A Republican and a Democrat have introduced a bill to move federal agencies to other parts of the country.
Rep. Ashley Hinson (R-IA), alongside Rep. Jared Golden (D-ME), introduced the Strategic Withdrawal of Agencies for Meaningful Placement (SWAMP) Act, which, according to a press release on the bill, would “require federal agencies to be strategically moved out of Washington, D.C. and relocated closer to the communities they serve.”
Hinson said that moving federal agencies out of Washington will “ensure that federal bureaucrats who have never left DC aren’t issuing out of touch mandates that disproportionately harm working families, small businesses, and our farmers who feed and fuel the world.” She noted that there is “no valid reason why the Department of Agriculture should operate from D.C. when it could be situated in an agricultural state like Iowa. The American people simply want to drain the swamp, and this bipartisan bill will finally hold government accountable, save taxpayer dollars, and uphold the principles of public service.”
Golden explained, “Redistributing federal agencies and jobs around the country would bring the government closer to the people, ensure regulators are embedded in the communities that thrive or struggle based on their rulings and bring good-paying jobs out of the beltway and into communities across the country.”
The bill aims to “establish a competitive bidding process for the relocation of the headquarters of Executive agencies, and for other purposes” and prohibits any “new construction or major renovation” on the headquarters of an executive agency. The bill does not pertain to agencies involved in national security matters.
In December, Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA) introduced a bill that calls for the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to move 30% of federal agency staff outside the Washington metropolitan area.
The “new duty stations” described in the bill are to “promote geographic diversity,” including rural areas, and “ensure adequate staffing throughout the regions of the Executive agency, to promote in-person customer service.”