A report released last Wednesday (June 20, 2012) by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) determined that the federal government lacks reliable data about some of its real estate assets, including information about the conditions of those properties, how they are being used, and how the current federal property inventory compares to what the government […]
This level of security is no longer required for DoD leased facilities. Every once in a while a topic comes along that I really want to write about but can’t seem to get to it. This time that topic is the Department of Defense (DoD) security standards. A big event occurred back on December 7th, […]
OK, so the Postal Service isn’t expanding – quite the opposite. But, with all of the recent discussion of the decline of the U.S. Postal Service, we were intrigued by the attached, very cool, graphic illustrating…
Lately, there has been increasing buzz over “412 Authority” a little known legal right granted to GSA as part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2005, which is more formally referred to as Section 412 of P.L. No. 108-447, 118 Stat. 2809, 3259 (2004). The entire Section is just 127 words, yet it could potentially reform the […]
Last Monday (May 21, 2012), GSA awarded IBM with a contract, worth up to $11.5 million, to develop and install advanced smart building technology systems in 50 of the federal government’s highest energy-consuming buildings. Part of…
In September, the GAO issued the latest in a long series of reports concluding that GSA’s leasing strategy is flawed. This report, entitled “Greater Transparency and Strategic Focus Needed for High-Value Leases”, studied the 218 largest leases in…
Normally flowing with 3,300 employees, plus visitors, the entrance to GSA headquarters is eerily quiet. **UPDATE: Since the 2013 Shutdown, GSA has issued a new policy determination that allows for the agency to continue operating and making payments from the Federal Buildings Fund. In the event of a prolonged shutdown, GSA would gradually scale back operations […]
Kevin Warsh, a Federal Reserve governor during the Great Recession, noted in a Wall Street Journal op-ed earlier this year, “If you’ve seen one financial crisis, you’ve seen one financial crisis.” That is to say, all…
Exterior Rendering of Wayne Aspinall Building (Source: GSA) Earlier this week (Wednesday, February 20), GSA rededicated the 95-year-old, 41,562-square-foot Wayne N. Aspinall Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse in Grand Junction, Colo., after 23 months of construction that addressed the dual challenges of historic preservation and sustainability. The goal of this $15 million American Recovery and […]
“The chief business of the American people is business,” said President Calvin Coolidge, speaking before a convention of newspaper editors 90 years ago. (His bon mot is often shortened to “the business of America is business.”) But just what kind of business? Coolidge, after all, made his remark in the golden age of the American […]
It’s hardly news that the largest single consumer of energy in the United States is the federal government, with its stock of 360,000 buildings and 650,000 fleet vehicles. What is surprising, though, is the extent to…
Federal Center South Rendering (Source: GSA) The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), signed by President Obama on February 13, 2009, called for major new construction and the energy-efficient modernization of federal office buildings, courthouses and land ports across the country. This is the third piece in a series in which we examine some of the […]
Expatriat British novelist and travel writer Lawrence Durrell, writing in Reflections on a Marine Venus, described a “rare but by no means unknown affliction of spirit” that he dubbed “islomania.” “These are people,” he stated, “who find islands somehow irresistible.” In that spirit, we continue our series on federally owned islands, the first of which […]
Less than two weeks from what is shaping up to be a very close presidential election there is no shortage of pundits offering theories on which candidate will prevail. Many so-called experts look to the past to predict the future. Comic-strip creator Randall Munroe does the same with hilarious results…
