The Education Department is abandoning its Lyndon B. Johnson building headquarters this August to make room for a new tenant: the Energy Department.
Thursday’s announcement is the latest in a series of moves the Trump administration has made to dismantle the Education Department, where roughly half the staff has been shed since President Donald Trump reentered office last year — departures that have made this downsizing possible.
“Thanks to the hard work of so many, we have made unprecedented progress in reducing the federal education footprint, and now we are pleased to give this building to an agency that will benefit far more from its space than the Department of Education,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a statement.
It’s unclear how the Energy Department, which has a sprawling portfolio that includes nuclear security and other sensitive matters, will adapt the physical spaces in the current Education Department headquarters. But the Education Department said the relocation will save taxpayers more than $4 million annually in rental costs, adding that the smaller staff meant that nearly 70 percent of the headquarters space “is not being utilized.”
