EPA to Reduce HQ Footprint, Save $18 Million

The federal Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center is a prime downtown D.C. real estate location blocks away from the White House. (General Services Administration)

Under its Administrator Lee Zeldin, the Environmental Protection Agency will reduce its Washington footprint and save $18 million by consolidating office space among its cluster of headquarters buildings.

“EPA will consolidate staff currently in the Ronald Reagan Building into the agency’s remaining headquarters facilities in Federal Triangle,” an EPA spokesperson told Transport Topics on April 8.

Zeldin announced the plan a few days earlier “as part of the Trump administration’s commitment to be exceptional stewards of tax dollars.”

The plan to shift EPA employees to other D.C. offices will lower EPA’s leased space by 323,000 square feet.

The decrease in office space could be partially linked to having fewer employees as federal agencies in D.C. deploy reduction-in-force efforts to shrink their employee and contractor workforces. President Donald Trump ordered the leaders of federal agencies “to initiate large-scale reductions in force” by March 13 and develop agency reorganization plans.

“With this consolidation,” Zeldin said, “we will save taxpayers $18 million in annual lease costs while ensuring the agency has enough space for staff to fully return to in-person work and make long-needed improvements and repairs to EPA buildings that languished empty for the past four years.”

The federal Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center at 1300 Pennsylvania Avenue N.W. is a prime downtown D.C. real estate location blocks away from the White House. Other federal tenants are Customs and Border Protection, the Department of Commerce and the General Services Administration. The site also has private offices such as the U.S. Energy Association and the Washington International Trade Association.

“President Trump was elected with a mandate from the American people to rein in wasteful federal spending. Part of that is looking at our real estate footprint right here in Washington, D.C.,” Zeldin noted. “I promised to be accountable for every penny EPA spends.”

His announcement about office space is part of a return-to-work effort ending COVID-era remote work as well as results from EPA’s Office of Mission Support to analyze the usage of office space in the Federal Triangle campus.

EPA’s Federal Triangle headquarters of office buildings include the Ronald Reagan Building and parts of the International Trade Center along with the William Jefferson Clinton Building (North, South, East, West and connecting wing).

EPA’s headquarters contains the following 13 top administrative offices: