releases: https://www.cramer.senate.gov/news/press-releases/cramer-bill-saving-taxpayers-millions-becomes-law
Data license: MIT · Data source: dwillis/congress-press
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| url | title | date | year | month | party | chamber | state | member_name | bioguide_id | domain | scraper | source | date_source | text | has_text | collected_at | updated_at |
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| https://www.cramer.senate.gov/news/press-releases/cramer-bill-saving-taxpayers-millions-becomes-law | Cramer Bill, Saving Taxpayers Millions, Becomes Law | 2024-12-18 | 2024 | 2024-12 | Republican | Senate | ND | Kevin Cramer | C001096 | www.cramer.senate.gov | cramer | https://www.cramer.senate.gov/news/press-releases | scraper | ***Click here to download video. Click here for audio.*** WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congress passed the Thomas R. Carper Water Resources Development Act of 2024. Following extensive support in both the House of Representatives and the Senate, the package heads to the President for his signature. The package includes several bills to right size the federal government’s real estate portfolio, including U.S. Senator Kevin Cramer’s bipartisan FASTA Reform Act. Cramer serves as the Ranking Member of the Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Subcommittee on Transportation and Infrastructure, the committee of jurisdiction over federal buildings across the country. During an EPW hearing in July, Cramer asked General Services Administration’s (GSA) Public Buildings Service (PBS) Commissioner Elliot Doomes to explain his agency’s actions to ensure better usage of federal buildings. A Government Accountability Office study from October 2023 found 17 of 24 surveyed federal agencies, on average, used an estimated 25 percent or less of the capacity of their headquarters buildings. In 2023 alone, federal agencies reported over 5,000 buildings as either underutilized or unutilized altogether. This longstanding problem has been worsened by agencies’ embrace of remote, telework policies. The FASTA Reform Act is one of two public buildings reforms included in the Thomas R. Carper Water Resources Development Act to assist the federal government in consolidating real estate and ensuring taxpayer-funded buildings do not sit empty. The Federal Assets Sale and Transfer Act (FASTA) was passed in 2019 to create a process for offloading unused federal assets. Since its passage, the federal government already disposed of 10 buildings and generated $193 million in revenue. The FASTA Reform Act streamlines the process for disposing of unused federal real estate, allowing for even greater sales and better returns to taxpayers. Similarly, the Utilizing Space Efficiency and Improving Technologies (USE IT) Act requires the GSA and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to implement a standard methodology of measuring occupancy and utilization of public buildings and requires GSA and OMB to take steps to reduce or consolidate space if utilization rates fall below 60%. | 1 | 2026-03-30T01:40:41Z | 2026-04-07T22:13:55Z |