By Emmanuel Ogbonna
The Senate Appropriations Committee voted on July 10 to block the Federal Bureau of Investigation from relocating its headquarters to the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, D.C., halting a plan backed by the Trump administration.
In a 15–14 vote, the committee approved an amendment to the Justice Department’s funding bill that prevents the FBI from moving anywhere other than the previously approved site in Greenbelt, Maryland. That site was selected by the General Services Administration (GSA) in 2023 after years of planning.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) crossed party lines to join Democrats in supporting the measure to stop the relocation.
“My understanding is that this has been a decision that was made just very recently,” Murkowski said before the vote. “I, for one, would like to know that this analysis has actually been going on for more than just a couple of months, that there’s actually been that effort to ensure that we’re going to move forward.”
The amendment was introduced by Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), who argued that the plan to move the FBI headquarters to Maryland followed a thorough, years-long process involving congressional input and strict criteria.
Van Hollen accused the Trump administration of abruptly changing course without proper analysis.
“A few weeks ago, the administration just announced that it wanted to snatch the $555 million that had been set aside for a down payment on that selected site and use it instead to move the FBI into the Ronald Reagan Building,” Van Hollen said during the committee’s markup session.
He criticized the administration for allegedly failing to conduct security reviews, assess the FBI’s mission requirements, or evaluate how the move would affect current tenants in the Ronald Reagan Building.
Van Hollen warned that allowing the administration to proceed would undermine Congress’s authority over federal property decisions and give the executive branch unchecked control over the project.
Not all Republicans agreed. Rep. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) argued that Congress should trust agency experts on such decisions.
“We have to trust the experts as we put them in place,” Mullin said. “To make the assumption that the FBI would possibly put their men and women in a less secure building is laughable.”
He said it was unreasonable to think that lawmakers knew better than the FBI what its security needs are.
“They know security, I promise you, better than all of us. This is what they fight — they fight threats,” Mullin said. “For us to try to micromanage their site planning is ridiculous.”
Mullin added that Congress should support the agency’s decision-making, emphasizing that this is not a partisan issue but one of public safety and agency autonomy.
The dispute highlights a broader debate over the balance of power between Congress and the executive branch in federal property management and agency operations.