Virginia lawmakers demand answers on Trump’s planned ‘displacement’ of NSF

A trio of federal lawmakers from Virginia on Friday demanded information from the Trump administration on its decision to relocate the Housing and Urban Development Department’s headquarters into the National Science Foundation’s building in Alexandria and shuttling the scientific agency to parts unknown.

When officials from HUD and the General Services Administration announced the planned move last week, details were scant. A successor space for NSF has not yet been chosen, and GSA Public Buildings Service Commissioner Michael Peters said the timing for either agency moving “is still being worked out.”

In a letter to Acting GSA Administrator Stephen Ehikian, Sens. Tim Kaine and Mark Warner and Rep. Don Beyer, all D-Va., questioned the wisdom of moving NSF out of a building that was purpose-built for the research agency less than a decade ago.

"In 2017, the National Science Foundation moved its headquarters from Ballston, Va., to its current location in Alexandria,” they wrote. “The Alexandria headquarters was designed with the specifications and technology necessary for NSF to promote American science and national security. Given HUD’s sudden announcement that it will be moving into the building, roughly 1,800 NSF employees—many of whom are Virginia residents—are now displaced with no information regarding the future of their work.”

While HUD’s current headquarters suffers from more than $500 million worth of deferred maintenance and modernization needs, the American Federation of Government Employees Local 3403, which represents NSF employees, questioned the choice of their own headquarters as a replacement, particularly rumored upgrades for the HUD secretary’s suite, including the construction of an executive dining room and gym—something HUD Secretary Scott Turner denied.

Labor leaders also said many of the more than 1,800 NSF workers moved to Northern Virginia at their own expense to comply with the Trump White House’s return-to-office mandate.

The lawmakers submitted a flurry of questions for the administration on the planned move of HUD and NSF, including when officials began examining NSF’s office space utilization, whether NSF was able to provide input on its use of the Alexandria headquarters, as well as any plans relating to how NSF employees will work following the relocations

“The commonwealth of Virginia has the workforce, infrastructure and resources to serve as home for any federal agency including the Department of Housing and Urban Development; however, the decision to bring HUD to Virginia should not come at the expense of roughly 1,800 NSF employees already being housed at the proposed site for the new HUD headquarters,” they wrote. “This decision seems to have been made without meaningful consultation of all impacted stakeholders and throws a lack of regard for NSF, its mission and its workforce.”