BOSTON — Massachusetts Senators Edward Markey and Elizabeth Warren are demanding answers after several federal buildings in the Bay State were labeled “non-core assets.”
Earlier this month, the U.S. General Services Administration posted on its website a list of more than 400 federal facilities nationwide that had been designated for sale or disposal.
“We are identifying buildings and facilities that are not core to government operations, or non-core properties for disposal,” the GSA said at the time. Selling the properties “ensures that taxpayer dollars are no longer spent on vacant or underutilized federal space,” it said, and “helps eliminate costly maintenance and allows us to reinvest in high-quality work environments that support agency missions.”
That list was abruptly pulled down just days later by the Trump administration, “sowing chaos and uncertainty” Markey and Warren stated in a letter addressed to GSA Acting Administrator Stephen Ehikian.
The GSA’s 443-property chopping block included both the John F. Kennedy Federal Building and the Thomas P. O’Neill Jr. Building in Boston, two of the largest federal buildings in New England, according to Markey and Warren.
The properties are home to thousands of employees and more than a dozen government tenants, including the Department of Veterans Affairs, Social Security Administration, Boston Passport Agency, U.S. Small Business Administration, National Labor Relations Board, and the senators’ Boston offices.
The GSA has alleged that disposing of the federal buildings “best serves local communities.” The Commonwealth’s senators disagree.
“It is difficult for us to see how that would be true. Our local communities and their residents would suffer from the inevitable negative impact that selling or closing these federal properties would have on constituent services,” Markey and Warren warned in the letter.
The senators blasted the GSA’s plan as “straight out of the private equity playbook, designed to move taxpayer money into private hands.”
Other Massachusetts buildings named on the GSA list include the Frederick C. Murphy Building in Waltham, the IRS Center in Andover, the John A. Volpe Transportation Systems Center in Cambridge, the Philip J. Philbin Federal Office Building in Fitchburg, the Silvio O. Conte Federal Building in Pittsfield, the Social Security Administration in Fall River, and the U.S. Customs House in New Bedford, a Taunton Daily Gazette report cited by the senators indicated.
The “non-core assets” designations come after the Department of Government Efficiency recently terminated 17 leases in Massachusetts, according to a Boston Business Journal report referenced by the senators.
“The Trump administration’s and the Department of Government Efficiency’s effort to dismantle our government has now spurred an unnecessary GSA fire sale,” Markey and Warren wrote. “A manufactured crisis facilitating the transfer of more government dollars to private profiteers. This will only further degrade infrastructure and service over time.”
Trump and billionaire Elon Musk have been engaged in an unprecedented effort to slash the size of the federal workforce and shrink government spending.
Markey and Warren demanded that GSA clarify its future plans for the federal properties in Massachusetts in a written response by no later than March 31.
Read the full letter below:
Markey, Warren warn ‘residents would suffer’ if 9 federal buildings in Mass. are sold by Boston 25 Desk on Scribd
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