(1) Congress debated an appropriate location to 
house leadership elements of the Department and ul-
timately transferred the Nebraska Avenue Complex 
(NAC) facilities, located in northwest Washington, 
DC, from the Navy to the jurisdiction, custody, and 
control of the Administrator of General Services to 
accommodate the leadership of the new Department 
under Public Law 108–268. 
(2) Congress contemplated that the NAC would 
be a temporary station for the Department’s leader-
ship due to security concerns. 
(3) There is dispute whether Public Law 108– 
268 was intended to establish an official Department 
headquarters at all. There is no occurrence of the 
term ‘‘headquarters’’ in Public Law 108–268 other 
than in the long title, which has no legislative effect, 
and Members of Congress expressed direct opposi-
tion to such a notion in floor debates. 
(4) The NAC was chosen as the initial leader-
ship station because it included preexisting infra-
structure and basic security measures that would 
allow the new Department’s leadership to become 
adequately operational in a short period of time. 
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(5) The security of the NAC remains a serious 
concern, especially in light of security breaches and 
lapses. 
(6) Some discussions and concrete steps have 
been taken to move the headquarters of at least one 
component of the Department, the Coast Guard, to 
the West Campus of St. Elizabeth’s Hospital. These 
discussions have contemplated moving other leader-
ship components of the Department to St. Eliza-
beth’s Hospital at an unknown time in the future. 
(7) St. Elizabeth’s Hospital was founded by 
Congress in 1852 and opened in 1855 as the Gov-
ernment Hospital for the Insane, more commonly re-
ferred to as an ‘‘insane asylum’’. 
(8) As recent as 2002, according to the Na-
tional Trust for Historic Preservation, St. Eliza-
beth’s Hospital was one of the ‘‘11 Most Endan-
gered Places’’ and ‘‘is crumbling’’. 
(9) St. Elizabeth’s Hospital has been considered 
for a headquarters location for components of the 
Department because, according to a statement of ad-
ministration policy, dated May 25, 2006, the ‘‘facil-
ity has been identified by the General Services Ad-
ministration as the only federally owned secure cam-
pus readily available in Washington, D.C.’’. 
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(10) Congress has suspended the Coast Guard’s 
plans to relocate to St. Elizabeth’s Hospital because 
of the lack of sufficient planning, inadequate coordi-
nation with appropriate congressional oversight com-
mittees, and an overall haphazard approach. 
(11) Under sections 71 and 72 of title 4, 
United States Code, headquarters of Federal Gov-
ernment agencies and departments are generally re-
quired to be located in the District of Columbia ab-
sent a statutory exemption. 
(12) In the past, Congress has granted waivers 
from such requirement to agencies and departments 
that, due to national security concerns, require en-
hanced security and additional space and, therefore, 
should consider locating outside the District of Co-
lumbia. Such waivers have been granted, for exam-
ple, to the Department of Defense, the Central Intel-
ligence Agency, and the Nuclear Regulatory Com-
mission. 
(13) The Department of Homeland Security, 
like the Department of Defense, the Central Intel-
ligence Agency, and the Nuclear Regulatory Com-
mission, is a Federal entity with a critical national 
security mission. The rationale for relocating those 
entities should be considered in establishing a new 
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headquarters for the Department of Homeland Secu-
rity. 
(14) The Department of Homeland Security re-
mains a young Federal entity and should begin to 
pull together its disparate parts into a single secure 
location in order to stabilize the Department to 
make it more effective. 
(15) It is desirable, given its critical mission, to 
give the Department the space and resources it 
needs to ensure the safety of its employees, to en-
sure the security and stability of the Department, to 
improve integration among its agencies, and to make 
it more effective for the ultimate purpose of securing 
the homeland and protecting the American people. 
(16) Given the critical national security mission 
of the Department, it should establish a permanent 
home, either inside or outside of the District of Co-
lumbia, that enables it to more effectively carry out 
its mission. 
(17) The Department’s headquarters should be 
a new 21st century complex tailored to the specific 
needs of the Department and should, among other 
things, be secure in all respects, contain superior 
physical, technological, and communicative infra-
structure, include a working environment conducive 
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to high productivity, be accessible to personnel, cap-
italize on modern technologies, and provide enough 
physical space for future expansion. 
SEC. 3. AUTHORITY TO DETERMINE LOCATION FOR HEAD-
QUARTERS OF THE DEPARTMENT OF HOME-
LAND SECURITY. 
(a) IN GENERAL.—Title I of the Homeland Security 
Act of 2002 (6 U.S.C. 111 et seq.) is amended by adding 
at the end the following: 
‘‘SEC. 104. HEADQUARTERS OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
‘‘(a) PURPOSE.—The purpose of this section is to 
strengthen and stabilize the Department and make it more 
effective by pulling together disparate leadership compo-
nents into a permanent and more secure location. 
‘‘(b) MASTER PLAN.—The Secretary and the Admin-
istrator of General Services, within 360 days after the 
date of the enactment of this section, shall jointly complete 
and submit a comprehensive master plan for the establish-
ment of a 21st century permanent headquarters for the 
Department in the District of Columbia or elsewhere, to 
the Committee on Environment and Public Works, the 
Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, 
and the Committee on Homeland Security and Govern-
mental Affairs of the Senate, and the Committee on 
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Homeland Security and the Committee on Transportation 
and Infrastructure of the House of Representatives. 
‘‘(c) PERMANENCY.—The master plan shall be de-
signed as a permanent solution to establishing the Depart-
ment’s headquarters.’’. 
(b) CLERICAL AMENDMENT.—The table of contents 
in section 1(b) of such Act is amended by inserting after 
the item relating to section 103 the following: 
‘‘Sec. 104. Headquarters of the Department.’’. 
Æ 
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