House votes to keep Homeland Security in Washington
House passes a bill Monday that will keep DHS headquarters in its current, Nebraska Avenue, location.
The House passed a bill Monday that will require the Homeland Security Department to keep its headquarters in Washington, where it was first established a little more than a year ago.
The legislation directs DHS officials to make their permanent home in the existing temporary headquarters at the Nebraska Avenue Naval Complex. The new bill does allow the agency some wiggle room on its final location, calling for the DHS headquarters to remain in place "for so long as the secretary determines that the Nebraska Avenue Complex is appropriate for such purposes, or until otherwise provided by law," according to the legislation.
The bill was sponsored by Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, and Rep. Christopher Cox, R-Calif., chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee.
Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-D.C., actively supported the bill and applauded its passage. According to Norton's office, the bill requires that any future relocation of the department's headquarters would be to another site in Washington.
"Since the department was created two years ago, I have worked with both the department and the General Services Administration to identify suitable space in the District to house the new department," she said. "It was unthinkable that such an important cabinet department would be located outside the city."
Doxie McCoy, a spokeswoman for Norton, said the congresswoman had pushed for the bill through her membership on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.
"She's been working on this for a long time," McCoy said.
When DHS was originally formed, there was considerable debate on headquartering the department in the city or its surrounding suburbs. Administration officials eventually decided to temporarily house DHS at the Nebraska Avenue location. About 2,000 personnel currently work at DHS headquarters, out of an agencywide workforce of 180,000 federal employees. Monday's bill called on the Navy to transfer the facility to the administrative jurisdiction of GSA, which would then allow GSA "to use the complex to accommodate the Department of Homeland Security."