Trump inches closer to DC federal property sell-off with Ernst's help

By Fox News · Fox News

FIRST ON FOX: Republican Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst introduced legislation Thursday that would clear the way for the Trump administration to sell underutilized federal buildings, Fox News Digital learned. "Despite President Trump calling federal employees back to work, vacant government buildings could easily be mistaken as future locations for Spirit Halloween stores," Ernst said in a statement to Fox News Digital. "For too long, the entrenched bureaucracy has used red tape to prevent these ghost towns from being sold off," she continued. Her Disposal Act "immediately lists six prime pieces of D.C. real estate on the auction block and slashes through pointless regulations to fast-track the sale of the government’s graveyard of lifeless real estate to generate hundreds of millions of dollars and save taxpayers billions." Ernst is the founder and chair of the Senate Department of Government Efficiency Caucus , and first exposed the federal government's lack of use of its federal buildings back in 2023 when she released a "naughty list of no-show federal agencies" following the pandemic, when federal employees worked from home amid government-mandated shutdowns. SHUTDOWN FACES TAXPAYER RECKONING AS LAWMAKER WORKS TO EXPOSE 'TRUE COST OF DEMOCRATS’ POLITICAL STUNT' Dubbed the "Disposing of Inactive Structures and Properties by Offering for Sale And Lease (DISPOSAL) Act," the legislation works to renew efforts to sell six pieces of underutilized federal properties in Washington, D.C. , that headquarter various federal agencies. The legislation specifically calls on the General Services Administration to sell the Frances Perkins Federal Building, home to the United States Department of Labor; the Department of Energy's James V. Forrestal Building; the Theodore Roosevelt Federal Building, which is home to the Office of Personnel Management; Robert C. Weaver Federal Building, where the Department of Housing and Urban Development was headquartered before announcing in June it pl…