FBI plans new HQ twice the size of Pentagon, but the GOP House can stop the project and rein in a runaway bureau.
The federal government is proceeding with plans to build a new FBI headquarters complex twice the size of the Pentagon building.
Riveted into the colossal new project are woke regulations to ensure that the FBI center will comply with diversity, equity, LGBTQ+, and climate change political goals.
The plan, unveiled last September, has received little attention. For years the FBI has sought to vacate its present headquarters, a brutalist concrete bunker on stilts and occupying two city blocks between the White House and the Capitol.
Plans for the new FBI headquarters specify that it will be built on one of three sites in suburban Virginia and Maryland. Those sites are large parcels of 58, 61, and 80 acres.
That means, at minimum, the new FBI headquarters complex would be twice the size of the Pentagon building. Covering about 29 acres plus a five-acre courtyard, the Pentagon, until recently, was the largest office building on earth.
The Kremlin in Moscow —a walled fortress containing the administrative offices of the Russian central government, the official presidential residence, massive auditoriums, an arsenal, a museum, four palaces, three cathedrals and several churches—is just over 66 acres in area.
The General Services Administration, which administers federal properties, has selected the three sites. The 58-acre property in Springfield, Virginia, GSA says, is “federally owned land under the jurisdiction, custody, and control of GSA.”
The government would have to buy or lease either of the two properties available in Maryland. The State of Maryland and the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority own the 61-acre site in Greenbelt. The 80-acre parcel is the former Landover Mall, which is privately owned.
GSA set out five criteria for choosing the property: FBI mission requirement; transportation access for FBI personnel; site development flexibility, which includes the suitability of the actual property and the earliest time construction could begin; promoting sustainable siting and advancing equity; and cost.
Of those five criteria, cost to the taxpayer is viewed as least important. The equity criterion, to comply with diversity and climate-change executive orders signed by Joe Biden, is weighted as 50 percent more important than the cost.
The site, design, and structure of the new FBI headquarters must “advance racial equity and support for underserved communities through the Federal Government,” GSA says, citing Executive Orders 13985 and 14057. The FBI complex must be a “sustainable location” to “strengthen the vitality and livability of the communities” in the area, according to GSA.
On his first day as president, Biden signed Executive Order 13985 as part of what he called “an ambitious whole-of-government equity agenda.”
The executive order defines “equity” as “the consistent and systematic fair, just, and impartial treatment of all individuals, including individuals who belong to underserved communities that have been denied such treatment, such as Black, Latino, and Indigenous and Native American persons, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders and other persons of color; members of religious minorities; lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) persons,” and so on.
That is one of the main factors driving the location of the new, double-Pentagon-sized FBI headquarters.
Biden signed the other part of the equity criterion, Executive Order 14057, in December 2021 to push his climate change agenda. That order directs that it is the policy of the federal government to “create and sustain . . . well-paying union jobs” and a range of other issues, including to “advance environmental justice.”
Executive orders are presidential decrees. They do not have the force of law.
The new FBI complex, under EO 14057, would be part of a push to achieve a range of ambitious green energy and emissions goals plus “climate resilient infrastructure and operations” for “a climate- and sustainability-focused Federal workforce.”
That would require a political control structure to implement. Section 401 of the executive order addresses that, calling for training and indoctrinating all federal personnel, including FBI agents, “to effectively apply sustainability, climate adaptation, and environmental stewardship across disciplines and functions.”
Section 402, “Incorporating Environmental Justice,” shows the politicization objective. The new FBI headquarters “shall address actions taken to advance environmental justice” under this section.
Section 403 takes it further, turning federal employees, in this case FBI special agents and other personnel, into political activists on and off the job. It would pair the FBI with “public, private, and non-profit sectors and labor unions and worker organizations” to promote environmental justice.
All this activity, under Section 501 of the executive order, would be overseen by a political commissar titled Federal Chief Sustainability Officer, appointed by the president.
The House Still Has Time to Stop It
With the FBI leadership refusing to answer questions from Congress about internal politicization, illegal targeting of conservatives, and whether or not any FBI agents or assets committed criminal acts of violence at the Capitol in January 2001, sentiment is building to pressure the FBI to come clean.
All lawmakers who voted for the Fiscal Year 2023 omnibus spending bill voted to fund the start of the new FBI headquarters.
Meanwhile, the FBI says it needs to keep a substantial space in downtown Washington, D.C., to stay close to the Justice Department that’s presently across the street.
The House can exercise power of the purse to stop this semi-stealth FBI expansion and force the bureau to cooperate fully with Congress. How?
First, allow no funds to purchase, lease, or develop land not presently owned by the federal government. That would eliminate the two proposed sites in Maryland.
Second, allow no funds to design, develop, or construct federal property bound to diversity, equity, and inclusion agendas or any programs that promote or enforce cultural Marxism with tax dollars.
Third, conduct lengthy, open hearings and a broad public debate about why the FBI needs a headquarters superplex that’s twice the size, or more, of the Pentagon.
Finally, don’t appropriate or authorize a penny until the FBI cooperates fully with Congress to identify and hold individuals accountable for political abuses of power and criminal activity within the bureau. It’s as simple as that.
Originally published by American Greatness. Republished with permission.
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