The Relocations Were Sold as Savings. The Government Is Still Paying Rent on the Offices It Emptied.

For more than five decades NASA occupied several floors of Manhattan office space rented from Columbia University, where employees researched how warming temperatures could alter weather and climate. Last year the administration forced all NASA employees out of that office to save money, officials said. The government continues to pay more than $2.5 million a year in rent for the five now-empty floors, and that lease does not expire until 2031 [1].

That is the shape of the story NPR published Monday, and NASA is one of at least six agencies in it.

The relocations, agency leaders say, will reduce the government's real estate footprint, cut costs and decentralize operations away from the Washington, D.C. core [1]. NPR's review of public records finds that moving is costing the government money, that federal workers describe poorly coordinated moves and work disruptions, and that two legal complaints filed in July allege the moves violated laws requiring Congress to authorize relocations [1].

Steve Gutierrez of the National Federation of Federal Employees put the union's position simply: "You're not supposed to be doing this." Congressional oversight, he added, "hasn't done anything about it" [1].

The claim, and the lease records

In February, USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins announced the agency was moving out the employees who help administer the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program from a building in Alexandria, Virginia. Her stated reason, in a press release: "This is a long overdue move to protect American taxpayer dollars from being wasted on expensive real estate inside the Washington, D.C. area when our government should be closer to the farmers and ranchers we serve" [1].

As of June, the government was renting that Alexandria building from a private company for more than $4 million a year. The lease does not end until 2034 [1].

The employees told to leave Alexandria have not been sent closer to farmers or ranchers. They were told to report by the end of August to two buildings, one in Washington and another in Maryland [1].

The Maryland building was treated for a bedbug infestation in May. The agency told staff it expected the infestation to be fully mitigated by the time new USDA employees arrived, and as of late July it told employees it was still working on the problem, according to internal USDA communications reviewed by NPR [1]. USDA did not respond to a list of emailed questions about the bedbugs or its former office lease [1].

A current NASA employee described the same arithmetic from the other end: "Now they're paying this extra money for us to have seats so that we can return to office. It made zero sense" [1]. Current federal employees asked NPR not to use their names because they feared retribution for speaking to the media [1].

The fire season promise

At a budget hearing in Washington in April, Forest Service Chief Tom Schulz said many of the agency's employees would have to move to help the agency maximize "value to the American taxpayer." He also made a commitment about timing: "We do not anticipate moving any of the field personnel in any fashion until after the fire season" [1].

On July 22, as federal firefighters were on high alert with dozens of wildfires spreading across multiple states, Schulz emailed Forest Service staff that the reorganization would begin that week [1].

Asked why the agency was starting the reorganization during wildfire season, USDA emailed NPR a statement that did not answer the question. The statement confirmed that around 600 employees would receive updated assignments by August 20, of whom "approximately 75 may involve relocation" [1].

Gutierrez, of the federal employees union: "You said you weren't going to do this until end of fire season, and now you're doing [it] in the middle of fire season" [1].

Three floors, no internet

CFPB employees worked in a Washington building the government owned until Russell Vought became the agency's acting director in 2025, closed headquarters and directed staff to stop virtually all work [1].

In May of this year the agency emailed workers that they would have to report in person by July to a new Washington office the government rents. Employees arriving to work on the first three floors found there were not enough desks for the agency's staff, and the floors they were assigned had no functional Wi-Fi. Three CFPB workers told NPR the lack of consistent Wi-Fi kept them from doing their jobs efficiently [1].

One worker, at the time: "Right now the internet is not working at all. There's no main internet" [1].

The problem was eventually fixed. Steve Wheeler, a data scientist at the CFPB, said on July 30 that the agency "seem[s] to have finally gotten Wi-Fi up after three to four weeks of us officially being back to our duty stations" [1].

What did not get fixed was the communication. "The communication around this relocation has been insane," one CFPB worker said [1]. A NASA employee described roughly one update a month, then a mid-June notice that the move was happening July 1 [1]. NASA and the CFPB did not respond to NPR's requests for comment about building conditions or the inconsistent communication [1].

A move with no lease

The Army Corps of Engineers has been in New York since the 1700s. In February, Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works Adam Telle published a memo telling more than 400 of the agency's Manhattan-based workers that they would have to move to an undetermined new location, some as soon as August 15, so that the agency could be "optimized for quality, speed and cost to deliver for the American people" [1]. In March the agency announced it was looking for office space in three New Jersey cities [1].

Agency records obtained by the employees' union, IFPTE Local 98, put the cost of moving the agency's information technology infrastructure alone at more than $3 million. The union opposes the move, saying it could delay ongoing multimillion-dollar infrastructure projects in the region, including one meant to protect more than 80 miles of New York's coastline from flooding [1].

With some employees expected to start at a new location by mid-August, no new lease had been signed as of late July, Corps of Engineers Public Affairs Director Joshua Voda confirmed to NPR on July 23: "Until we're able to execute a lease we're also unable to confirm firm timelines for our staff. We haven't put any new information out for a matter of weeks" [1].

Employees did not hear that from the agency. Daniel Kim, a structural engineer at the Corps and president of the union, said the confusion has already driven resignations: "These are people that have tons of expertise that is just walking out the door" [1].

Who authorizes a move like this

Rep. Angie Craig, D-Minn., told Schulz at a July 22 agriculture hearing in Washington: "You need congressional approval to implement this reorganization" [1]. She added: "The letter of the law seems clear enough to me, and I'm going to be watching the outcome, obviously, of that litigation very closely, because I don't take the flaunting of congressional intent lightly" [1].

Schulz responded that the agency only needed to inform Congress about the reorganization [1]. Nothing in the fetched record resolves which reading of the statute governs, and both positions stand as stated.

HUD is under a more specific rule. Federal law prohibits the department from moving its headquarters away from Washington without congressional approval, and when HUD was formed its rules explicitly stated the agency must be "established at the seat of government" [1]. After 60 years in Washington, HUD Secretary Scott Turner began ordering workers this year to relocate to a new building in Alexandria [1].

On July 27 the D.C. Attorney General's office filed a lawsuit against HUD and Turner. More than 80% of the agency had already been moved out of Washington by then, the lawsuit claims, and because Congress never approved the relocation, the suit alleges the move is unlawful [1].

What the record does and does not settle

A signed lease is an obligation rather than a monthly choice. Space vacated in 2025 on a term running to 2031 keeps generating rent whether or not anyone sits in it, and no agency can invent a termination clause a contract does not contain. Decentralization also has arguments behind it that have nothing to do with rent, proximity to the people an agency serves being the one Rollins made in her press release.

NPR's review does not produce a government-wide net figure for what these moves cost or save. The finding is narrower and harder to wave off: on the two properties where public records supply a number, the government is paying for the old space and the new space at once, at more than $2.5 million a year through 2031 in Manhattan and more than $4 million a year through 2034 in Alexandria [1].

The savings case also has to survive its own details. USDA's stated purpose was getting closer to farmers and ranchers, and the employees leaving Alexandria were routed to Washington and Maryland [1]. The Forest Service's chief said field personnel would not move until fire season ended, and the reorganization began on July 22 with dozens of fires burning [1]. The Army Corps' own records price the IT move alone at more than $3 million, against a memo that lists cost among the things the move was meant to optimize [1].

A worker at the CFPB described what the process feels like from inside it: "This has just caused a massive amount of chaos, uncertainty, and panic. We really see this forced relocation as another part of trying to destroy the CFPB and traumatize our workforce into quitting" [1].