Federal executive branch agencies hold an extensive real property portfolio that includes approximately 361,000 buildings. These assets have been acquired over a period of decades to help agencies fulfill their diverse missions. Agencies hold buildings with a range of uses, including offices, health clinics, warehouses, and laboratories. As agencies' missions change over time, so, too, do their real property needs, thereby rendering some assets less useful or unneeded altogether. Healthcare provided by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has shifted in recent decades from predominately hospital-based inpatient care to a greater reliance on clinics and outpatient care, with a resulting change in space needs. Similarly, the Department of Defense (DOD) reduced its force by 36% after the Cold War ended, and has engaged in several rounds of base realignments and installation closures. Agencies are required to dispose of real property that they no longer need, but many continue to hold onto unneeded building space. In FY2010, the government held 77,700 buildings it identified as either not utilized or underutilized and spent $1.67 billion operating and maintaining them. Federal agencies have indicated that their disposal efforts are often hampered by legal and budgetary disincentives, and competing stakeholder interests. This report begins with an explanation of the real property disposal process and then discusses some of the factors that have made disposition relatively inefficient and costly. It then examines key provisions of four real property reform bills introduced in the 113 th Congress: the Federal Real Property Asset Management Reform Act of 2013 ( S. 1398 ); the Excess Federal Building and Property Disposal Act of 2013 ( H.R. 328 ); and two versions of the Civilian Property Realignment Act of 2013 ( H.R. 695 , S. 1715 ), which take similar, but not identical approaches to reforming the real property disposal process. This report concludes with a discussion of policy options for enhancing the disposal process, including the potential use of Public-Private Partnerships to generate revenue from underutilized properties. As noted, the government maintains a large inventory of unneeded or underutilized properties. These properties not only incur costs to the government to operate and maintain, but could, in some instances, be utilized by nonfederal entities—state and local governments, nonprofits, private sector businesses—to accomplish a range of public purposes, such as providing services to the homeless, or facilitating economic development. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) reports have consistently noted that efforts to dispose of unneeded and underutilized properties are hindered by statutory disposal requirements, the cost of preparing properties for disposal, conflicts with stakeholders, and a lack of accurate data. Each of these issues is discussed here. Agencies are required to continuously survey property under their control to identify any property that it no longer needs to carry out its mission—excess property—and to "promptly" report that property as excess to the General Services Administration (GSA). Agencies are then required to follow the regulations prescribed by GSA when disposing of unneeded property or to follow independent or delegated statutory authority. GSA's regulations, in turn, implement statutory disposal requirements, discussed below. The steps in the real property disposal process are set by statute. Agencies must first offer to transfer properties they do not need (excess properties) to other federal agencies, who generally pay market value for excess properties they wish to acquire. Unneeded properties that are not acquired by federal agencies (surplus properties) must then be offered to state and local governments, and qualified nonprofits, for use in accomplishing public purposes specified in statute, such as use as public parks or for providing services to the homeless. Agencies may convey surplus properties to state and local governments, and qualified nonprofits, for public benefit at less than fair market value—even at no cost. Surplus properties not conveyed for public benefit are then available for sale at fair market value or are demolished if the property could not be sold due to the condition or location of the property. Agencies have consistently argued that these statutory requirements slow down the disposition process, compelling agencies to incur operating costs for months—sometimes years—while the properties are being screened. Real property officials at the VA have said the McKinney-Vento Act ( P.L. 100-77 )—which mandates that all surplus property be screened for homeless use—can add as much as two years to the disposal process. Because public benefit conveyance requirements are set in law, agencies do not have the authority to skip screening, even for surplus properties that could not be conveyed anyway. The Department of Energy (DOE), for example, told auditors that they had properties that they felt could be disposed of only by demolition, due to their condition or location, but that still had to go through the screening process, thereby forcing DOE to pay maintenance costs that could have been avoided. Statutes pertaining to environmental remediation or historic preservation also add time to the process. It may take agencies years of study to assess the potential environmental consequences of a proposed disposal and to develop and implement an abatement plan, as required by law. Similarly, the National Historic Preservation Act requires agencies to plan their disposal actions so as to minimize the harm they cause to historic properties, which may include additional procedures, such as consulting with historic preservation groups at the state, local, and federal level. Unneeded buildings are often among the older properties in an agency's portfolio. As a consequence, agencies sometimes find expensive repairs and renovations may be needed before the properties are fully functioning, meet health and safety standards, and comply with historic preservation requirements. It has been estimated, for example, that VA would need to spend about $3 billion to repair the buildings in its portfolio that it rated in "poor" or "critical" condition—56% of which were vacant or underutilized, and therefore might be candidates for disposal. The poor condition of these properties, however, may deter potential buyers or lessees, particularly if they must cover the cost of required improvements as a condition of acquiring the properties. Similarly, agencies that wish to demolish vacant buildings face deconstruction and cleanup costs that, at times, exceed the cost of maintaining the property—at least in the short run—which may encourage real property managers to retain a property rather than dispose of it. Federal agencies frequently cite the cost of complying with environmental regulations as a major disincentive to disposal. Generally speaking, agencies are required to assess and pay for any environmental cleanup that may be needed before disposing of a property. Identifying and addressing environmental hazards, such as lead paint, asbestos, medical waste, and soil contamination, prior to disposition can result in "significant" costs for agencies. Some agencies have found their disposal efforts complicated by the involvement of stakeholders with competing agendas. The Department of the Interior (DOI) has said that it can be stymied by the competing concerns of local and state governments, historic preservation offices, and political factors, when attempting to dispose of some of its unneeded real property. Similarly, VA has found that communities sometimes oppose disposals that would result in new development, and veterans groups have opposed disposing of building space if that space would be used for purposes unrelated to the needs of veterans. The Department of State (DOS) has had difficulty in disposing of surplus real property overseas due to disputes with host governments that restrict property sales. These conflicts can result in delay, or even cancellation of proposed disposals, which, in turn, prevent agencies from reducing their inventories of unneeded properties. In addition to the obstacles mentioned above, data about agency real property portfolios—which might be useful for congressional oversight—appear to be inaccurate, and government-wide data are accessible only to the agency that manages the database, the GSA. Moreover, agencies regularly enter into leases rather than seek funding for new construction when acquiring space, even when the leased space is more expensive over time. The Federal Real Property Profile (FRPP) is the government's most comprehensive source of information about real property under the control of executive branch agencies. GSA manages the FRPP and collects real property data from 24 of the largest landholding agencies each year. Other agencies are encouraged, but not required, to report data to GSA. The data elements that participating agencies collect and report are determined by the Federal Real Property Council (FRPC), an interagency taskforce that is funded and chaired by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). The other members of the FRPC are agency senior real property officers (SRPOs) and GSA. The FRPP contains data that could enhance congressional oversight of federal real property activities, such as the number of excess and surplus properties held by major landholding agencies, the annual costs of maintaining those properties, and agency disposition actions. GSA, however, does not permit direct access to the FRPP by Congress on the grounds that the data are proprietary. GSA does respond to requests for real property data from congressional offices, but GSA staff query the database and provide the results to the requestor. Some FRPP data are made public through an annual summary report posted on GSA's website, but the summary reports are of limited use for congressional oversight for several reasons. Most of the data are highly aggregated (e.g., the number of assets disposed of, government-wide, through public benefit conveyance), and very limited information is provided on an agency-by-agency basis. It is not possible, therefore, for Congress to monitor the performance of individual agencies through the summary reports. Basic questions, such as how many excess and surplus properties each agency holds or has disposed of in a given fiscal year, cannot be answered. Nor is it possible to compare the performance of agencies, which limits the ability of Congress to study the policies and practices at the most successful agencies and hold poorly performing agencies accountable. The quality of the FRPP data has also been questioned.