Funding cut for DHS move to St. E's

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security's plans to build a massive new headquarters on the western campus of St. Elizabeths Hospital could collapse after Congress removed a funding provision for the project in a bill that is expected to be finalized Wednesday.

The U.S. House of Representatives cut millions of dollars from the discretionary spending bill Dec. 17 for fiscal 2008 that would have been reserved for the General Services Administration, which owns the western campus of St. E's, to build the DHS headquarters.

The bill was moved to the Senate, which agreed on the basic tenants late Tuesday and put in a total $70 billion in war funding for Iraq and Afghanistan.

The House is expected to vote on the war funding late this afternoon, according to Kirsten Brost, spokeswoman for Congressman David Obey (D-Wis.) who heads the House committee on appropriations.

The overall bill is now $555 billion, including war funding, and money for the D.C. courts and D.C. central library, among other things.

In the original bill, there was $345 million slated so the GSA could start building the headquarters for the Coast Guard. The money was cut out so the bill would adhere to the president's spending cap.

In a Dec. 18 release, D.C.'s congressional delegate, Eleanor Holmes Norton, called the change a "temporary setback."

Norton successfully pushed to get DHS interested in moving to the property in Anacostia, in order to drive economic development there. DHS proposed relocating 14,000 employees to the site, which historical preservationists and planning officials have said might be too many for the western campus to accommodate.

Though the buildings on the western campus are boarded up and remain walled off from the community, plans for the security agency's arrival had been moving forward. Norton held a subcommittee hearing on how to leverage the agency's move Dec. 12, at which Anacostia residents and business leaders pushed for more relaxed security restrictions at the site to ease DHS employees' spending in the community. D.C. plans to rebuild the eastern campus of St. E's into a mixed-use development.

Norton's statement said the western campus "could still be funded and move without significant delay," because it has support from two House committees and two Senate committees. Norton has already "begun discussions concerning this possibility," the statement said.

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source: bizjournals.com