Senator Joni Ernst (R., Iowa) quietly scored an early victory for those seeking to make the federal government more efficient under President-elect Donald Trump.
Ernst secured a requirement in the Water Resources Development Act of 2024 to have the General Services Administration sell off the Wilbur J. Cohen federal building, a facility with just 2 percent occupancy in downtown Washington, D.C.
Selling off hardly-used federal office space is one of Ernst’s main priorities for getting waste out of the federal government alongside President-elect Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency. Billionaire businessmen Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are leading DOGE and have already begun working with congressional lawmakers on ideas to fulfill its mandate.
“Like most government offices, the Wilbur J. Cohen Federal Building was nothing more than a very expensive ghost town, and a true monument to waste,” Ernst said.
“I have led the fight to consolidate office space and sell off the unused buildings that are haunting taxpayers to the tune of billions of dollars a year. The downsizing of government is beginning and the DOGE team, which I am leading in the Senate, is going to keep working to eliminate unnecessary buildings, bureaucrats, and government programs.”
Ernst is chair of the Senate DOGE caucus and released a report in December detailing how 90 percent of federal employees telework, while only 6 percent work in-person full time. Her investigation found that the government spends $8 billion maintaining and leasing federal buildings, and another $7.7 billion on energy to keep them running.
Ernst has also proposed legislation to reduce federal real estate holdings by 30 percent and require federal agencies to track the activity of government employees to ensure they are being productive. Additionally, Ernst helped pressure the General Services Administration into potentially downsizing 3.5 million square feet of federal buildings to lower costs by $1 billion over 10 years.
Proponents of DOGE have voiced interest in trimming down the size of the federal government in addition to relocating some agencies outside of Washington and finding ways to cut costs. Musk and Ramaswamy initially set an aspirational goal of reducing the federal budget by $2 trillion, but Musk has admitted the final cuts are likely to be significantly lower.
One method for reaching government efficiency goals is to insert DOGE provisions into larger legislative packages, which is the playbook Ernst used to get the Cohen building sale passed.
The Water Resources Development Act of 2024 is bipartisan legislation President Joe Biden signed earlier this month authorizing the U.S. Army corps of engineers to improve several aspects of American water infrastructure. Within the legislation is an amendment to federal assets legislation authorizing the sale of the Cohen building.
The Cohen building is a 1.2 million square foot office space with capacity for 3,431 people, yet an average of only 72 people came in from January to September 2023. The building was first constructed during the New Deal era to house the Social Security Administration. Now, it is home to the U.S. Agency for Global Media, Voice of America, and other government organizations.