EPA plans to consolidate its sprawling Washington headquarters and could let some prime real estate go as office space remains empty since the Covid-19 pandemic.
The agency’s push to shrink its real estate footprint could save millions of taxpayer dollars as many federal employees continue to telework rather than commute to the office. Federal agencies have been under increasing pressure to better utilize their headquarters buildings in the nation’s capital — or turn over barren cubicles to someone else — as the response to the virus outbreak has wound down.
Threats to EPA, however, loom on the horizon. The agency anticipates completing the assessment next year, which could give former President Donald Trump, who has pushed to take the agency apart, reason to downsize it even further if he wins the White House.
Dan Coogan, a deputy assistant administrator in the agency’s mission support office, said in an internal email obtained by POLITICO’s E&E News that EPA’s space in the Federal Triangle campus costs more than $90 million each year and accounts for 40 percent of the agency’s lease costs. Yet much of that space is unoccupied week to week with several staffers on remote and telework schedules.
In addition, Coogan said Congress, as part of the fiscal 2024 budget it passed, requires agencies to report facilities that are not meeting a 60 percent occupancy rate. Bipartisan legislation under consideration on Capitol Hill would enforce that standard.
“To meet a 60% occupancy rate, EPA would have to release multiple buildings in the Federal Triangle,” Coogan said in the email sent to agency employees on Thursday.
He added, “Whatever the appropriate threshold is for our space use, as good stewards of taxpayer dollars, we cannot continue operating with so much of our space underused.”
Freeing up office space would allow EPA to spend savings from rent to upgrade its facilities to improve the hybrid work approach the agency has taken, according to Coogan.
EPA’s headquarters in downtown Washington includes an assortment of adjacent offices, including the William Jefferson Clinton and Ronald Reagan buildings, which are blocks from the White House.
The agency leases those facilities from the General Services Administration, said EPA spokesperson Remmington Belford. Unused office space released by the environmental agency would go back to the federal government’s landlord.
“When an agency identifies space or buildings within GSA-leased space that they can vacate, the agency returns unneeded space to GSA,” Belford said.
Bills are moving in Congress to have agencies use their buildings more often. Lawmakers were shocked last year when the Government Accountability Office found 17 out of 24 agencies used 25 percent or less of their office space.
In March, the House passed H.R. 6276, the “Utilizing Space Efficiently and Improving Technologies (USE IT) Act,” sponsored by Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.).
Among its provisions, the bill would require agencies to return office space if occupancy rates falls below 60 percent. The legislation has not moved in the Senate.
Other lawmakers are trying to reduce civil servants’ telework.
Sens. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) and Joe Manchin (I-W.Va.) introduced S. 4266, the “Back to Work Act,” which would cap telework to 40 percent of the days within an employee’s pay period. The Senate has not voted on that bill yet.
President Joe Biden has also pressed agencies to have staff work in person at least 50 percent of the time, a goal some have struggled to meet. Further, Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat, has called on the administration to bring back federal employees or open up that office space to someone else.
GSA has begun to offload some real estate. Last year, the agency announced it would dispose of 23 properties — including the Nebraska Avenue Complex, the former Homeland Security Department headquarters — removing 3.5 million square feet from the federal government’s portfolio and saving more than $1 billion over 10 years.
Telework, however, remains popular among EPA employees and has been expanded under the Biden administration. American Federation of Government Employees Council 238, the agency’s largest union, recently won a new contract that allows employees to report to the office twice during a two-week pay period.
That feature will last for years, although the agency has indicated to union officials it wants to rebargain the telework article at the deal’s midway point in March 2026.
Assessment expected by ‘mid-2025’
In his email, Coogan said the mission support office will soon launch “a comprehensive space analysis” of EPA’s Federal Triangle campus. Architects and engineers will tour offices and take measurements during the work day.
“I anticipate that we will complete our assessment in mid-2025,” Coogan said. “OMS will then work with senior career leaders from across national programs and the agency’s unions to evaluate our options and determine a path forward.”
That means the decision to release office space in EPA headquarters could fall during a potential second Trump administration.
Trump’s prior team also cut back on the agency’s real estate.
During his first term, EPA closed a finance center and research operations in the Las Vegas area; announced plans to transfer a Houston laboratory to Ada, Oklahoma; and proposed to shutter an Arlington, Virginia, office and shift roughly 1,200 EPA employees to its Washington headquarters.
Belford with EPA said the agency has now completed its consolidation of the Arlington facility and that staff have been relocated to the Federal Triangle campus.
If returned to office, Trump appointees may go further this time. Project 2025, a proposal drafted by Trump’s conservative allies for the next Republican president, would have EPA consolidating its labs and relocating its regional branches.
Trump has disavowed the plan, although many of his former staff helped write it.
Time for ‘space-sharing’
In his email, Coogan said he will follow up with staff on the plan to release office space and “right-size” the agency’s campus.
“Like public and private workplaces across the country, we should expect EPA’s workspaces in the future to shift more towards hoteling and space-sharing,” Coogan said.
The mission support office is developing tools to streamline scheduling and sharing of cubes as well as offices and meeting rooms among staff, “ensuring consistency, efficiency, and user-friendliness,” according to the deputy assistant administrator.
Coogan acknowledged sharing space is “a cultural shift” for several of EPA’s employees.
“But just as our use of and need for office space has changed as we take advantage of flexibilities to work off-site, our relationship with space in the coming years also must change,” Coogan said.
