House Judiciary Committee Republicans are entering the contentious fight between Virginia and Maryland over the site of the next FBI headquarters by suggesting the bureau instead relocate to Alabama.
The committee submitted Tuesday a lengthy list obtained by Breitbart News of recommended funding provisions, known as riders, to House Appropriations Committee chairwoman Rep. Kay Granger (R-TX) that included a stipulation that no FBI funding be used toward a new headquarters.
That rider, which congressional Democrats and the White House are likely to oppose, would block hundreds of millions of dollars that had been designated in last year’s omnibus government spending bill to relocate the FBI out of the 1970s-era J. Edgar Hoover Building in D.C. to the suburbs of either Virginia or Maryland. The GOP’s plans were first reported in the Wall Street Journal.
The rider also stated that the FBI must submit a plan to relocate the headquarters out of the region entirely within 90 days, suggesting the bureau’s newly renovated Huntsville, Alabama, campus as a viable option.
“The FBI is directed to submit an operational plan within 90 days to move the FBI Headquarters out of the National Capital Region,” it stated. “The operational plan should also consider the existing resources and infrastructure available at the FBI’s Redstone Arsenal Campus in Huntsville, AL.”
Judiciary Committee staff members in June toured the FBI’s Alabama campus and found it “very well suited” for the job, according to a source familiar with the tour. The campus is an expansive and growing site costing more than $3 billion in renovations so far that some have described as a “second headquarters,” local Alabama news site AL.com reported in January.
The committee, led by chairman Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), reasoned in the rider that Republicans remain “concerned about the politicization” of the FBI, which they believe is “emanating from” the J. Edgar Hoover Building.
The J. Edgar Hoover FBI Building is seen June 9, 2023, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
“The centralization of FBI operations in the National Capitol Region has led to duplication of activity best left to the respective field offices, contributed to reduced autonomy in local field offices, and allowed improper political influence to taint law enforcement investigations and activity,” the rider stated.
The FBI countered in a statement provided to Breitbart News that “any reductions” to the FBI’s budgeted funds would be “detrimental to the support the FBI provides to the American people.”
The FBI noted that it was Congress that directed the General Services Administration to undertake a selection process to build a new headquarters either in Greenbelt or Landover, Maryland, or in Springfield, Virginia, a process that is still ongoing.
The bureau cited a number of reasons for needing to keep its headquarters in the region, including that it “must maintain close proximity” to its training facility in Quantico, Virginia, and work daily with officials in the Justice Department and intelligence community who are largely based in D.C.
In response to the Alabama facility, the FBI ruled it out as an option, saying it “cannot accommodate the minimum of 8,500 personnel planned to occupy the new HQ suburban and downtown facilities.”
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