The federal government holds a large and diverse real property portfolio that includes more than 2.8 billion square feet of building space, 496,000 structures, and 42 million acres of land. These assets have been acquired over a period of decades to help agencies fulfill their diverse missions. Agencies own and lease buildings, for example, that provide space for 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. Health care provided by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), for example, has shifted in recent decades from predominately hospital-based inpatient care to a greater reliance on clinics and outpatient care, with a resulting change in space needs. Similarly, the Department of Defense (DOD) reduced its force since the Cold War ended and has engaged in several rounds of base realignments and installation closures. As a consequence of shifting space needs, federal agencies hold thousands of properties—particularly buildings—that they no longer need. In FY2016, federal agencies owned 3,120 buildings that were vacant (unutilized), and another 7,859 that were partially empty (underutilized). Agencies are required to dispose of unneeded space and have a range of options for disposal, including transfer to another federal agency, demolition, sale, and conveyance to a state or local government or qualified nonprofit. Federal agencies have indicated, however, that their disposal efforts are often hampered by legal and budgetary disincentives, and competing stakeholder interests. The inability of agencies to dispose of unneeded space in a timely manner is one of the primary reasons the Government Accountability Office (GAO) has included real property management on its high-risk list since 2003. As noted, the government holds thousands of unutilized or underutilized properties in its inventory. 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. 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 real property data. Agencies are required to continuously survey property under their control to identify any property that they no longer need to carry out their missions—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, which are discussed below. The steps in the real property disposal process are established 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 creating public parks or 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 (or, in some cases abandoned) if the property could not be sold due to the condition or location of the property. Agencies have argued that these statutory requirements slow down the disposition process, compelling agencies to incur operating costs while the properties are being screened. For example, real property officials have said the McKinney-Vento Act ( P.L. 100-77 )—which mandates that all surplus property be screened for homeless use—can extend the time it takes to dispose of certain properties by months or years. 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. Real property experts with the Army, for example, told auditors they had properties they believed could be disposed of only by demolition, due to their condition or location, but that still had to be screened, thereby adding as much as six months to the disposal process and forcing the Army 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 levels. 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 functional, meet health and safety standards, and comply with historic preservation requirements. The poor condition of these properties 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. Some agencies have found their disposal efforts are complicated by the involvement of stakeholders with competing agendas. The Department of the Interior (DOI) has said that the competing concerns of local and state governments, historic preservation offices, and political factors can stymie the disposal of some of its unneeded real property. Similarly, the 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. 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 potentially inaccurate, and some government-wide data are accessible only to GSA. Moreover, agencies sometimes enter into leases rather than seek funding for new construction when acquiring space, even when the leased space might be 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 and the annual costs of maintaining those properties. Historically, GSA has not permitted direct access to the FRPP by Congress on the grounds that the data are proprietary. GSA does respond to some 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 may be of limited use for congressional oversight. Most of the data are highly aggregated and limited information is provided on an agency-by-agency basis. Certain data, such as building utilization rates at each agency, or the number of excess and surplus properties each agency holds, are not available to Congress or the public. This can limit the ability of Congress to compare the performance of agencies, which in turn can limit its ability to identify the policies and practices used by the most successful agencies and hold poorly performing agencies accountable. The quality of the FRPP data has also been questioned. GAO audits have found, for example, that real property data were unreliable in key areas, such as annual operating costs, and often were not reported correctly by agencies. Another GAO report reexamined weaknesses in FRPP data collection practices, noting that key data elements—such as buildings' maintenance needs and utilization rates—are not consistently and accurately captured in the database. The GAO report concluded that problems with FRPP data collection result in agencies "making real property decisions using unreliable data." Data quality problems may result from changing definitions. The FRPC stopped reporting data on underutilized and not utilized buildings in its FY2011 real property report. It began reporting the data again in FY2013, but with different definitions than those used in FY2010. The old definitions were based on the amount of space occupied in a building, while the new definitions are based on the frequency with which space was in use. Under the new definitions, the FRPC reported 5,532 underutilized and not utilized buildings in FY2013, down from 77,700 in FY2010—a 93% decrease in three years.