The Senate appropriations committee has taken up a call that started in the House urging the federal government to resume its search for a new FBI headquarters in either Maryland or Virginia rather than building a new home for the nation’s chief law enforcement agency in Washington.
Lawmakers including Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., successfully lobbied the Senate panel to include language expressing concern about the current plan to demolish the J. Edgar Hoover Building in downtown D.C. and build a consolidated headquarters for the FBI at the same site. The wording appears in the 2019 Senate Commerce, Justice Science and Appropriations Bill. The committee held a markup for the spending bill Thursday morning.
“This bipartisan bill makes it clear that the Congress does not accept the Administration’s new position and that any new prospectus should include one of the earlier identified sites,” Van Hollen said in a statement. “We will not spend billions of dollars on this project until there is a clear plan that meets the needs of the FBI. If President Trump really wants a secure headquarters for our nation’s top law enforcement entity, we urge him to work with us on this effort.”
Similar to legislation briefly introduced and then withdrawn in the House last month, the Senate legislation includes language calling on the federal government to come up with a new plan to shift the FBI to Landover, Greenbelt or Springfield — the three potential locations identified by the General Services Administration before it canceled that solicitation in July 2017.