The federal government’s real property portfolio reflects the diversity of agencies’ missions and includes a variety of building types, such as office buildings, courthouses, post offices, hospitals, prisons, laboratories, border stations, and park facilities. That portfolio includes many historic buildings held by GSA, NPS, and VA. GSA and NPS’s real property policies place an emphasis on historic building stewardship. GSA serves as broker and property manager for many civilian federal agencies while NPS manages the nation’s national park system for current and future generations. GSA established its “Legacy Vision” in 2002 as a strategy for meeting its federal historic stewardship responsibilities and declared a policy preference for using, preserving, and leasing historic buildings. Similarly, in providing for the stewardship of the nation’s cultural resources, NPS reinforced its commitment and goal to preserve historic buildings in its 2011 Call to Action: Preparing for a Second Century of Stewardship and Engagement. VA’s core mission is to provide care and services to the nation’s veterans. While hospital buildings, some of which are historic, are critical to providing healthcare services, VA began to realign its real property portfolio in 2004 to better respond to the demographic shifts and evolving needs of both its older and younger veteran populations. As VA realigns its portfolio, it has determined many of its historic buildings are not suitable to support modern healthcare delivery and are now inactive or excess to VA’s needs. In NHPA, Congress expressed concern that historic properties significant to the nation’s heritage—which include both public and privately owned buildings—were being lost or substantially altered. Thus, NHPA authorized the Secretary of the Department of the Interior to maintain and expand the National Register as a means of identifying historic properties, including those owned by the federal government, and NHPA requires federal agencies to identify and nominate their historic properties to the National Register. The National Register is comprised of many different types of historic properties to include historic districts, sites, buildings, structures (such as a bridge), and objects (such as a fountain) that are significant to American history, architecture, archaeology, engineering, and culture. A building is generally not eligible for National Register listing until it is at least 50 years old, unless its historic significance is considered exceptional. While many federal buildings are historic because of the passage of time and a corresponding recognition of their historical or architectural significance locally or regionally, a smaller subset are treasured assets considered significant to the nation’s history. In recognition of this, the National Register also includes buildings meeting the criteria for a national historic landmark. National historic landmarks are designated by the Secretary of the Interior as possessing exceptional value or quality in representing the heritage of the nation. The NPS reports that public and privately held national historic landmarks constitute more than 2,400 of almost 87,000 “entries” (i.e., listings) in the National Register (nearly 3 percent). Other statutory and regulatory provisions also govern agencies’ stewardship of their historic buildings. For example, agencies are required to: (1) assume responsibility for the preservation of their historic properties; (2) consider, when a historic property is no longer needed, alternative uses or lease to persons or organizations if the action will preserve the property; and (3) consult with ACHP and non-federal stakeholders, such as state and tribal historic preservation officers, before undertaking actions that may affect a historic property listed or eligible for listing on the National Register. NHPA does not mandate a particular governmental decision, but instead mandates a particular process for reaching decisions. The Secretary of the Interior’s Standards and Guidelines for Federal Agency Historic Preservation Programs indicate that where it is not feasible to maintain a historic building or to rehabilitate it for contemporary use, an agency may decide to modify it in ways that are inconsistent with the Secretary’s treatment standards, limit maintenance and repair investments in the building, or demolish it. Such a decision can be reached only after following appropriate consultation with stakeholders as required by NHPA. Federal historic buildings that are declared surplus may be made available for other uses, such as a public benefit conveyance. Under the public benefit conveyance program, state or local governments and certain tax-exempt nonprofit organizations can obtain surplus federal real property, including historic buildings, for an approved public benefit use, such as for educational facilities or to assist the homeless. Additionally, property declared excess to the federal government’s need may be sold. Certain land-holding agencies have independent authority to sell real property. In addition to NHPA and other statutory and regulatory provisions, several Executive Orders also provide guidance for the management of federal historic buildings.  Executive Order 13287, Preserve America, sets forth federal historic stewardship requirements, including, requiring executive agencies to report to ACHP on their efforts to identify, protect, and use historic federal properties, which include historic federal buildings. In fiscal year 2011, GSA reported to ACHP that more than one-third of the 1,676 federally-owned buildings under its custody and control are more than 50 years old and 479 buildings are listed on or eligible for the National Register. In fiscal year 2011, NPS reported to ACHP that it held historic properties totaling 26,636 buildings and structures (out of more than 70,000 real property assets). It further indicated that among these historic properties, 1,482 are listed on the National Register. In fiscal year 2011, VA did not provide to ACHP a reporting of the number of historic buildings that it owns or has listed on the National Register.  Executive Order 13514, Federal Leadership in Environmental, Energy, and Economic Performance, requires agencies to ensure, among other things, that new construction, major renovations, repairs, and alterations of federal buildings comply with the Guiding Principles for Federal Leadership in High Performance and Sustainable Building (Guiding Principles), such as optimizing energy performance and conserving water. Also, agencies should ensure, when rehabilitating historic buildings, that sustainable technologies (to achieve energy and environmental conservation goals) are used to promote the long- term viability of the buildings. We have reported that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has incorporated information about agencies’ progress in implementing those green building requirements into scorecards that OMB uses to rate agencies’ performance, but that agencies face challenges.  Executive Order 13327, Federal Real Property Asset Management, requires GSA to collect data from executive branch agencies describing the nature, extent, and use of federal real property. The data are reported within FRPP and include data on the historic status of federal buildings and other data, such as a building’s condition and if the building meets the Guiding Principles. The FRPP is maintained by GSA on behalf of FRPC. The FRPP database includes approximately 400,000 buildings that are owned and leased by the federal government, many thousands of which have been determined to be historically significant. GSA releases a summary level FRPP report each fiscal year to provide an overview of the federal government’s real property, but those reports do not identify how many historic federal buildings are held by individual agencies or the executive branch as a whole. GSA and FRPC require agencies to update their FRPP data on a fiscal year basis. FRPP guidance to agencies on coding historic status indicates agencies should code their federally owned buildings within FRPP as one of the following:  national historic landmark,  National Register listed,  National Register eligible,  non-contributing element of a national historic landmark/National  not evaluated, and  evaluated, not historic. The three agencies we reviewed are taking steps to improve the management of their historic buildings. For example, all three agencies have undertaken portfolio-wide management initiatives directed at nominating historic buildings in their portfolios to the National Register as required by NHPA. In addition, among the buildings we reviewed, we found examples where agencies were utilizing their historic buildings to the extent feasible for current mission needs. We also found that when the buildings were no longer suitable for current mission purposes, agencies were leasing all or part of some historic buildings to non-federal entities, as authorized by NHPA and other real property authorities. Also, we found that GSA, NPS, and VA were implementing projects in some historic buildings to improve their sustainable performance. All three agencies have undertaken efforts in recent years to identify the historic buildings across their real property portfolios, nominate those buildings to the National Register, and are working to manage those buildings in an effort to comply with the requirements of NHPA and the executive orders. For example, GSA started a multiyear initiative in 2004 to assess many of its older buildings that it believed were eligible for listing on the National Register. GSA officials reported this effort is nearing completion and has resulted in National Register nominations for more than 150 buildings. In particular, GSA evaluated the National Register eligibility for all of its legacy monumental buildings as part of this effort. These include buildings such as courthouses, post offices, and agency headquarters, which were designed to serve symbolic, ceremonial, and functional purposes. In addition, GSA’s “Legacy Vision” policy in 2002 laid the groundwork for the agency’s current stewardship efforts that are focused on the preservation, use, and disposal of historic buildings, as appropriate. GSA also used American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act) funding to rehabilitate and modernize 150 of its historic buildings. These projects were intended to address GSA’s historic building repair and alterations backlog and ranged from comprehensive modernizations of entire buildings, such as the Federal Building at 50 United Nations Plaza in San Francisco, California, to limited scope sustainability projects such as the roof replacement project at the Milwaukee Federal Building and Courthouse in Wisconsin.