Interview transcript:

Terry Gerton A couple of months ago, we covered your first report in this disaster assistance high-risk series where you looked at the federal response workforce. You’re back with report number two, looking at state and local response capabilities. Talk to us about the headlines.

Chris Currie The headline for this report is that the capabilities of state and local governments across the country vary drastically for a disaster or other type of event. You know, what we did is we actually look at data that the states prepare and provide to FEMA as part of their justification for federal preparedness grants. It’s meant to be a very, very honest self-assessment of capabilities. And for that reason, we actually don’t provide states individually, we sort of roll it up and wrap it up anonymously because some of that information, as you imagine, could be sensitive. We looked at states that have been involved in major disasters over the last two to three years, and some of these states are very experienced, large states, and even they vary in terms of their capabilities. There’s actually 32 capabilities that FEMA sets in the National Preparedness System that you want to achieve to be prepared to respond for a disaster or a large event. And states vary. Some of the areas, they were less than 10% prepared — met less than 10% of those capabilities — and others, they were much more. So the reason that’s important right now is to understand that if you were to change the support that FEMA and the federal government provide to states quickly, then they’re going to have capability gaps that are going to have to get filled.

Terry Gerton Let’s talk about some of the support that FEMA does provide. One of the ways that they support the states is through preparedness grants, and those help build local capacity. What did you find as you dug into the preparedness grants?

Chris Currie Those preparedness grants started after 9/11, and since 9/11, there’s been over $60 billion provided to states. It’s the main way that the federal government transfers funds to state and local governments to get them ready to handle something bad that could happen, not just a natural disaster, but it could be a terrorist attack. And those grants have built capabilities tremendously over the years. But those capabilities change over time, and we identify through real-world events and exercises the gaps that still need to be addressed. So I’ll give you a great example. After Hurricane Helene and after other disasters, housing for disaster survivors is always a perennial challenge. Housing is a capability area that is assessed and we want to build up through these preparedness grants. It’s an area that states, even very experienced disaster states, still fall short of in terms of their capabilities. And the federal government kind of comes in after a disaster and provides a lot of that support because states don’t. So if the federal governments not going to provide it, then someone else is going to have to provide it. And that’s going to be someone at the state or local level.

Terry Gerton Talk to me about the flexibility and the allocation framework for these grants. Is it meeting requirements? Does it seem to be focused on the places that have the greatest need?

Chris Currie There’s a couple different ways they’re given out. There’s a portion of the grants that are supposed to go towards certain national priorities, and FEMA sets those targets. So think about things like election security or other national priorities. But then a large part of the grant, they’re discretionary, and the states can use them and they’re supposed to use them in the areas where they assess they have gaps. And that’s the data I was talking about earlier that we provided. For example, certain states may have gaps in their ability to handle a mass casualty situation or may struggle to house disaster survivors because they don’t have a lot of housing stock or rental. So those are things they’re supposed to identify and then target those grants towards those specific areas, which makes sense. You want to close your gaps so you’re ready to go when something happens.

Terry Gerton FEMA also provides a great deal of training and technical assistance. How effective has that been in helping states be ready?

Chris Currie This is, I think, one of the biggest success stories since Hurricane Katrina. If you remember Hurricane Katrina, the issue was the role of various levels of government was not clear, and thus, nobody stepped up and was proactive in responding to that event. And people lost their lives. Since that time, the National Preparedness System and FEMA leading that has been extremely effective through exercises, through training, through just regional relationships in taking care of a lot of those problems. So today we are way more proactive and responsive to disasters than we were 20 years ago in Hurricane Katrina. So that’s a huge success story. Having said that, a disaster is a disaster. There’s always going to be things that happen that you don’t expect. And there’s areas where states still have major gaps and require resources and people to address those. And the federal government comes in fills a lot of those gaps. Here’s a great example. Hurricane Helene happened and devastated a very remote part of our country in places like rural Tennessee and North Carolina and Virginia. States and localities don’t have the search and rescue assets for such a large swath of that kind of terrain. Federal government provided a lot of that. They provided a lot of the air support, the land support, the temporary bridges — Army Corps of Engineers. You know, the federal government really kicks in when something’s too big for a state or locality to handle.

Terry Gerton I’m speaking with Chris Currie. He’s director, Homeland Security and Justice at GAO. So Chris, all of this begs the question. This administration has been very clear that it wants states and localities to pick up more of the disaster response mission and that it wants a much smaller FEMA. Given what you found in your first study about the federal response workforce and the impacts of downsizing there, and now the variability in state and local readiness, what are the implications for national disaster response?

Chris Currie I want to make one thing really clear, because all I know is what we know now and the data that we’ve looked at. And I want it to be clear that nothing has changed in terms of FEMA’s responsibilities today. There’s been a lot of talk about it. There’s the president’s council that studied it. But there has been no change so far. So FEMA is still responsible for what it was responsible for two years ago. They have lost some staff. We looked at that in our first report, as you mentioned. They have lost about 1,000 staff, and maybe a little bit more than that, at this point, but they haven’t been cut drastically or cut in half as has been discussed. So they still have the same responsibilities and they’re still performing the same functions on disasters throughout the country, even though last year we didn’t have a huge land-falling hurricane. So what’s important about that is that everybody’s waiting to hear what the next steps are going to be and what’s going to happen to FEMA. One of the things we wanted to do in this report is we wanted to provide a comprehensive picture of preparedness to show what’s going to be necessary if that FEMA support is pulled back or FEMA is made smaller. And the bottom line is that states and localities are going to have to do more. However, it’s going to be critical that they have the time to prepare for that. For example, a lot of the assistance that’s provided to individual survivors, like cash payments and housing, that comes from the federal government. It does not come from the state or local government. So if FEMA is not going to be providing that, the state of the locality is going to have to fill that need. And that requires a lot of money and a lot preparation and planning that you can’t just turn on in a heartbeat. You don’t want to start figuring out programs to help people after a disaster happens.

Terry Gerton You bring up a good point on that time to prepare. As you did the survey, you talked to lots of state and local response officials. What did they tell you, beyond time to prepare, that they were going to need to be effective?

Chris Currie Very simple: Just tell us what we need to do. Tell us what were going to expect from you, the federal government. Nobody knows right now. The FEMA Council has not finished its work. There has been reform legislation introduced in the House and in the Senate, but nothing has passed yet. So the key message is, tell us what the roles and responsibilities are going to be so we know what to prepare for, so we don’t get caught flat-footed in the case of something really bad happening. One of my fears is that last year, like I said, we didn’t have a large land-falling hurricane. It was the first year in a long time we did not. We did not have a catastrophic disaster, other than Los Angeles fires early in the year. So my fear is that folks are going to look at last year and say, hey, things have gone pretty well. We don’t need to be thinking about it. And that is an absolute mistake. Because we’ve seen in years like 2017, 2018, 2024 — my fear is we’re going to have another situation this year or next with multiple concurrent disasters, and we’re just not going to the resources to deal with them.

Terry Gerton So what will you be watching for in the next few months to see if Congress and the federal government and the states have taken your recommendations on board?

Chris Currie Well, when the FEMA Council report comes out, I would like to see, in whatever the execution is for FEMA reform or the changes in how the system works now, an understanding of how this needs to be rolled out so states and localities can prepare and have as clear roles and responsibilities as possible. We’d also like to see them address many of the problems that we’ve pointed out. And to be clear, we’ve pointed out a number of issues with FEMA, particularly in the frustrating recovery phase. I want to see that they’re making sure that we don’t break what’s not broken and we fix the issues that are broken. And there are a number those things.

The post Readiness gaps may leave communities vulnerable when the next disaster strikes first appeared on Federal News Network.

Interview transcript:

Terry Gerton I want to start with Secretary Hegseth’s Arsenal of Freedom tour. He’s taking his pitch on the road and recently spoke at the Lockheed Martin Air Force plant in Fort Worth, Texas. I know you’ve been following this, the developments in defense procurement for quite a while. What are you hearing at this point?

Stephanie Kostro So Terry, this “Arsenal of Freedom” is a month-long tour, and it really is Secretary Hegseth going around to various places. He started out in Newport News, here in Virginia, talking with shipbuilders about what it means to be part of the team, right? Being part of the arsenal of freedom and in making things faster, more efficiently, etc. He then went out to California and spoke with folks, and then most recently, just last week in Texas, visiting Lockheed Martin as you mentioned, but also SpaceX. And so talking to folks about, what does it mean to be part of the arsenal of freedom? This is building on his November 7th Arsenal of Freedom speech that he gave here at Fort McNair in the D.C. area. And it is really about reviving this team mentality of, “we are in this together.” Against that backdrop, of course, we have recent activity in acquisition transformation, but also an executive order that came out earlier this month about limiting executive compensation for defense contractors, limiting dividends and also share repurchases or stock buybacks. And so this is a very interesting time to be in the defense industry.

Terry Gerton Stephanie, with all of the changes in the FAR and the DFAR and now the Defense Appropriation Act that’s in law, do you think that DoD has the policy tools it needs and wants to accomplish its transformation?

Stephanie Kostro There are two elements of the answer here. One is, with the fiscal year 2026 National Defense Authorization Act, which was just signed into law last month, they received a lot of new authorities, a lot of a sense from Congress about the ways in which this should be tackled. There is language there about technical data rights and intellectual property. There were things in there about how to define a nontraditional defense company, etc. But I don’t think that was sufficient; we still have work to do. And so does the department have all of the authorities and resources it needs to move forward? I think we’re going to see a lot of legislative proposals come out of the department for this next round of the NDAA, the fiscal year ’27 NDAA. And I think we’ll see things about acquisition workforce. We’re going to see things about working outside of the Federal Acquisition Regulation way of doing contracts. That is code for things like Other Transaction Authority or commercial solutions openings, etc. I don’t think they have everything they need. Part of the Arsenal of Freedom tour and the rollout of this acquisition transformation is to look at how the department can buy things more effectively and more efficiently. That’s time, not having cost overruns, etc. And so all of this is sort of coming together, in a way, to ultimately really transform the way the department buys. And I’m very excited to be part of this.

Terry Gerton Having the rules and authorities is only one piece. What’s your sense of whether the acquisition culture and workforce are aligned to actually accomplish the goals?

Stephanie Kostro Culture is the hardest element of any kind of transformation, right? I do think they’re trying to empower contracting officers and other key members of the acquisition workforce, program managers, contracting officer representatives, etc. This is a longer-term issue, and I think they are trying to tackle it through training programs, etc., letting folks know tools are at their disposal and giving them the authority to go ahead and use those tools. Now, folks don’t get into acquisition within the civil service because they’re risk-loving. A lot of times they get into it because they want to do things very smartly, very efficiently and oftentimes they look back on precedent to see how things were done before. Layer over that, Terry, the fact that we lost a lot of contracting personnel through deferred resignation programs, voluntary early retirement programs and reductions in force. So we are trying to rebuild the workforce in numbers as well as in training. I don’t think they’re there yet; I do think there’s a path to get them there. I’m eager for industry to work with the Department of War and others about how to train effectively and to let industry folks sit in the same training as the government folks, so everyone’s hearing the same thing.

Terry Gerton Stephanie, before we leave this topic, you touched on the executive order about defense contractors and compensation and buybacks. There’s a lot of unknowns still in how that will play out, but what are you hearing from your members?

Stephanie Kostro Our members were very eager to hear how the Professional Services Council would summarize that EO. So we did put out — based on the fact sheet from the White House, based from some interactions we’ve had with administration officials — our interpretation of it. That said, we’ve also asked our member companies, and we have 400 member companies and the majority of them do business with the Department of War and the intelligence community, “hey, what questions for clarification would you like us to ask?” And that list is growing. It is very long. It’s things like, is this really just for publicly traded companies? What about privately owned, or S corps and LLCs? The reason I mentioned that, Terry, is S corps and LLCs will often pay out a dividend to an executive at the company so that executive can pay taxes. They pay out of dividend, so it’s not only a dividend payment, it’s executive compensation, but it’s really just to go ahead and pay federal taxes. What do people do in that regard? How do they explain this? If they have a parent company that is overseas in Europe or elsewhere, how do they explain this executive order to those folks? And that executive compensation, there’s a limit if the company is underperforming, and all of this is predicated on the company’s underperforming — either cost overruns or schedule overruns. How do they explain this to folks? And is it really just about government contracts, or what if you’re a commercial and a government company and your executive compensation is based usually on both elements, commercial and government? So how do you go ahead and limit compensation there? This is a fascinating area to be engaged with the government on. We are all learning this together.

Terry Gerton As Secretary Hegseth tries to walk this tightrope between encouraging defense contractors to be on the team and work with us, and at the same time kind of tightening the screws on enforcement and compensation, the president has said he wants to spend $1.5 trillion on defense next year. That’s a lot of money. How is that going to get spent, do you think?

Stephanie Kostro Oh, it is an eye-catching number, right? $1.5 trillion when we are roughly $1 trillion now are just under, and it is a huge increase. Now, we’ve had large increases in the defense budget in other times in U.S. history. In the early 1950s with the Korean War, the Reagan buildup that some of us remember from the ’80s. Some of us who are listening may not remember it. They may not have been born yet, and that’s okay too. You know, there is some precedent for huge increases in the defense spend. The question here becomes, if the department and the military services are going for commercial-first mentality to prioritize speed of award and innovation, etc., they certainly can spend that money throughout the defense ecosystem. The question that we have is really, what is the organizing construct for this? What would we be spending the money on? Would it be shipbuilding, combat aircraft, the logistics piece, which always tends to be an issue? We also know operations and maintenance accounts are sometimes used and reprogrammed away if they’re not spent by a certain time, because it’s one-year money at the department, it gets reprogramed away. It’s going to be an interesting mathematical problem to tackle. In addition, I would mention, we had the reconciliation bill, the One Big, Beautiful Bill Act that passed and was signed into law last July. That infused a bunch of cash into both the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security. I understand some of that money hasn’t been apportioned and provided to the departments yet, but we are now at this point in January of 2026 talking about, what would a reconciliation bill look like for 2026? Congress can pass one per fiscal year. The one that was passed last July was the one for fiscal ’25. What happens this year? There are a lot of different mechanisms to get that money through Congress and over to the government to apportion to the department.

Terry Gerton Well, speaking of 2026 appropriations, it looks like Homeland Security and Defense will be two of the last bills out, hopefully before the end of this month. What are you hearing from folks on the Hill?

Stephanie Kostro I’m hearing that they’re trying really, really hard to avert a shutdown. And I think we’re going to get there. I’m not a betting person, Terry, you know, I’ve talked about that in the past. And I’m not in this case, either. The chance for a shutdown is never zero. That said, the experience that we all had back in October and November last year would indicate that there really is no appetite for a shutdown this year. The National Defense Appropriations Act and the DHS [bill] I think are probably the last because they want to get everything done before they tackle those. Those are the two departments that received the lion’s share of the money from the reconciliation bill, One Big Beautiful Bill Act last year, and they are looking to get more money in a reconciliation bill this year. So I’m not surprised to hear that those are last, but I actually don’t think that indicates that they’re very far apart on the numbers.

Terry Gerton And on those two departments, PSC is sponsoring a trip in January to the border to do some on-site research. Tell us about that plan.

Stephanie Kostro I am so excited about this. PSC has not typically done this. I do know other entities have done this, I used to be at a think tank where we would do things like this. We are bringing almost 30 different companies out to California next week, Jan. 28 and 29, to do a behind-the-scenes access with the Customs and Border Protection folks who are out there. And the ports of LA and Long Beach, the ports at entry, the land ones over at San Ysidro and Otay Mesa, really talking with folks on the ground there about what their requirements are. This is really focused on technology. How do we use technology and the art of the possible to protect our borders? Now, I would hasten to add, Terry, border security is not a partisan issue in many, many ways. The Biden administration, the Obama administration, the previous Trump administration all focused on border issues in different ways. Our companies really want to mention to folks on the ground, here is technology that you may not have experience with that is up-and-coming. How can we leverage it to better secure our borders? Talking about cargo screening, etc. I think this is a really good opportunity for companies to sit down with folks who are in the field and hear about what they need.

The post Can key visits to cities anchoring U.S. national security spur a new American “arsenal”? first appeared on Federal News Network.

Henry Lee Higginson would be aghast at an opera company leaving its opera house. But it’s true. For murky reasons the reporting has not clarified, the Washington National Opera said it would leave the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts after operating there since 1971.

Higginson was a Civil War brevet colonel who, after investment success, founded the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1881. You could get into a performance for 25¢. By 1900 the orchestra had its own home, the Boston Symphony Hall. Higginson died in 1919, but the orchestra occupies that historic building to this day. When in the late ’60s and early ’70s, my friends bought Doors albums and experimented with marijuana, I attended the Wednesday night BSO open rehearsals to hear (and watch) Erich Leinsdorf and Seiji Ozawa ply their arts. I was thrilled when the conductor would stop and order a passage replayed, maybe with a little exasperated scold.

In latter years, my wife and I have had season tickets to the Washington opera. Few locals thought the Trump administration’s appetite for change would affect, of all things, the opera. But it has, like lightning zigzagging through a thicket of branches to nail a squirrel.

Unlike the BSO, most opera and orchestral organizations don’t own their facilities, but instead have long-term, sometimes complex, arrangements with the governing bodies of places like Lincoln Center or Dallas’s Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center. Mostly, they’re public-private partnerships in one form or another.

For artistic organizations operating out of the Kennedy Center, there’s the added twist — not of municipal government, but of federal.

And Washington, D.C.’s federal landscape has been changing fast lately, mainly psychically but also physically. The most visible manifestation of the latter: The White House getting a convention-sized ballroom, and maybe a story added atop the West Wing.

Psychic changes we’re more accustomed to. The metronome of policy swings back and forth on everything from car mileage to vaccinations.

The roiling of the Kennedy Center embodies both. Physically, the building now has the name “Donald J. Trump” added to its external signage. The letters are big; you can see them driving west on Route 66 en route to Virginia. I keep expecting a bust of Trump to pop up next to that busy selfie spot, the “Kennedy head” — a sculpture so big and ugly it’s become sort of lovable over the decades. Psychically, the center has undergone a wrenching change in its governing board members and its apparent approach to programming.

The announced departure of the Washington National Opera has drawn enormous press coverage. The departure is all wrapped up in the ongoing turmoil of Kennedy Center leadership, programming-slash-culture wars, and — frankly — artists and ticket-buyers perhaps cutting their own noses to spite their faces in reaction to what they see as Trump depredations. If you cancel a performance or stop buying tickets, who are you really hurting?

You can’t put on top-tier opera just anywhere. It requires a pit for the orchestra, a large stage with roomy rear and side areas for props and scenery. I’ve seen the behind-the-stage rooms at the Kennedy Center. They’re like caverns.

More than that, opera needs a dignified, uplifting place. The Kennedy Center fits the bill, or it did. Its concert hall interiors and gigantic hallways elevate the experience, just like the ornate Boston Symphony Hall with its statues along the sides and “Beethoven” inscribed over the stage add to the orchestral presentations. Despite its lackluster cafeteria and fluctuating water pressure, the Kennedy Center adds a certain distinction and elegance to a city that, 50 years ago, felt slightly backwater.

Big corporate benefactors have kept the Washington National Opera afloat. I often muse that gifts from Northrop Grumman and American Airlines plus individuals like investor David Rubenstein and candy heiress Jacqueline Mars mean I can buy a seat at the opera for $50 or $75. I often buy a Snickers at intermission.

I plan to keep supporting the opera regardless of where it ends up, and I’ll buy a Snickers bar at intermission. The departure from the marble temple on the Potomac is a loss for the city and an unfortunate reflection on the Kennedy Center’s leadership.

The post The Kennedy Center ‘Kennedy head:’ What it must be thinking! first appeared on Federal News Network.

Interview transcript:

Terry Gerton The State Department’s Global Air Monitoring Program gave diplomats and citizens abroad real-time data on air pollution and drove transparency worldwide. Its shutdown leaves a gap with serious health and economic consequences. Tahra, thank you so much for joining me. You’ve written recently about probably a little-known program at the U.S. Department of State, the Global Air Monitoring Program. Tell us about that and why it’s so important.

Tahra Vose The Global Air Monitoring Program actually started as a single monitor in Beijing, China, in the early 2000s. As you can imagine — or maybe you can’t, if you haven’t actually been there — some days the air pollution, in Beijing in particular but in multiple megacities of China, was so bad you could not see across the street. It was like living in a cartoon. You thought that you could take a knife and cut a circle out through that pollution. Unfortunately, at that time we only had the Chinese government data to go by for how polluted it really was. And what we were seeing was that the air was rated as a “blue-sky day.” That was the Chinese standard for a good air quality day. And we thought, how can this be possible? I can’t see across the street, but yet you’re telling me it’s only maybe mildly polluted or it is a blue-sky day. It was one of those situations where the facts on the ground just did not match what was being told. So we thought well, let’s see if this is right. One of my colleagues started analyzing the data that was being produced by the Chinese government and found that air monitors were being selectively turned off at times when their readings were getting too high. That’s how they were maintaining this “blue-sky day” average, which was not correct. So knowing that this data was incorrect, we had to take steps to find out what the air quality really was. We ordered a small, actually handheld monitor to begin with — that was the very first one. It was set up outside somebody’s window at the embassy. And its readings showed what we knew to be true, that the air was in fact hazardous or very unhealthy by U.S. EPA standards.

Terry Gerton How did the program evolve then, from that single incident to a worldwide program?

Tahra Vose We continued with that. We bought a larger single monitor, a Met One BAM, and placed that on the roof of the embassy and started to take official readings. We realized we cannot keep this information to ourselves. According to U.S. law, we have a no-double-standard policy, which means if the U.S. government knows of information that could be harmful to U.S. citizens, we need to share that information. So therefore we started putting that information out on a Twitter feed with the basic information of what the air quality was. Then the Chinese authorities started complaining, obviously, because it did not match their data. We called in the EPA to make sure that we were doing everything correctly. Turns out we were. And we honed our data to match exactly with EPA standards, and I don’t mean by manipulating the data, but by reporting it according to EPA standards. Then everybody just gobbled up this information — the Chinese public, everybody else. From there, other posts started calling us, other embassies saying, gosh — the folks in New Delhi called and they’re like, “we have terrible air pollution here too. How do we do this?” And we said, “OK, well, here’s what you need to do. You need to make sure you’re working with the EPA. Make sure that you have this and this and this criteria all set up.” And it just mushroomed from there. Everywhere that we ended up putting that monitor, everybody was happy with it.

Terry Gerton So the program originally had a focus on protecting the health of U.S. citizens in foreign cities and took on a more global aspect. Tell us about really the impact of having U.S.-presented pollution numbers in these foreign cities.

Tahra Vose Well, it was fascinating, at least in China to start with, because when we started presenting the data, the Chinese authorities claimed that we were breaking international covenants and releasing insider data, essentially. And we realized this is not true. And we pushed back within the government itself. It turned out — now this is an interesting little bit of a Chinese insider play here — that the Chinese environmental authorities were actually on our side. They wanted us to present that data because they wanted stronger laws and they also, frankly, wanted more money so they could enforce their existing laws. But there was a break between where the federal environmental agency had authority and where the local provinces did. And local provinces, unfortunately, and their governors tended to have a little too much leeway and ability to manipulate data as needed. But by siding with the federal authority, we were actually able to make them more powerful and to result in more accurate, transparent information throughout China. So that is exactly the type of effect that this had throughout multiple countries. Now, sometimes we’re dealing with former communist, USSR-type countries like Kazakhstan. Other times we’re with monarchies like Thailand. But it didn’t matter. They knew that our data was legitimate, that it could be trusted and they wanted to learn how to do it. So by us expanding this, not only were they interested in U.S. technologies and U.S. sciences on how to do it, but also, how do we build public trust within our own institutions? So it was pretty much warmly welcome.

Terry Gerton I’m speaking with Tahra Vose. She’s a retired foreign service officer. Tahra, it sounds like a no-brainer and a pretty low-cost program, but it was terminated earlier this year. Can you tell us about the logic behind that?

Tahra Vose Unfortunately, I cannot tell you the logic behind turning off this program. I remember receiving the notice that this program was going to be turned off in the spring of this year, and it was devastating to me. What was said was that the program was too expensive to operate. However, anywhere that the program was already operating, you had the sunk costs of the monitor already installed. You had minimal maintenance fees for the monitor. Publishing the data on the internet is pennies, so I am not quite sure what or where the decision came from for this.

Terry Gerton What would it take to restart the program? Maybe it doesn’t matter in cities where they’ve taken on this responsibility, but there are lots of embassies and lots of places that may not have started their own monitoring problem. What would take to restart it?

Tahra Vose It all depends, I suppose, on exactly how you want to approach it. It’s true that there are places that have graduated off of our monitoring system. We could argue that China, they have adjusted their laws and they are accurately producing that information. But there are so many embassies out there, so many countries that do not have the resources for this, but yet still have bad air pollution. Some ideas that I can come up with off the top of my head are those monitors that are no longer being used at certain embassies could be shipped to others, so then you have no additional costs other than shipping. Turning on the system again to cooperate with EPA and feed in, that’s almost like flipping a switch. I don’t want to upset all of my IT friends on that, but it’s really quite simple.

Terry Gerton We do still have a responsibility to our own citizens in those cities to provide health-related pollution information, I would assume.

Tahra Vose We do, and it’s also an excellent heads-up type of information for us here in the U.S. As we know, air pollution has no borders. We’ve seen the smoke come over from wildfires in Canada. We need monitors within our own country and other countries to know what’s coming. And it’s not just air pollution as well; I mean, the Met One BAM is only for PM2.5 monitoring, but it’s so easy to monitor any other pollutant as needed, including mercury or other contaminants. About 30% of the mercury that is in U.S. waters comes from Asia. We really need to keep an eye on these things. It affects the homeland.

The post When the U.S. stops tracking global air quality, the world feels it first appeared on Federal News Network.

The hybrid and remote work paradigms spawned by COVID, coupled with the severe downsizing of the federal workforce, are resulting in a surfeit of federal office space, both owned and leased. Add the aging of the federal inventory and the growing cost and impact of decades of deferred maintenance, and literally hundreds of government properties nationwide have the potential to be vacated and disposed of. And yet, in the world of federal real estate, there persists the sense that despite all the alignment on the need for action, the federal government is still struggling to effectuate the changes everyone agrees it so desperately needs. A brief survey of the landscape underscores the challenges the government faces as it continues its halting efforts to modernize and right-size its real property portfolio.   

The Office of Management and Budget’s Reduce the Footprint and Freeze the Footprint initiatives of 2012 and 2015, respectively, arguably began the process of reigning in government space requirements and were quite successful at the agency level. But the lack of meaningful change in the size of the portfolio led to great congressional disenchantment, particularly with the General Services Administration’s real property disposal program. That led to the Federal Assets Sale and Transfer Act of 2016, which expedited parts of the disposal process and established the Public Buildings Reform Board to facilitate the identification of properties for disposal. Following COVID, low levels of building utilization further spurred Congress to pass the USE IT Act in 2024, which required agencies to track their space utilization and gave GSA more authority to relocate agencies out of underutilized buildings.   

Fast forward to today and there has been meaningful progress. Per USE IT and further direction from OMB, agencies are reporting their utilization data; agencies now are considering sharing space in each other’s buildings; GSA is accelerating the process of preparing buildings for disposal; and GSA now is using commercial real estate brokers, not only to market major properties for disposal, but to actually conduct the sales as well. All of these steps make great sense and represents marked change from past practice.   

It seems clear that the structural imbalance between the size of the government’s owned portfolio and the funding available to maintain it now is widely recognized, and the shift of agencies to smaller, leased spaces will continue in earnest. This long-in-the-making alignment between Congress and the administration should be a harbinger of a long overdue, and potentially more rapid, realignment of the federal real estate portfolio.    

Unfortunately, the typical headwinds remain. For example, even in the best of times, federal real estate has struggled to gain the attention and focus needed to effect meaningful change. Administrative matters typically take a back seat to program and policy issues, and staffing and funding, both for GSA and the agencies, are more challenging than ever.  

But much hard-earned momentum has been built around the needed transformation of the federal real estate portfolio, and there are still opportunities to sustain it. Ideally, GSA, with support from OMB, would work aggressively with agencies to firm up strategic housing plans based on new staffing levels. Centralized funding, perhaps along the lines of a revolving fund paid back by agency rental payments, would enable agencies to conduct the GSA-directed relocations and consolidations necessary to adapt their real estate footprints to their new staffing needs. This would allow for the release of older, inefficient buildings and the acquisition of newer, leased space as necessary. With OMB’s focus and attention (and extensive contract support), GSA could greatly expand use of existing tools like its exchange authority, “administrator’s discretion,” ground leases, negotiated sales and more, to facilitate more private sector-like transactions and trim the portfolio more aggressively. 

In this ideal world, GSA would also proactively expand its coordination with local governments, especially in Washington, D.C., to understand the likely future use and zoning of these now-surplus properties. That would enable GSA to address its statutory obligations for historic preservation and environmental mitigation from a “best value” standpoint. From there, GSA could then perform its due diligence to ensure that the sales maximize values while avoiding market saturation and other negative community impacts. With top-down direction, focus and resources, the potential exists to finally get to a leaner and more productive portfolio for government agencies, better outcomes for the communities, and better values for taxpayers.    

Adam Bodner is a principal at ABodner Consulting and is vice president of the Federal Real Property Association. The views expressed are his own. 

The post Reducing the government’s real property portfolio: Meeting the moment first appeared on Federal News Network.