TheWeekInCongress.com

Week Ending June 18, 2004

HR 4322 establishing a headquarters for the Department of Homeland Security.

BRIEF

   The bill would require the transfer of administrative jurisdiction over the Nebraska Avenue Naval Complex in the District of Columbia to serve as the location for the DHS headquarters, and facilitate the acquisition by the Department of the Navy of suitable replacement facilities.

   The Navy must relocate within nine months.

   Rep. Larson (-WA) noted that this may be only a temporary move, “   We should be under no illusion, however, that the headquarters provided under this bill is a permanent or ideal solution. In fact, some have even questioned whether this is truly a headquarters at all. We are consolidating some of the leadership elements of the departments on one site, but workers will still be spread among more than a dozen buildings. It is not yet clear that the site can fully accommodate the Department's headquarters, in part because the Department is still evolving and is itself a patchwork of agencies. Several of the Department's key agencies will maintain separate headquarters elsewhere. These concerns have led some in Congress to question whether we should even designate the Nebraska Avenue Complex as the headquarters of the Department at all.” He said.

   Rep. Eleanor H. Norton (D-DC) noted that, ”The Department has spent considerable time in preparing a housing plan, but it is important to note that this is a department in formation, so the Department itself is having its difficulties thinking about how the Department will look 5 years out, 10 years out; and for that reason we have not held hearings to review the DHS's plan for what security elements will be included in headquarters operations. Members can imagine that they would have to be extraordinary.”

   “The Nebraska Avenue complex is 38 acres in northwest Washington, Rep. Norton continued. “It contains 33 mostly unconnected buildings, over 1,000 parking spaces, and 556,000 square feet of office space. Many of the buildings are old, one dating back to 1916, many constructed in the 1920s. The site is not nearly as secure as it has to be for the agency with the highest security mission. Currently, there are 1,300 personnel at the site, almost evenly split between Navy personnel and DHS personnel. Eventually DHS intends to house 1,986 personnel at the site; at least that is what they think now. Those personnel are now housed in mostly leased space in over 5 million square feet of space in the District and the region.”

The DHS is two years old and has absorbed 22 federal agencies.

Sponsor: Representative Duncan Hunter (R-CA)

Vote: Passed House by voice vote.

Cost to the taxpayers: