM, 

Washington, D.C. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:12 a.m., in Room 

2203, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. John Mica [chairman 

of the subcommittee] presiding. 

Present: Representatives Mica, Meadows, and Connolly. 

Staff Present: Melissa Beaumont, Majority Assistant Clerk; 

Adam P. Fromm, Majority Director of Member Services and Committee Operations; Laura L. Rush, Majority Deputy Chief Clerk; 

Jessica Seale, Majority Digital Director; Andrew Shult, Majority 

Deputy General Counsel; Jenna VanSant, Majority Professional 

Staff Member; Devon Hill, Minority Research Assistant; Julia 

Krieger, Minority New Media Press Secretary; and Cecelia Thomas, 

Minority Counsel. 

Mr. MICA. Good morning. I would like to call the Government 

Operations Subcommittee hearing to order. I am pleased to welcome everyone to the Government Oversight and Reform Subcommittee hearing this morning, and the title of today’s hearing is 

Federal Real Property: Eliminating Waste and Mismanagement of 

Real Property Assets. 

I want to again welcome my ranking member, Mr. Connolly, and 

subcommittee members Mr. Meadows and others who may be joining us. 

Thank you, too, for our witnesses, who I will introduce shortly, 

for participating. 

The order of business this morning is we will start with opening 

statements by members of our panel. And without objection the 

record will be left open for other members to submit their statements. 

We will then proceed to hear from each of our witnesses. Normally we provide about five minutes. This isn’t a particularly big 

panel, but we ask that the members of the panel please participate 

by trying to summarize in about five minutes. You can ask, 

through the chair, any request for additional information or data 

to be made part of the record and it will be made part of the 

record. And we will swear you in at the appropriate time, when we 

recognize you. 

2 

So, with that, I will begin the proceedings, and, again, thank you 

for attending and participating. 

This is a pretty important hearing. Sometimes it doesn’t get the 

attention of some of the other major investigative hearings that we 

do, particularly in OGR, Government Reform and Oversight, but it 

is important because the Federal Government is the trustee and 

steward of billions, literally trillions, of dollars in Federal property. 

Years ago I did a report entitled The Federal Government Must 

Stop Sitting on Its Assets, and that is one report we will reference 

in this record. We tried not to just do the report, look at Federal 

assets that are sitting out there idle, but also do something about 

the report and its findings, and it found that there were 14,000 

properties either vacant or underutilized that the Federal Government has jurisdiction over just in the purview of GSA. 

That report was done when I chaired the Transportation Committee. This committee and the subcommittee has much wider jurisdiction. Today we will hear from VA, from OMB, and other agencies about what they have been doing to deal with this problem and 

how we can do an even better job across the entire spectrum of the 

Federal Government in addressing this problem of assets sitting 

idle. 

I might also preface this with this week we had a very good week 

with one of the major assets that was featured on page 9 of that 

report, and that was the conversion of the Old Post Office, the D.C. 

Post Office, which was built in the late 1800s. It has 400,000 

square feet; half of it has remained empty of the 400,000 square 

feet. A new annex that was built some years ago has been vacant 

for 15 years. 

We turned that around after two hearings that we conducted. 

The first one as chair of the Transportation Committee actually in 

the vacant space, the annex. Donald Trump, this week, and others 

broke ground. They won open competition to renovate that hotel. 

A thousand people will work, some in construction. It will be a 350- 

room hotel. 

The irony of it is the empty room where we held the hearing was 

38 degrees in the room, 32 degrees outside, but Mr. Trump told me 

that that will be largest meeting and conference banquet room on 

the East Coast, that area where we held the hearing, which, again, 

a space that had been vacant for 15 years, costing the taxpayers 

$6 million to $8 million a year in losses, and that is converted to 

$250,000 a month revenue plus a percentage of some of the profit, 

so the taxpayer can benefit by that. So that is one success. 

Today we are going to hear from OMB, and this committee has 

been waiting three years to obtain a list of underutilized and excess properties. Now, that is the Office of Management and Budget. 

We requested, three years ago, that we get a list of underutilized 

and excess properties. The compliance has only been in the last few 

days, as a matter of fact. And what we found is the Federal Government currently holds 7,000 unneeded properties, by their evaluation. And we don’t believe that that evaluation is even up to 

date, but the inventory that is on the list is worth an estimate, 

again, by their calculation, $350 billion. This would be unacceptable by any standards. 

3 

Throughout my time and service in Congress, I have worked to 

reduce the Government’s outrageous loss, and I guess some of it is 

because of my background in real estate. But when you see incredibly valuable properties sitting idle, something is wrong. And the 

mis-utilization and under-utilization of Federal buildings has to be 

brought to a halt. 

In this Congress alone, our subcommittee has held five hearings 

related to the operation, maintenance, management, disposal, cost 

for underutilized and excess real property. As a result of our investigations, a large number of properties have been turned around 

and starting to generate income, also jobs. Another example is the 

power station property behind the Ritz Carlton-Georgetown, 2.1 

acres. After our hearing, it was vacant for 10 years, costing $1 million to maintain, on average, a year. Brought in almost $20 million, 

the GSA Public Buildings Administrator stated at the opening of 

the Trump facility and groundbreaking. 

Needless to say, though, in its 2013 high risk report, GAO found 

that the Federal Government still holds much more property than 

it needs. While it is no excuse, GAO also found that the lack of accurate useful data impedes GSA’s agency’s ability to make informed decisions on how to manage real property assets. 

In order to conduct oversight to ensure that we better utilize 

Federal property, I have worked with Chairman Issa and also 

Ranking Member Connolly to gain access to, again, the Federal 

database and information that OMB has had which details underutilized and excess properties. We first requested the data in December of 2011 and continued making requests, but never received 

any information. On May 27th, again, just days, weeks ago, almost 

three years after the original request, the committee was forced to 

subpoena OMB for the data on underutilized and excess properties, 

and now we finally—and I thank everybody for their cooperation— 

we have final compliance. 

Now that we have the list, you can see why they didn’t want it 

made public. It contains some astounding data on the number of 

unused properties. In fact, there are 4,209 underutilized properties 

held by the Federal Government, which account for 24 million 

square feet, costing nearly $100 million. We think that is the lowest. I think it is very higher to maintain and operate. Over 1400 

of these properties sit inactive or unused. 

I had this blown up. There are 3,293 properties that have been 

declared excess. These properties account for approximately 15.3 

million square feet, costing $37 million-plus annually to operate. 

Not even half of the properties are slated for disposal. 

What is even more astonishing is the example of just one agency. 

And we have VA here today. As Congress, this week, struggles to 

find the resources and the funds to provide adequate medical care 

for our veterans, and we will be addressing that this week, the VA 

is sitting on 258 underutilized properties. 

Where is that list? Look at this. This list goes on and on, and 

many of these are hospitals. This is one page here of underutilized 

assets. I also asked that they highlight the hospitals and others in 

yellow, which they didn’t do, but look at this. Look at this, Gerry, 

Mr. Meadows. Look at this, hospital, hospital, hospital, hospital. 

This is just one page, and this happens to be IOUC in my State. 

4 

But you could go through this report page after page of vacant 

medical facilities assets that the VA has as we struggle here to find 

resources. But, again, some pretty valuable assets. 

In fact, the Veterans Administration—again, I will just highlight 

these—has 258 excess or underutilized properties worth, they estimate, $1.62 billion. I think it is well over $2 billion. This is just 

what we have been able to uncover from the data and information 

that we have gotten to date. The inventory included 32 hospitals, 

148 family housing facilities, multiple dormitories. We have veterans sleeping under bridges, in their cars, and fields, and we don’t 

have domiciliary care; and we have these empty facilities that the 

VA has. It really is not appropriate by any measure. 

But, unfortunately, some of the data that OMB has given us we 

think is not accurate. GAO has reported that OMB’s list that is 

provided does not provide a complete picture of the uses and extended underutilized excess real property held by the Federal Government. It certainly is not up to date. 

Do we have the picture of the Orlando VA Clinic? 

This is a nursing home. I am standing in front of a nursing home 

in Central Florida, and since the beginning of the year that nursing home, 120 beds, has been vacant, and a 60-bed domiciliary unit 

behind that has been vacant. I wrote two years ago that we were 

building a new hospital, new facilities; we needed to plan ahead. 

They did not plan ahead. 

Now, that is the bad news. The good news is today—and I am 

most grateful for this. Sometimes when you hold a hearing there 

are consequences. The 29th of July, Congressman Mica, response 

to my letter, which started actually two years ago, they have decided to keep that facility open and substantiate the need for it. So 

I am please that VA has responded. I am pleased that we have had 

one success in my backyard, but, again, we have 280 other instances and data that is not up to date. 

The committee has found that many properties in the database, 

that data that is provided is not complete; sometimes the information is vague and repetitive. So we need to find better ways to 

manage our assets. We have to have better ways of OMB and the 

individual agencies monitoring the inventory; and not just making 

lists, but also disposing of that property appropriately or putting it 

to use, in the instance of our veterans, for the veterans or for the 

taxpayer. 

Congress and the Administration must work together to find solutions how we can collect data better. We will hear today if there 

are legislative impediments. We need better ways of managing our 

assets. And we have heard from others we need better means and 

tools to dispose of unneeded real property. 

So, with those opening comments, I am pleased to yield, and I 

thank him for his tireless efforts on this and many other issues. 

Sometimes we have our partisan differences. This is one the committee and Mr. Connolly, I have to thank him publicly, have joined 

in for the benefit of our veterans and for the taxpayer to make certain we move forward. 

Mr. Connolly. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for 

those kind remarks. I echo what you said. Unfortunately, we have 

5 

another subcommittee downstairs that is going to be eviscerating 

the Ex-Im Bank today, an organization that used to have bipartisan support and promotes U.S. business interests and helps us 

stay competitive when it comes to promoting U.S. exports, but apparently now it’s crony capitalism and ideologically unacceptable. 

Well, at any rate, I am glad we are not doing that here in this 

committee. And you are absolutely right, I think this subject, and 

the credit certainly goes to you for being so persistent, Mr. Chairman. The whole question of excess Federal property brings us together in a bipartisan basis, and I certainly support your efforts 

and appreciate your leadership in this regard, because I think it 

really is a Government-wide challenge. It transcends this Administration; it goes way back. Both parties deserve, I think, some blame 

and have to take responsibility for the situation we now find ourselves in. The good news is it is filled with opportunity. 

I also want to thank our witnesses for being here, two of whom 

are from Fairfax County. Mr. Sullivan is a constituent; Mr. Wise 

wants to be. He lives just outside the 11th Congressional District, 

so I know they are going to give wise and perspicacious testimony, 

and we are going to be impressed because of just who they are and 

where they come from. 

For nearly a decade the answer to the question about whether 

the Government can keep its house in order seems to have been no. 

Two thousand thirteen marked the tenth straight year that managing Federal real property was featured on the U.S. Government 

Accountability Office’s high risk update. According to the GAO, the 

Federal Government owns thousands of buildings it really no 

longer needs. In 2010 alone, maintenance of those buildings cost 

$1.7 billion. Of course, these are all rough estimates since the fundamental weakness undermining the Federal Government’s efforts 

to effectively manage its real property is its inability to maintain 

an inventory with accurate and accessible data. 

Our subcommittee found that one needs not travel far to find 

glaring examples of real property mismanagement. For example, 

Mr. Chairman, our April 2013 field hearing was held, as you indicated, in a vacant GSA warehouse that cost $70,000 per year to operate and maintain. It has remained unused since 2009, five years. 

I think everyone could agree this is really an example of taxpayer 

waste that ought to be rectified. 

GAO audits have found that in certain real estate markets the 

total square footage of excess Federal real property would be large 

enough to house virtually every Federal agency in that region. 

However, in these very same real estate markets the vast majority 

of those agencies are using precious resources on leases with private landlords. This type of mismanagement and bad juxtaposition 

of available assets not being utilized or underutilized I think ought 

to be unacceptable on a bipartisan basis. Every dollar spent on an 

unnecessary lease is a dollar diverted away from mission-critical 

functions. 

In this current era of austerity, operational inefficiencies such as 

these have real world consequences for the citizens they serve and 

they represent a profound opportunity cost for the Federal Government. 

6 

What are the causes of inefficient Federal property management? 

GAO found that property disposal costs can outweigh the financial 

benefits of conveying ownership to private parties. In addition, certain legal requirements, such as preserving historical properties 

and conducting environmental remediation, can make the property 

disposal process very lengthy and unattractive. 

Further, while I strongly believe local governments and local taxpayers must have a voice in the disposal of excess property, it is 

also true that stakeholder interests may conflict with property disposal and reuse plans, making disposal and reuse difficult. 

As the former chairman of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, I was proud to work with local stakeholders, developers, and 

the GSA to successfully execute one of the most successful Federal 

property transfers we have experienced between the Federal Government and the local community, and that was, of course, the 

Lorton property. For nearly a century, the Lorton Federal Prison 

was an eyesore and a blight, and a security threat on one of the 

most beautiful parcels of land in Fairfax County, 3,000 acres; wasting space and cut off from the public. 

Following extensive efforts by the Fairfax County government 

and my predecessor, the Honorable Tom Davis, who chaired our 

full committee, we were able to facilitate a complex land transfer, 

and today the Lorton prison site has been transformed into Laurel 

Hill, a dynamic community, the fastest growing part of our county, 

featuring new housing, schools, public parks, a town center, and a 

premier municipal golf club that hosted the prestigious United 

State Amateur Public Links Championship last year. It has transformed the southern part of our county. 

My hope is that with a sustained bipartisan effort by this subcommittee, Mr. Wise will be able to come before us next February 

to report that the Federal real property management has actually 

been removed from the high risk list. That would be a great 

achievement for us, and I believe today’s hearing demonstrates a 

continuing partnership with the chairman to conduct rigorous oversight aimed at finally establishing a national strategy for Federal 

real property management and overhauling the Federal real property profile to ensure we are able to credibly measure progress 

moving forward. 

I thank, again, our witnesses for joining us today. 

And again, Mr. Chairman, I am proud of our partnership and I 

thank you for your leadership in this matter. 

Mr. MICA. Thank you. And I understand your in and out responsibilities. We have small numbers on this subcommittee, huge jurisdiction, but also some very big and successful results, and you 

cited some of your efforts. 

Now, one of the champions of beating up the offenders of bad 

management in Government, Mr. Meadows, the gentleman from 

North Carolina. Welcome, you are recognized. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for that unique introduction. 

Really, what I am looking for is at what point do we define success and we finally accomplish it, because we have had hearings in 

a bipartisan way. I think both Republicans and Democrats want us 

to utilize the assets that we have properly. 

7 

The numbers that we have, Mr. Mader, I would be interested in 

hearing from you are those depreciated values? Are those current 

market values? If they are current market values, how in the world 

do we come up with those? I am a real estate guy, and for me to 

see billions of dollars worth of assets sitting underutilized is troubling. But it is not just troubling because we have a cost associated 

with maintaining those properties, so it is not just an asset that 

is not being used, but it is one that is costing us each and every 

day. 

So I look forward to just hearing from each one of you on how 

we can hopefully align the responsibility. Our last hearing, I was 

troubled to find that it is not just the GAO, it is all different agencies managing different parts of the real estate portfolio, and you 

don’t know who is in charge. And, honestly, there is not really an 

incentive for selling a piece of property if your agency is not going 

to get the money back. I find that I would hold on to mine if I was 

going to sell my asset and it was going to go over to some agency, 

so from a policy standpoint, if there are recommendations that you 

can make for us to look at in a bipartisan way to address this, I 

am all for creating an efficient management. But also know that 

we won’t do that unless there is a financial incentive to do so. So 

how we can do that and manage it properly, I am interested in 

hearing that. 

With that, I will yield back to you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. MICA. Thank you. 

Again, we will leave the record open for other members. 

We will go ahead now. Our next order of business will be to introduce our witnesses. Then I will swear them in. 

First we have David Mader. He is the Controller of the Office of 

Financial Management of the Office of Management and Budget. 

We have Mr. Michael Gelber. He is the Deputy Commissioner of 

Public Buildings Service of the General Services Administration. 

Then Mr. David Wise, the Director of Physical Infrastructure 

Team at GAO, the Government Accountability Office. 

Then, finally, welcome Mr. James Sullivan, Director of the Office 

of Enterprise Office Management at the Department of Veterans 

Affairs. Welcome, sir, and you are, again, serving us well and the 

taxpayers by coming and testifying today. 

This is an investigative panel. We do swear in our witnesses, so 

if you would stand, please. Raise your right hand. 

Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you are 

about to give before this subcommittee of Congress will be the 

whole truth and nothing but the truth? 

[Witnesses respond in the affirmative.] 

Mr. MICA. All of the witnesses answered in the affirmative, so, 

again, welcome. I think I gave you the ground rules. 

The other thing we will do is we will wait until we have heard 

from everybody, then we will get into questions, so we don’t question each witness individually. 

So first we will start with our leader from OMB, Mr. Mader. Welcome. You are recognized, sir. 

8 

WITNESS STATEMENTS 

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE DAVID MADER 

Mr. MADER. Thank you, Chairman Mica, Ranking Member 

Connolly, and Congressman Meadows, for the invitation today to 

testify on excess and underutilized property listed in the Federal 

Real Property Profile. 

This is my first congressional testimony since being confirmed as 

OMB Controller by the Senate on July 17th of this year, and I look 

forward to working with you and the committee members and staff 

on this very important issue. 

Each year, the Federal Government expends taxpayer dollars 

needlessly on Government properties it no longer needs to meet 

mission requirements. For this reason, the President, in 2010, 

issued a memorandum to the heads of all executive agencies titled 

‘‘Disposing of Unneeded Federal Real Estate,’’ which directed them 

to take aggressive action to reduce their real estate footprint. Since 

then, agencies have identified excess and underutilized property, 

and have begun initiating disposal actions. While this is a good 

start, much work needs to be done. 

The Administration has developed a Government-wide strategy 

to address real property that is laying the groundwork to help 

agencies achieve a greater reduction and recognize greater savings. 

Our progress to date represents a significant improvement to the 

Government’s real property management capability and the actions 

that will reduce administrative spending. Our national real estate 

strategy provides a roadmap to reform real property management, 

improve the efficiency of the portfolio, and to control administrative 

costs. The strategy consists of three components. First, freeze the 

growth in inventory; second, to measure performance and identify 

opportunities to improve the efficiency and the effectiveness of data 

quality; and, third, to reduce the overall inventory by reducing actions to consolidate, co-locate, and dispose of real estate assets. 

The first prong of our strategy is to freeze the Federal real property growth. Under Our Freeze the Footprint policy, agency performance is measured against their fiscal year 2012 office and 

warehouse square footage through an annual evaluation, which establish a baseline for us to measure going forward and the results 

of each of the agencies’ performance—and I think you mentioned, 

Congressman Meadows, that there were multiple agencies that occupy and have responsibility over this—but these agencies will post 

their results on Performance.gov each year. 

I am pleased to report that we have significantly overachieved 

our original plan of freezing the footprint. In fact, as a result of 

these initial efforts, the Federal Government reduced its overall office and warehouse space in fiscal 2013 by more than 10 million 

square feet. 

Measure is the second prong. And as part of the President’s second term Management Agenda, the Administration developed cost 

and quality benchmarks for core administrative operations, including real property. We leveraged the existing agency executive councils, in this case the Federal Real Property Council, to develop common standards and benchmarks to measure space utilization, performance, and cost. These benchmarks, coupled with existing GovVerDate Aug 31 2005 11:16 Nov 06, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00012 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\90964.TXT APRIL
9 

ernment-wide data, are helping agencies to identify opportunities 

for real property consolidations, space utilization enhancements, 

and disposal as they are institutionalized within and become standard operating procedure. 

The third prong represents the ultimate goal of our efforts, and 

that is to reduce the size of Government-wide real property inventory. While over 10 million square foot reduction represents a good 

down payment, we will continue our work with agencies under 

Freeze the Footprint policy to identify opportunities for property 

disposals, as disposals, as you noted, reduce both the portfolio size 

and, more importantly, reduce the costs associated with operating 

and maintaining these assets on a forward-going basis. 

To make truly transformational progress in reducing the Federal 

portfolio, we need Congress’s help. The Administration continues to 

support the Civilian Property Realignment Act as a tool to help improve the management of Government’s real estate portfolio and 

accelerate the disposal of excess properties. We continue to believe 

that the enhancement of CPRA would greatly enhance our ability 

to deliver results to taxpayers and to complement our national real 

property strategy. There are at least two fundamental principles 

that we want to explore as we right-size the Federal footprint. 

First is the streamlining of processes. New real estate management tools should streamline process requirements to move a 

project from initiation to completion. Streamline requirements 

would enable the Government to realize administrative cost-savings more quickly and dispose of more properties at a faster pace. 

Second, investing to reduce costs. Agencies often renew leases in 

multiple terms in old cost-and space-inefficient buildings because 

they lack the investment to relocate to better space and smaller 

space. We believe tools can be crafted that will enable agencies to 

exchange cost-inefficient space for much smaller amount of new 

space as leases expire and realize long-term gains. 

As we implement the Administration’s National Real Property 

Strategy, we look forward to working with you to achieve our mutual interests of a more effective and efficient delivery of Government services. 

Thank you for inviting me to testify today, and I look forward to 

answering your questions. 

[Prepared statement of Mr. Mader follows:] 

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Mr. MICA. We certainly are looking forward to discussing your 

proposals. That was music to our ears on what you said. We will 

have some more questions about specifics. We will hear from all 

the witnesses first. 

Let’s go to Mr. Gelber. He is the Deputy Commissioner of Public 

Buildings Service at GSA. Welcome. You are recognized. 

STATEMENT OF MICHAEL GELBER 

Mr. GELBER. Good morning, Chairman Mica, Ranking Member 

Connolly, Congressman Meadows. My name is Michael Gelber and 

I am the Deputy Commissioner of GSA’s Public buildings Service. 

GSA’s mission is to deliver the best value in real estate to Government and the American people. To meet this mission, GSA is 

pursuing innovative real property proposals that will increase 

space utilization, reduce costs, and deliver better space to partner 

Federal agencies. 

Additionally, as part of our efforts to serve our Federal partners, 

we are working with OMB to improve the Federal Government’s inventory system of real property, as well as assisting agencies to 

dispose of their unneeded assets. 

GSA is one of more than two dozen major landholding agencies 

in the Federal Government. Of the more than 870,000 buildings 

and structured reported by agencies in fiscal year 2013, GSA manages just 9,002. This number accounts for approximately 427 million of the 3.3 billion square feet of space under the Government’s 

control, or slightly less than 13 percent. 

GSA works to provide space to partner Federal agencies at the 

best possible value. We do that in part by helping agencies to better understand how proper planning, use of shared space, and new 

workspace arrangements can help them to effectively fulfill their 

mission while improving our bottom line. For example, Congress 

provided $70 million in fiscal year 2014 for GSA consolidation 

projects. Using these funds, GSA is executing 19 projects in 13 

States that will save the Federal agencies $17 million in rent payments annually and reduce the Federal footprint by 507,000 square 

feet. In fiscal year 2015, the Administration is requesting $100 million in support of these worthwhile and cost-effective consolidation 

efforts. 

Additionally, GSA is using new tools to leverage the equity of 

underperforming buildings that are in our inventory to get new and 

highly efficient ones. We currently are pursuing several real property exchanges that stand to provide considerable savings to the 

taxpayer. 

We are also using tools to redevelop properties that no longer 

serve the Government’s needs. With direction from Congress, GSA 

used its authority under Section 111 of the National Historic Preservation Act, a project Congressman Mica referenced, to out-lease 

the Old Post Office in Washington, D.C. We reached an agreement 

with a private sector partner to restore this 114-year-old building 

with $200 million in private sector capital. This significant investment will convert the Old Post Office into a mixed-use development 

that will serve the local community and preserve the historic facility. 

15 

GSA also helps the Federal Government in the management of 

real property by helping to aggregate data to better understand the 

Federal inventory. In concert with OMB and the Federal Real 

Property Council, GSA manages the Federal Real Property Profile, 

or FRPP. The FRPP is a database that provides common information on all of the Government’s assets. The data in the FRPP is an 

annual report, so the data is a snapshot taken at the end of each 

fiscal year. This means it can be a useful tool for inventory, but is 

not designed to be an asset management system. Each individual 

agency is responsible for reporting information into the FRPP. 

Since the database’s creation, GSA has worked to improve it by enhancing its technological capability, clarifying terminology, and 

meeting with agencies to help them better understand the technology and reporting requirements. 

Additionally, with our Government-wide disposal authority, GSA 

has been working to assist agencies in expeditiously disposing of 

their unneeded assets. In fiscal year 2013, GSA sold or transferred 

213 facilities across the Country, generating over $97 million in 

sales. So far, in fiscal year 2014, GSA has sold or transferred an 

additional 223 facilities across the Country, generating close to $30 

million in sales. 

As the Government Accountability Office has noted, there are 

still a number of longstanding challenges to getting agencies to better utilize their current inventory and dispose of their unneeded assets. Among our challenges, these include the up-front costs of disposals and the competing stakeholder interests that can often slow 

down the process. The Administration is working diligently to overcome these hurdles. 

GSA is committed to carrying out its mission of delivering the 

best value in real estate to the Government and the American people. We are continuing our work to aggressively manage our own 

assets, while also pursuing innovative new processes to better utilize our inventory. 

Additionally, we are using our Government-wide leverage in 

partnership with the Office of Management and Budget to better 

serve our Federal partners by improving our data collection practices, assisting them with ideas for better space utilization, and disposing of their unneeded assets. These efforts will support the Administration’s ongoing initiatives to promote efficient Federal 

spending. 

Thank you for the opportunity to appear here today. I am happy 

to answer any questions you may have. 

[Prepared statement of Mr. Gelber follows:] 

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Mr. MEADOWS. [Presiding.] Thank you, Mr .Gelber 

Now we go to the future 11th Congressional constituent of Virginia, Mr. Wise. 

STATEMENT OF DAVID J. WISE 

Mr. WISE. Thank you, Mr. Meadows. 

Mr. Connolly, I can only aspire to be in the 11th District. But 

we do make great use of the Lorton Art Center and Occoquan Park 

almost every weekend, so we are almost de jure or de facto members. 

Chairman Mica, Ranking Member Connolly, Mr. Meadows, I am 

pleased to be here today to discuss Federal real property management. 

The Federal Government’s real property portfolio comprises approximately 900,000 buildings and structures, and is worth billions 

of dollars. Federal real property management has been on our high 

risk list since 2003 due to unneeded and underutilized facilities, 

over-reliance on leasing, security challenges, and unreliable data. 

In 2004, the President established the Federal Real Property 

Council and required it to work with GSA to establish and maintain a single comprehensive real property database. The FRPC created the Federal Real Property Profile to meet this requirement 

and began data collection in 2005. 

My statement today summarizes our recent work on, one, excess 

and underutilized property; two, structures; three, maintenance 

and repair backlogs; and, four, cost-savings estimates. 

Federal excess and underutilized property is an ongoing challenge facing the Government, due in part to unreliable data. In 

June 2012, we reported that the FRPC did not ensure that key 

data elements were defined and reported consistently and accurately, suggesting that the FRPP is not a useful decision-making 

tool. Other challenges include the high cost of property disposal 

and legal requirements prior to disposal, which Mr. Mica referred 

to earlier. 

In our report, we recommended that OMB develop a national 

strategy for managing Federal excess and underutilized property. 

OMB, at the time, did not directly state whether it agreed or disagreed with our recommendation, but up to now we have not seen 

a comprehensive national strategy. We also recommended that 

GSA and the FRPC take action to improve the FRPP. GSA officials 

stated that they intend to improve the FRPP and have developed 

an action plan. We are in the process of evaluating these actions 

as part of our 2015 high risk update, which will come out approximately next February. 

The Federal Government manages a wide variety of structures 

which represent over half of the Federal Government’s real property assets, including roads and parking structures, utility systems, 

monuments, and radio towers. In January 2014, we reported that 

incorrect and inconsistent data on structures limit the value of the 

FRPP. We concluded that the agencies we reviewed should improve 

their data quality in order to document performance and support 

decision-making. We also found that, even if this data were more 

accurate, there is low demand for this information, creating few incentives to actually improve the data reliability. 

22 

We recommended to OMB and GSA that they improve data reliability and assess the feasibility of limiting the data collected on 

structures submitted to the FRPP. OMB and GSA agreed with the 

recommendations and we will continue to monitor their implementation. 

Regarding deferred maintenance and repair needs, in a 2014 report, we found that selected civilian agencies followed most leading 

practices in managing their facility maintenance and repair backlogs except for transparent reporting about amounts agencies are 

spending to maintain their assets and manage the backlogs. The 

agencies reviewed reported fiscal year 2012 deferred maintenance 

and repair backlog estimates that ranged anywhere from about $1 

billion to $20 billion. However, agencies do not share a common 

definition of deferred maintenance, resulting in dissimilar backlog 

estimates. Thus, estimates across agencies are really not comparable. 

We recommended that OMB, in collaboration with the agencies, 

collect and report information on agencies’ costs for annual maintenance and repair, and funding spent to manage their existing backlogs. OMB agreed with our recommendation and we will also continue to monitor progress on that. 

Regarding cost savings estimates, in June 2010, the President directed Federal agencies to achieve $3 billion in real property cost 

savings by the end of fiscal year 2012 through a number of methods, including disposal of excess property, energy efficiency improvements, and space consolidation efforts. Agencies reported real 

property cost savings of about $3.8 billion across these categories. 

Our report in October 2013 found that space management savings accounted for about 70 percent of the savings claimed by the 

agencies we reviewed and that they primarily emanated from activities that were planned or underway at the time the presidential 

memorandum was issued. We also found that OMB did not require 

agencies to provide detailed documentation of their reported savings on Performance.gov., limiting transparency. OMB guidance 

was also not clear on the types of savings that could be reported, 

particularly because the term cost-savings itself was not clearly defined. Some agencies did not deduct costs associated with disposals, 

some did; some reported savings outside the time frame of the 

memorandum. 

Accordingly, we recommended that OMB establish clear and specific standards to help ensure reliability and transparency in the 

reporting of future real property cost-savings. OMB generally 

agreed with the recommendations and we will also be evaluating 

its actions as part of the 2015 high risk update. 

Mr. Chairman, sustained progress is needed to address the challenges that make Federal real property management high risk. We 

will continue to monitor agencies’ efforts to implement our recommendations, which we believe are critical to address these challenges. This concludes my prepared statement, and I would be 

happy to answer any questions from the subcommittee. 

[Prepared statement of Mr. Wise follows:] 

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Mr. MICA. [Presiding.] Thank you. 

We will go next to Mr. Sullivan, who is Director of the Office of 

Enterprise Management at the Department of Veterans Affairs. 

Welcome, and you are recognized. 

STATEMENT OF JAMES M. SULLIVAN 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Good morning, Chairman Mica, Ranking Member 

Connolly, and Congressman Meadows. Thank you for the opportunity to appear today to discuss the Department of Veterans Affairs management of its real property portfolio, in particular, our 

ongoing efforts to reduce or eliminate unneeded or vacant property. 

Today I would like to highlight the success VA has had in 

repurposing and disposing of assets, especially where these assets 

have resulted in housing for returning war veterans and their families. 

Before I begin, I must emphasize that our primary mission is to 

provide care for the benefit of veterans. Veterans and our veteran 

stakeholders view VA’s real property assets as theirs, and they 

have a very strong emotional tie to those assets. 

VA is the owner of one of the largest health care related real estate portfolios in the Nation. VA manages over 174 million square 

feet, comprising 151 million owned and 23 million leased. VA has 

developed a highly structured data-driven methodology to assess 

proposed infrastructure projects. The Department’s Strategic Capital Investment Process, better known as SCIP, involves a systematic evaluation of all proposed capital investments based on how 

well they address performance gaps, including whether those gaps 

address disposal of unneeded assets. 

Through SCIP, we directly address the challenges posed by an 

aging infrastructure with a range of solutions, including reuse, 

repurposing, and disposal of assets. VA, through this process, has 

identified a need of approximately $50 billion in capital investments over the next 10 years to close these critical performance 

gaps. 

VA has made significant progress in efforts to reduce vacant and 

underutilized building footprint, and has aggressively pursued 

reuse and disposal strategies. This has resulted in a 28 percent reduction in vacant space and a 37 percent reduction in underutilized 

space since 2008. 

So where do we stand today at VA? As of the end of fiscal year 

2013, VA has approximately 242 vacant buildings, accounting for 

approximately 4 million square feet, or approximately 2 percent of 

our overall portfolio. VA has plans, which have been submitted to 

Congress, to dispose or reuse of 131 buildings, or 2.8 million square 

feet, by 2018, leaving a balance of 111 buildings, or 1.4 million 

square feet vacant. This represents .8 percent of our total square 

footage vacant at the end of that period. Those remaining structures, most of them are historic in nature, present real challenges 

as we try to dispose or repurpose those assets. 

VA continues to pursue disposal consolidation and enhanced use 

lease opportunities to support our mission and operation to shed 

underutilized assets and improve efficiency. To date, approximately 

5.1 million square feet has been out-leased in public-private partnerships through the EUL process. This has, in part, resulted in 

36 

1700 operational family units or individual units for use for homeless veteran housing. 

VA’s EUL program is an innovative real property asset management tool which VA uses to deal with its vacant and underutilized 

assets. It allows VA to out-lease such assets to private and public 

sector entities for reuse and repurposing for housing at little or no 

long-term carrying cost to the Federal Government. Since the original EU legislation passed in the early 1990s, more than 100 

projects have been awarded. An example of where VA has significant success with the EULs has been in Dayton, Ohio, at its medical center. VA repurposed four vacant buildings, at 130,000 square 

feet, for a homeless center, transitional housing for veterans, and 

child development center. Two additional projects are currently in 

the developmental phase at Dayton. 

In December 2011, VA’s EUL authority expired. It was later reauthorized, but with a very limited focus, only on housing projects. 

While some EULs can be pursued using this authority, a broader 

scope is needed to repurpose our assets that are not suitable for 

supportive housing. VA submitted a request in February 2014 to 

broaden this legislation to allow for greater repurposing of opportunities. In addition to expanded EUL authority, VA welcomes additional tools similar to the proposed CPRA legislation which would 

provide further opportunities for disposal of our most challenging 

assets. VA would also benefit from legislation that would streamline the disposal process, making it more consistent and easily repeatable. 

To summarize, VA has a complex real estate portfolio and seeks 

to maintain the optimal mix of investments needed to care for our 

Nation’s veterans. VA welcomes new or expanded tools to address 

its most challenging assets and, where possible, cut waste and reduce cost to the taxpayer. 

I appreciate the opportunity to be here this morning, Mr. Chairman, and happy to answer any of your questions. 

[Prepared statement of Mr. Sullivan follows:] 

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Mr. MICA. Thank you, and we will get right into questions. 

First, I think Mr. Connolly and I, as we heard Mr. Mader’s testimony from OMB, you have only been there a couple of weeks or 

months, what is it? 

Mr. MADER. Less than eight weeks, sir. 

Mr. MICA. Okay, great. But your testimony was music to our ears 

with some of the things that you have targeted, because we have 

been trying to move these assets for some time. I had the copy of 

this report, Sitting on Our Assets: The Federal Government, Misuse of Taxpayer-Owned Assets, which I was telling Mr. Connolly I 

produced when we were in the minority in 2010 detailing a bunch 

of examples. One was the Old Post Office. This is 2014, so it has 

taken us four years. We didn’t want to put this just on the shelf, 

we wanted to actually have some things happen. But through that 

process we have learned that there are impediments, some of them 

oftentimes we realize. 

Now, do all of you own property? All of you own property? 

Mr. MADER. Yes, sir. 

Mr. GELBER. No, sir. 

Mr. MICA. You don’t own any property? But most of you own 

property. How many people in the audience own property? Raise 

your hand. 

How many of you would give that property to the Federal Government to manage? 

Okay, now, I see a lot of humor, laughing. Very few people would 

because they aren’t very good or adept at it. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. I thought I saw Mark Meadows raise his hand 

on that one. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. MICA. But he is not going to give it to the Federal Government. 

One of the things I tried to do with one of the predecessors to 

Mr. Wise, I guess, or working with her, was it Robayne, Robyn, the 

former buildings commissioner? Mr. Gelber? 

Mr. GELBER. Yes, that would be Dorothy Robyn. She was the 

former Commissioner of the Public Buildings Service. 

Mr. MICA. Well, she actually cooperated and we had a hearing 

and talked about let’s get some people who know how to dispose 

of assets. There are people who do that in the private sector every 

day in real estate for big corporations and others. They put out this 

RFP for blanket purchase agreement for real property sales. I got 

pretty excited about it. She came and testified. The day she testified, she didn’t know anything about what they had done, but she 

had done it, which was kind of interesting. 

But, okay, so I met with those folks that they selected, that you 

all selected, twice now, and I almost fell off of my chair. They have 

been selected for some time. I asked them, well, how many properties have you disposed of? It is just a handful. I think $200,000 

worth of, and the fees were almost as much. In fact, we held a little 

roundtable recently in this room to catch up where they are. We 

put in place some people who can dispose of property and very little has been disposed. 

Are you aware of that, Mr. Gelber? 

45 

Mr. GELBER. I am aware of the contract. It is a new contract for 

us and we are looking to use it more frequently. 

Mr. MICA. I mean, how about some time? I mean, it is almost a 

joke. We have people who do this, have done it. Some of them did 

it when we had the savings and loan fiasco, it was RTI, or whatever it was, the acronym for it. But they have talent and they are 

available. You all have put this out and they have only done a 

handful of properties, I think a couple of residences, others. So that 

didn’t go as far as we would like it to go. 

Then we also learned some constraints, Mr. Mader. They kept 

bringing up OMB, OMB. Well, some of the things that you announced today that you would like to do, you have to streamline 

the process. It has to be streamlined, because they say it takes so 

long the way you score some things. The Cohen building down the 

street has a million square feet. There have been several companies that have proposed coming and renovating it. We don’t have 

the money for renovation. That is a million square feet; it would 

be a billion dollars probably for us to renovate it. But there is private capital that will do that, and you can amortize that cost. They 

will come in, renovate it, lease it back, and then you get ownership 

after 30 years, or whatever you agree on. 

Is that the kind of deal you think you could do? 

Mr. MADER. Mr. Chairman, I don’t want to speak for GSA in this 

particular case. 

Mr. MICA. But in streamlining the process—— 

Mr. MADER. We are looking for more creative ways to bundle 

some of these assets. 

Mr. MICA. The other thing, the folks that you retained said one 

of the problems is the way this is scored by OMB, that you want 

money up front on some of these properties or the value of that 

property is all, saying, going to a lease from ownership; you want 

to score that at the beginning. Is that the way you do it now? 

Mr. MADER. I believe so, yes. 

Mr. MICA. And that is an impediment to getting it done. There 

should be some relief, particularly if you can realize that asset is 

back in the Federal domain later on. 

Now, they have gone around that by doing some leases. Actually, 

I heard one fairly clever way, and I am asking you to help find 

these ways, not just to be clever, but to be successful. Some of the 

properties that we do have have questions about environmental 

cleanup and they have said they have been able to carve some of 

that out, lease properties to make the deal happen. Are you in 

favor of that from an OMB standpoint, sir? 

Mr. MADER. Mr. Chairman, I think from an OMB perspective I 

think actually you cited a couple of good examples that GSA has 

done quite recently, the Old Post Office, the power plant in Georgetown, and now the discussion that is underway with regard to the 

FBI building. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. We will just see how well they do with that. 

Mr. MICA. But, again, sometimes OMB is cited as the impediment. I am hammering them to get rid of the properties. I am hammering them to find creative ways. They come back and sit with 

me and say OMB, the process goes on and on; they won’t let you 

do this. Some of it may require changes in legislation. If you see, 

46 

sir, or you could provide the committee to any legislative fixes you 

may need to tweak. I know we have the McKinney Act and other 

things that have been put in historically that also impede the process; well intended, but they are not practical for this day and age. 

But if you could come back to us with any legislative impediments 

you see. 

The same for you, Mr. Gelber, from GSA, because GSA cites the 

same thing. 

I will give GSA some credit. Since we have been hammering 

them, they have become a little bit more adept. But sometimes 

when they even institute their own tools and get the professionals, 

they have gone out and gotten these folks. These folks are sitting 

on their hands and then I talk to them and they say, well, we have 

impediments with GSA or finding our way in streamlining the 

process. Because they can get rid of that property. They can get the 

best deal for the taxpayer, and that is what we are trying to do in 

this. 

Veterans Administration, I thank you today. I don’t know if you 

knew that they were going to approve my property that has been 

waiting for two years on. The timing was excellent. Tell them all 

back there I appreciate it. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Thank you. 

Mr. MICA. Timing is everything in this business. But I was absolutely stunned to get the list. I mean, your one smaller agency, 

they are huge. DOD is mammoth; the Post Office is mammoth. 

There are many. But we have 280-some properties worth more 

than $2 billion. We need to get those on the market, get them utilized, look at whatever we can do with those assets. You have 

cleared the deck for one in my district, which I am most grateful 

for, but, again, this week we have a bill, what, $17 billion, we have 

veterans medical care needs that aren’t being met, we have veterans sleeping in parks and on benches, and I have a list that goes 

on and on, pages of vacant properties. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Yes, sir. We have repurposed more than 5 million 

square feet to provide housing for homeless veterans with many of 

those properties. The list that you have displayed in the room are 

some of those that are currently in process. For example, in Iowa, 

the ones you have listed are a property which we have marketed 

three times for development or for sale, and there were no takers 

on the property. Many of our properties aren’t only historic, but 

have little or relative value. The values listed on that chart are 

what the replacement value would be if we rebuilt that square footage ourselves, it is not the market value. So we would be happy 

to work with your staff and go through each one of those. 

Mr. MICA. Well, Iowa was one example. I saw a huge number in 

Massachusetts, New York. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. In New York as well. 

Mr. MICA. A lot of the west belt States do have vacant medical 

facilities or properties that have not been disposed, and, again, I 

think we need to look at everything we can to either put them into 

performing assets, contracting with folks to utilize the assets. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Yes. 

Mr. MICA. I have a property now that I don’t think VA should 

occupy with VA employees. There are contractors who can run 

47 

medical facilities, domiciliary care and others that we can contract 

with. And you are going to have additional funds from Congress to 

act. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Correct. 

Mr. MICA. So you are telling me, Mr. Sullivan, you are going to 

be doing that? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Yes, we are, and we would be happy to provide 

the data on all of those sites. Most of those are all underway in 

terms of either demolishing the building or going out for enhanced 

use lease program. A couple of them are also congressionally director transfers; they are showing up as inactive because they are in 

process. 

Mr. MICA. This is a big thing, too. Now, OMB dragged their feet 

on giving us the list. We think the list is not totally up to date; 

it is not complete and it may be inaccurate in some ways. 

But the other problem we have, Mr. Mader, with the agencies, 

every agency is a different breed of cat, and they should keep an 

up-to-date list. That should be a budget requirement. One, an upto-date list. Then there should be some plan for disposal of the 

properties. I would love to take you—I don’t know if Mr. Connolly 

went up. We took some up to agricultural research centers, there 

are 300, I am sorry, 200 in the United States. We went up to one 

in Maryland, 7,000 acres, the size of the City of Key West; 600 or 

700 buildings, half of them empty. This is some of the most valuable real estate in the United States of America. 

Now, some of it may be congressional impediments, but that 

needs to be turned around. But we asked if they had a plan, Department of Agriculture, to dispose of some of these properties or 

to turn the asset from non-performing to performing. No. 

So OMB is missing the boat. You have to hammer these folks. 

You can’t do everything, but you can get accurate information and 

data; you can monitor, require; you can speed up the process. But 

also you can require that they have some financial responsibility in 

a plan to move forward in an appropriate manner to either dispose 

of these properties or get them utilized, or some game plan. There 

is a game plan. And I have talked about Ag and we have talked 

about Veterans. DOD is mind-boggling in size and scope. So maybe 

out of this hearing we could get you to also come back and let us 

know what you are doing in regard to that. 

Would you like to comment, Mr. Mader? 

Mr. MADER. Yes, I would, Mr. Chairman. First, on the issue of 

definitions, we worked really hard in the last two years in getting 

clarification as to what these terms mean. We think that the accuracy of that database is improving. Is it perfect? Absolutely not. 

I think the other point with regard to the database, and Mr. 

Gelber made this comment, when that was created in 2005, it was 

created as a very static, once-a-year data collection, and it was 

really just intended to be an inventory. And what we are looking 

to do with GSA is to repurpose that so that we can actually use 

it as a management tool to look at properties in a real time basis 

so that we can actually start bundling or looking at ways to better 

improve the process. 

With regard to getting agencies’ attention, I can tell you that in 

the last four weeks I, along with the GSA administrator and the 

48 

deputy director for management at OMB, have visited with about 

eight cabinet level departments, either with the deputy secretaries 

or with very senior officials, as part of our overall review of administrative costs. One of the key elements in those discussions is their 

management of real property. 

So, Mr. Chairman, I want to assure you and the other members 

that this has gotten everybody’s attention, and people recognize 

that with shrinking budgets, that we really need to dispose of and 

better utilize what we have, because, as you said in your opening 

comment, every dollar that goes to unused property or underutilized property is a dollar not spent on the mission. 

Mr. MICA. Thank you. 

Let me yield to our ranking member, Mr. Connolly, 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And I echo the chairman’s remarks, Mr. Mader. I think your testimony was very welcome and I am glad to hear that we are looking at a more rigorous rubric of trying to get our arms around this. 

This is not, you know, nuclear physics; this is a manageable, it is 

big, but a manageable problem. Now, we are a microset, but I was 

the chairman of Fairfax County. We have thousands of properties 

with tens of thousands of acres. We can tell you at any given moment exactly how many pieces of property we own, exactly how 

many schools, how much square footage under roof, how many 

acres, whether it is our park system or our public works or whatever it may. And it seems to me we can’t be satisfied until the Federal Government has an accurate set of metrics that is enforced 

with every agency. We can’t have sort of two sets of books. 

And I know you come from the same world I do, the consulting 

world, and you would never advise a client that it is okay to sort 

of have one division have one set of numbers about its assets and 

the company at large reporting to its corporate board another set. 

They have to be reconciled and they have to be accurate. So I very 

much welcome your three-pronged plan and hope for the best in 

terms of your success in getting agency cooperation. 

The chairman also mentioned the RTC after the savings and loan 

crisis. I remember that very well. The Federal Government took 

possession of all kinds of assets. By the way, we actually owned a 

brothel in Nevada for a little while, and apparently, however, we 

disposed of it. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Better there than Virginia, right? 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Absolutely. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Timing is everything. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Timing is everything. 

At one point, the Federal Government, because of that, not the 

brothel, but owning all these assets of failed S&Ls, we were the 

largest landowner on the planet. Nobody owned more property than 

the Federal Government at that point. And I would not put the 

RTC model in front of us here, because essentially what they did 

was just bundled properties sort of irrespective of their valuation 

and auctioned them off, and a lot of people were able to take advantage of that and become very wealthy in the process. Not the 

Federal Government. The ethos seemed to be let’s dispose of it as 

quickly as we can. I don’t want us to do that. I want this process 

to be a thoughtful process. 

49 

The other thing I would note is, from my own experience actually 

doing it, actually taking possession of a Federal property, and I go 

back to Fairfax County in Lorton, and Mr. Wise has been there, 

and I assume you have been there probably too, Mr. Sullivan. Our 

local government wanted to preserve the land; we didn’t want to 

develop it. That was critical. Now, if we accept a premise that says, 

no, it has to be the highest and best use of the land, you are condemning land to commercial development; and that may not fit in 

with the local comprehensive plan at all, nor may it be appropriate. 

Had we gone with that ethos in the Lorton site, which is a little 

over 3,000 acres total, the southern part of our county would have 

gone tilt, because we simply could not handle the congestion, the 

traffic that would have been generated from commercial development. So we wanted to make sure that that was preserved land; 

open space, passive and recreational space, an arts center, reusing 

the buildings, the historical buildings. 

So we finally negotiated that deal with the Federal Government 

and I think it was a win-win. The Federal Government didn’t maximize profit, but 300 buildings, some of them historic, now transferred to the responsibility of the locality, and we were able to preserve 3,000 acres for the community, including a new golf course, 

which is one of the best municipal golf courses in the Country, ball 

parks, an arts center, and the southern part of the county didn’t 

go tilt. 

So I hope as we approach the issue of what do we do with excess 

property once we know how much we have, that we do it in a 

thoughtful manner that takes into account the desires, needs, and 

plans of the locality in which they are located. Because if the heavy 

hand of the Federal Government comes down and just says no, we 

are going to maximize our benefit irrespective of your plans, then 

I think we are going to get a blowback that we deserve. So I hope 

we will do this, and I commend it to you, Mr. Mader, as you think 

about it in OMB guidelines, in a thoughtful way that absolutely includes our local partners. 

Mr. Wise, in previous hearings you have told us that there are 

many Government surplus properties that are shockingly listed as 

being in perfect or near perfect condition in our Federal real property database, when in fact they are either abandoned or dilapidated. Can you tell us what accounts for the difference between the 

buildings’ appearance and the description in that database? 

Mr. WISE. Congressman Connolly, the difference really is accounted for, it is not just if something is in good shape, but instead 

it is in bad shape or vice versa. This gets back to our 2012 report 

that I alluded to in the first part of my statement, in which case 

we found generally that the FRPP data, which were kind of all over 

the map, we found underutilized properties were full and full properties that were underutilized, vice versa. It was just anything and 

everything you could imagine in 23 of the 26 locations we went to, 

which led us to the conclusion, after looking at so many different 

properties, I think it accumulated to be about 180 or 190 different 

buildings, that there is a problem here; and it may have many 

sources. 

I think Mr. Mica and Mr. Meadows also talked about this in 

their statements, that you have a lot of different definitions out 

50 

there. And I think after having done a number of these engagements, the thing that sticks most in my mind is kind of the lack 

of clear definition, the lack of consistency. You take, for example, 

the Department of Interior, the Bureau of Land Reclamation, or 

the National Parks Service. They interpret different kinds of property in different ways; they define them differently, they account 

for them somewhat differently. Because many of these agencies, at 

one time, were independent, and they were then brought under the 

roof of the DOI. And the same thing can be true for many other 

departments. 

So, as a result, and OMB, when we met with OMB staff, have 

told us, well, they left some of this up to the discretion of the individual agencies because they didn’t want to be too prescriptive. 

And I can understand that, but what has resulted from that is 

clearly a lack of consistency and clear definition, and that has been 

kind of the theme that permeates throughout a lot of the real property engagements that we have done over the past several years, 

at least, under my watch. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. I think, Mr. Chairman, this is really a very significant point Mr. Wise raises here, because the executive order authorizing GSA to create the FRPP in the previous administration, 

the Bush Administration, Executive Order 13327, said that creating the FRPP was intended to promote the efficient and economical use of America’s real property assets. It specifically charged 

GSA, Mr. Gelber, ‘‘The Administrator of GSA, in consultation with 

the Federal Real Property Council, shall establish and maintain a 

single comprehensive and descriptive database of all real property 

under the custody and control of all executive branch agencies except when otherwise required for reasons of national security. The 

Administrator shall collect from each executive branch agency such 

descriptive information, except for classified information, as the 

Administrator considers will best describe the nature, use, and extent of real property holdings of the Federal Government.’’ 

Now, here we are 10 years later and, based on Mr. Wise’s and 

GAO’s analysis, senior real property officers in many agencies don’t 

rely on the FRPP at all because it is so inaccurate. I mean, not 

only inaccurate, but, as Mr. Wise said, in some cases actually the 

opposite of what is asserted is true. With the best of intention in 

trying to have a unified approach to this subject, the FRPP is not 

an accurate document, nor one that many people would rely on, 

frankly, to try to get a picture of what we are dealing with in terms 

of our holdings and excess property or underutilized property that 

we want to address. 

Could you address what GSA is doing about that? Because I 

think, with the best of intentions, 10 years later, on its face, the 

FRPP has failed. 

Mr. GELBER. GSA fully acknowledges that the FRPP needs to improve and that the definitions of the document, the definitions 

within the database need to be revised and tightened up so that 

when various individuals, various agencies are reviewing the database, they are inputting the information from a uniform standard. 

We are working with the Federal Real Property Council, we are 

working with the Office of Management and Budget to ensure that 

that occurs. My sense is agencies now are realizing that this tool 

51 

is truly a useful tool if used appropriately and everybody uses it 

consistently, and through the Federal Real Property Council GSA 

is committed to continuing to improve the work. We are very 

thankful for GAO’s reports that point out where we also need to 

improve our performance in this area. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. What I just heard you say was certainly noble, 

but aspirational, frankly. I mean, how are you going to enforce, 

what tools do you have to enforce, accurate reporting, so that when 

a building is described, that in fact is accurate? 

Mr. GELBER. Our tool, if you will, is the Federal Real Property 

Council, which GSA sits on, along with the Office of Management 

and Budget and the other 23 or 24 real estate holding Federal 

agencies, where we come together, develop a shared sense of what 

a definition should be, and then hold each other, in effect, accountable for completing the database accurately. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Well, presumably, that was the intent with the 

executive order issued in 2004. 

Mr. GELBER. That is correct, and we are working to comply with 

that order and improve our performance in that area. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Mr. Mader, if OMB is to make enlightened and 

well informed decisions, we have a situation where we don’t even 

know what the inventory is, because agencies don’t have a uniform 

way of, as you pointed out, metrics; exactly what are your holdings, 

exactly where are they located, exactly what is the square footage, 

and exactly what is the purpose today and in the future, and how 

would you categorize that property in terms of essential, all the 

way to excess we can dispose of. And now, secondly, even describing the condition of those properties, which is codified by the executive order still in place, it is so inaccurate as to be not a useful tool. 

Mr. MADER. Congressman, one of the motivations for my taking 

this position actually was because of the portfolio, including real 

property management. I guess there is an old adage of what gets 

done gets measured; and I think in this particular case what we 

need to do, and I think in fairness to GSA, they are an enabler of 

the OMB policy, and I think OMB needs to take a much more aggressive stance with the landholding agencies. And as I mentioned, 

in the last couple of weeks the conversations that have gone on 

now at very senior levels of departments with regard to how do we 

better leverage these assets, because, as we all know, budgets are 

not getting larger. And what I have seen in these meetings is a 

real commitment to making this program work going forward. And, 

again, I think it is a partnership between OMB and GSA, as well 

as the Real Property Council. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. One thing I might commend to you, just as a 

thought, maybe what we need is a pilot program where we target 

either a geographic area or a particular agency and we say, okay, 

these 100 properties, or whatever it is, we are going to try to make 

sure we have an accurate database, we have metrics we all agree 

on, and we are going to have a strategy for what we keep, what 

we upgrade, what we dispose of, etcetera; and if it is a model, then 

it can go Federal-wide. 

But the idea that we are going to encompass 900,000 buildings 

with tens of millions of square feet and get it all right anytime 

soon is probably, again, a noble goal, but one that we are going to 

52 

fail on again; and it seems to me we have to find a different way 

of approaching this that is more efficacious. And I commend the 

thought to you or there may be another approach, of course, but 

we have to find a way of getting—this is a manageable problem. 

And I know you understand because you come from the consulting 

world where everyone is above average. 

At any rate, my final point would be, Mr. Chairman, sometimes 

we ourselves, up here in Congress, can be contributing to the problem, because I am sure it is a rare event, but when it is a property 

in a particular congressional district, we may or may not be cooperative in trying to do the rational thing. 

Mr. MEADOWS. I am shocked. I am shocked. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. I know. No one here, but Mr. Gelber, I think, referenced the FBI building. Well, you know, there is a competition 

right now between Maryland and Virginia, and it will be very interesting to see what GSA decides to do in that adjudication. And 

there is a lot of political pressure and, of course, we are hopeful 

that we will resist political pressure and make a rational decision 

based on the merits. That is the Virginia position and we are sticking to it. 

But it puts GSA certainly under a lot of pressure because you 

have two State delegations very much aware of the issue and 

weighing in on it unabashedly. So sometimes we ourselves have to 

show some discipline if we are going to help OMB and the various 

agencies try to get their arms around this problem. 

Again, Mr. Chairman, I thank you so much for your leadership. 

I think this is an issue that can definitely bring us together in a 

bipartisan basis, and I look forward to working with you on a continuous basis. 

Mr. MICA. And save the taxpayers a lot of money. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. I am going to run downstairs to the Ex-Im Bank 

hearing. 

Mr. MICA. Thank you, Mr. Connolly. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you all for being here. 

Mr. MICA. Mr. Meadows, you are recognized. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

And thank each one of you for your testimony. 

Mr. Mader, I look forward to your leadership. You are going to 

get a free pass from me today, because anybody who is new deserves some time. I feel like I am a good judge of character. I believe that you are a man who means what you say, so the next 

hearing that we have, and I assume that there will be excess inventory next year, but the next time I am hopeful that we don’t see 

guidance and memos and great plans. I hope we see execution. So 

we are going to hold you to that standard, if that is okay with you. 

Mr. MADER. Yes, sir. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Mr. Gelber, do you agree with the $6.5 billion figure of excess property that has been bantered around here today? 

Is that high, low? 

Mr. GELBER. That represents the entire Federal inventory, so I 

would not have a way to verify that at this point. I have no reason 

to doubt that is incorrect, though. 

Mr. MEADOWS. All right. So your inventory that you manage, Mr. 

Gelber, is how many billions? 

53 

Mr. GELBER. We have around 9,000 buildings, I don’t have a strict figure. I am thinking about $100 million, these are about the 

1,000 buildings that GSA owns. 

Mr. MEADOWS. So 1,000 buildings that you own for $100 million. 

Mr. GELBER. And, again, the valuation of these buildings is always difficult. Replacement value is one number; fair market value 

is—— 

Mr. MEADOWS. So you are only in control of $100 million worth. 

Mr. GELBER. Again, that number may not be entirely accurate, 

but I think it is fair to say that we control 1,000 properties across 

the Country. 

Mr. MEADOWS. But if we have $6.5 billion, you are chump change 

when it comes to managing inventory. 

Mr. GELBER. We represent about 13 percent of the Federal Government’s real property holdings. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Well, I don’t see how those numbers work, because $100 million is not even 13 percent of $6.5 billion. 

Mr. GELBER. Again, the $100 million is just a rough estimate. I 

would be happy to provide you a more accurate number. The numbers I am aware of is we control approximately 1,000 buildings. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Well, I am a numbers guy, so I guess what hap- pens is we start to look at if you have $100 million worth of inventory and you sold $30 million of it this year, according to your testimony, in 2014, is that correct? 

Mr. GELBER. Those properties were not—— 

Mr. MEADOWS. That is significant. That is one-third. I don’t think 

that you sold one-third of your inventory. 

Mr. GELBER. The properties that GSA sells, some of them are 

owned by GSA, some of them are controlled by other agencies and 

we sell on their behalf. 

Mr. MEADOWS. All right, so what you are saying is the $30 mil- lion that was in your report is part of the $6.5 billion. 

Mr. GELBER. That is correct, sir. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Okay. That brings me to my next point. Do you 

classify that as successful? 

Mr. GELBER. I think we could always do better at our jobs. I 

think we have clearly heard today that there are ways the Government can improve—— 

Mr. MEADOWS. So yes or no, successful or not? 

Mr. GELBER. I think I will say yes. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Okay. That is troubling, because at that rate, I 

did the math, that means that we will dispose of our excess property in 216 years; 216 years. So I won’t be around. You won’t be 

around. So that is successful in your mind? 

Mr. GELBER. Well, as I said, sir, we wish to improve in this area. 

I think across the Executive Branch, executive agencies are looking 

at their property—— 

Mr. MEADOWS. I know you want to improve, but what is success? 

I mean, what percentage of that 6.5 billion of excess? We are not 

even talking about the other. What is successful? 

Mr. GELBER. I would have no way to obtain that metric at this 

point. We respond to the agencies—— 

Mr. MEADOWS. I think therein is the problem. You know, I used 

to be in real estate. I got paid based on what I sold or what I didn’t 

54 

sell. So when we have a matrix that we don’t know what success 

is, it is very troubling, even with Mr. Mader that says, well, we are 

going to put that out there and it is part of their performance. I 

have looked at that. They don’t get compensated based on how successful they are, not even bonuses. I mean, it is part of their performance review, but there is no linear line in terms of bonuses. 

We give big bonuses to people that are successful and some that 

are not based on what is on the website. 

So how do we make sure that the compensation matches with 

performance? When you come in, if I were coming in, you were 

coming before me for a performance review, how do I say, Mr. 

Gelber, you did an outstanding job or you did a terrible job? How 

do we know? 

Mr. GELBER. I think the performance in this area should be a 

joint conversation in the Executive Branch at the beginning of a 

fiscal year to ascertain how many of the properties that we currently have declared as excess we should dispose of or resolve in 

the course of a fiscal year. 

Mr. MEADOWS. I agree. So out of $6.5 billion, what is success? 

Mr. GELBER. Again, that would be a conversation amongst the 

Federal Real Property Council, since the vast majority of those 

properties are not controlled by GSA. 

Mr. MEADOWS. All right. 

Mr. GELBER. I wouldn’t want to impose a success factor on my 

colleague and other agencies. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Well, and, see, there I think is the problem that 

we have in Congress, is who is in charge? I mean, we have four 

people. If I were to say who is in charge of excess properties and 

getting rid of them, which one of you would it be? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. [Remarks made off mic.] 

Mr. MEADOWS. Okay, all right. So, Mr. Sullivan, we can come to 

you and you said earlier that it was historical value for some of 

those buildings. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. It is replacement value. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Okay. But that really creates a real problem for 

you in terms of replacement value, wouldn’t you say, in terms of 

getting rid of a piece of property? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. It does. It is a challenge. But we have a plan that 

shows us trying to get rid, we have 4.2 million square feet of vacant square footage out there. Our four-year plan that we published in our budget is to get that down to 1.5 million by 2018. And 

I would measure if we hit 80 percent, 75 or 80 percent of that total, 

given all of numerous tools we could use that, some of that is 

deconstruction, demolition, sale, or out-leasing, long-term out-leasing to other entities to take it off our financial liability. 

Mr. MEADOWS. So how do we help you? And I mean this sincerely. How do we help you with regards to the replacement value 

model that is in place right now? Because if you have a huge, we 

would call it in my business a white elephant, so if you have this 

huge white elephant of a 2 million square foot building that functionally is obsolete, you are not going to get rid of it at replacement 

value or anywhere close to it, so it can sit there and sit there and 

sit there. So how do we help you, where you are not penalized for 

55 

getting rid of a nonperforming asset and OMB doesn’t hit you with 

their negative score, or whatever it may be? How do we do that? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. I think in our case, if we have our enhanced use 

legislation that is now restricted to just repurposing for housing, 

we have a proposal in Congress to expand that to be able to take 

those assets and receive other either cash consideration or other 

consideration. Enactment of that would help reduce our properties. 

Because at VA we have very few assets that have a high market 

value. Most of these, with the savings to the Government, will be 

not having the recurring dollars to have to maintain those. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Sure. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. So if we could just get rid of those properties either through long-term leases or sale, working with the local community, because we found that is the only way we get these to 

work, when we can get synergy of a win-win between the local veterans organizations, the local political structure at the local level, 

and here. When we can align those three things, those out-leases 

go like that, and the financing for them to do it. 

Mr. MEADOWS. So what you are saying is if you leased it for a 

dollar a year and they—— 

Mr. SULLIVAN. For 75 years. 

Mr. MEADOWS.—and they covered the maintenance, and you 

didn’t get penalized for that, you would be happy with it. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Yes. And if we could roll in the remediation cost 

into that deal—— 

Mr. MEADOWS. If we roll that in. He is negotiating. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. We roll that into the deal, we have done that in 

a few places, that is where you can get substantial savings to the 

Government. It won’t be a huge cash inflow, but it reduces the cash 

outflow. 

Mr. MEADOWS. All right. 

Mr. Mader, I am going to close with this. I think you see the 

problem that we have here, and you are one of the few that can 

help each one of these agencies accomplish what they need to accomplish, and the task is Herculean. But if you can work with 

these agencies to help them where we don’t have $6.5 billion 216 

years from now, that is what we need. Let’s get a plan. Let’s work 

the plan. And even if it doesn’t score well, we will leave scoring for 

another day. Even if it doesn’t score well from an OMB standpoint, 

let’s let Mr. Sullivan manage his assets and benefit from managing 

it, same with Mr. Gelber and Mr. Wise, and let’s move this stuff 

and get it performing. 

I am very reluctant. We are about to vote on $5 billion more for 

Mr. Sullivan to either lease or purchase buildings, and yet we have 

nonperforming assets around that he is having to spend millions of 

dollars every year. So let’s see if we can work together. 

I yield back, Mr. Chairman. I apologize, I have to run to another 

meeting. 

Mr. MICA. Thank you. We will be concluding shortly, but thank 

you, Mr. Meadows. 

Just a couple of final questions. First of all, for GSA, let me just 

ask this question. Mr. Gelber, have you met with these folks yet? 

Mr. GELBER. Members of the GSA staff have. I have not personally. 

56 

Mr. MICA. But you haven’t. 

Mr. GELBER. I have not personally. 

Mr. MICA. Okay. I need your pledge in the next 30 days to meet 

with these people. Sit down and just talk to them. You compiled 

a great set of experience who are capable of disposing properties, 

but you should sit down with them. This is from May 2013, and 

hear them out. And if you haven’t met with them, I will call you 

back either voluntarily or subpoena you, and we will come back to 

this room and meet with them, okay? I am trying to work with the 

agencies, give you the tools. You have the tools. The tools have not 

been used. 

And I heard some of the impediments, and some they referred to 

OMB. The gentleman from OMB is a breath of fresh air, at least 

in his testimony. Mr. Meadows says we will hold his feet to the 

fire, which we will too. But you have to have the ability to operate, 

and we want to hear if there is a problem. And you should also be 

meeting with OMB on these issues. So that is the first thing. 

The second thing, the Dire Courthouse. I have done two hearings 

down there. I did have a representative of the college. You know 

the story of that? 

Mr. GELBER. I am familiar with it, sir. 

Mr. MICA. The Dire Courthouse, empty for five, six years, gathering mold. After I did the first hearing in Miami at the empty 

courthouse, I got a letter from Dr. Padrone, president of the college 

who is across the street, as close as the next office building, not as 

far as the Capitol, but right across the street, saying we have been 

trying to get the property for four or five years and couldn’t get a 

response from GSA. I understand those negotiations are ongoing. 

We want that property, any of the issues resolved as soon as possible. The college can use it. It costs us over a million to maintain 

it, and there is millions in dollars now in mold remediation that 

is required by keeping it empty. 

All of these buildings require security, they require maintenance, 

they require a whole host of things that cost the taxpayers. I think 

the empty power thing was over a million a year. So, again, empty 

facilities may be empty, but they have a huge cost to taxpayers, not 

mentioning what we can do putting them in the positive column. 

Okay, then I also want an update. My staff hands me these 

notes. We did a hearing in an empty warehouse property not just 

blocks from here. I would like an update on the status of that. The 

whole community turned out, it was a huge turnout for a proposal 

to use that property. Still sitting vacant, to my knowledge. And 

then the cotton exchange, if you could also give me an update on 

that, one of the largest properties in the District of Columbia. You 

have say over it and I understand there is a plan, but that needs 

to go forward. So that project alone will be in excess of a billion 

dollars. But we have an empty cotton exchange building on a huge 

piece of property that goes from, I think, Independence all the way 

to the Expressway and then beyond. 

You want to answer for the record that you are going to respond 

on these? 

Mr. GELBER. Yes, I would be happy to do so, sir. 

Mr. MICA. Okay. 

57 

One of the things we are going to have to do is, again, we have 

sort of garbage in, garbage out, is get the lists up to date from 

agencies. But more than having a list up to date, I go back to Mr. 

Mader, a plan. It is impossible, and Mr. Connolly had spoken that 

maybe we could pick 100 properties, but I think we have to do it 

agency by agency. They have to have a plan first of an inventory, 

then a plan of action on disposal, and then by your helping to speed 

up the process or finding solutions. 

And we are part of the impediment. We have the McKinney Act. 

I found on the Maryland property agricultural research center that 

there had been a caveat put in the law on the use of the land. But 

we have to find ways to either go back, change the law, change the 

process. And any recommendations that you have, you are just getting into this, but we need them as soon as possible. 

The legislative remedies do take time. Mr. Denham and I have 

introduced measures, others have introduced measures. It is very 

hard to get those through Congress. But we also can be very creative in working. And while I am critical of GSA, also compliment 

the latest efforts. I met with the new Public Buildings administrator. It looks like they are trying to find creative ways to dispose 

of property or utilize them. 

Thank you, Mr. Wise, for, again, your assessment and evaluation. You see the difficulty that we have. And any other recommendations that you have from GAO to us we would appreciate. 

But thank you for your work. 

Mr. WISE. Well, thank you, sir. One thing I might like to add is 

one of the things we have seen that I think could be helpful to 

agencies especially out in the field is we have seen that with the 

FRPP, even though it is, as we have all recognized, rather a flawed 

database, some parts of it are better than others. The location of 

a property and who it belongs to is generally pretty good. 

And one of the things we found in some of our field work was 

that you might show up in a medium size city somewhere and 

there may be some empty space in a field office of one of the Federal agencies, and the guy down the street from another agency 

doesn’t know it because he doesn’t have access only to his own 

data. 

So one of the things we have talked about, and I think I dealt 

with Dave’s predecessor and we have talked some about this, is 

that FRPP becomes more of an open source document within the 

confines of the Federal agencies so that one can know what the 

other has and then make some decisions as to, well, hey, maybe we 

could get rid of one lease and combine two leases into one least and 

move the small field office of SHWA into vacant space in the postal 

building in that town. 

So those are the kind of things that are not particularly complicated fixes to come up with but could actually, as the military 

would say, kind of a force multiplier. If you look at them on a countrywide basis, could actually provide some substantial efficiencies 

and potential cost savings. So I think a more open FRPP might be 

a useful help to the Federal agencies, as well as to us. We have 

also had trouble getting access to the FRPP. 

Mr. MICA. Well, again, I appreciate your recommendations. 

Heaven forbid we should have agencies utilizing space. Now, I 

58 

have, in my own backyard in Florida, I have 144,000 acres. It is 

six times the size of Manhattan. It is owned by NASA. Their mission has changed in five years. Six hundred buildings, half of them 

vacant; launch pads, other buildings that can be used. We took the 

committee down there, we have done a hearing there on a path. 

Our port, which is adjacent to that, testified, give us 200 acres 

out of 144,000 and then a rail line that goes across not only their 

property, but the Air Force next to the 144,000 has a landing strip 

16,000 acres, a beautiful rail line going through, little connection 

from the two properties to the port. Five thousand jobs could be 

created by making that a port container full operation. 

So we have assets that can be valuable, not to mention possible 

return for the Federal Government, the Air Force, NASA, jobs. We 

are getting some of those properties now turned around, relocating 

businesses. And even our nature conservancy, we had some of 

those folks in. Preserving some of it, it all doesn’t have to be developed to the hilt. But unlimited possibilities with a little bit of creativity. 

I know you have limited GSA authority over that. This committee does not. And when I chaired Transportation, we focused 

mainly with you. But the rest is, like you said, what, 13 percent 

or 11 percent of all the properties? 

Mr. GELBER. Thirteen percent for GSA. 

Mr. MICA. So, again, the realm is huge. I have sat with DOD and 

Post Office, and my mind just spins from the amount of property 

that they have that we could better utilize and dispose. But great 

ideas and looking at cross-pollenization of agencies utilizing space 

would be remarkable. 

Thank you, finally, to Mr. Sullivan for appearing. We look forward to working with you. Any impediments you see to the 280 

buildings that are identified on the list I brought here. Some properties are rough, some economies are rough and it is hard to dispose of them. But it also costs the taxpayers to keep them on the 

roll, so we have to balance that and try to see what we can do to 

best utilize them. So we look forward to working with you. 

And also thank them for the action on—that will make a big difference in central Florida. We are a growth area. We have more 

veterans coming, and after the cold winter we will have even more, 

and the improvement of the economy coming to central Florida. 

That is one of the issues we face with our veterans; we have lots 

of assets in the north and those people are now in the south. They 

are Phoenix, where we had the huge problem of backup. They are 

in Texas, they are in Florida, some of the warmer States, and the 

populations are changing. So that is important that we move those 

assets around. And if we have encumbrances or restrictions by law 

or anything you see, we want you to let us know. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Absolutely we will, sir. And just to let you know, 

the same tools of the contractors that are on the GSA tool you 

raised earlier in the hearing is some of the same ones we use for 

our long-term leasing. So we are tapping into that expertise 

through a different vehicle to help us with our long-term out-leasing of property. 

59 

Mr. MICA. Well, there are multiple hearings being conducted at 

this point we have heard from several members of the subcommittee this morning. 

Without objection, we are going to leave the record open for 10 

days. We may have additional questions that we will submit to you, 

and those responses will be incorporated into the proceedings of 

this hearing. 

There being no further business before the Subcommittee on 

Government Operations, I thank our witnesses. This hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 11:53 a.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.] 

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