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OMB On Track to Sell Excess Federal Properties

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Photo: Jeffrey Zients, OMB

According to Government Executive, the Obama administration is successfully pursuing its goal of selling federal real estate with $1.48 billion sold to date.

The administration recently released an interactive map of 12,000 properties sold or for sale and introduced a dashboard on Performance.gov that tracks the Office of Management and Budget’s progress toward the President’s goal of saving $3.5 billion by the end of 2012.

So far, the agencies making the most progress include the departments of Energy, Agriculture, Defense, Interior. The GSA, Justice and State Departments have the are also pursuing unloading real estate.

Chief Performance Officer Jeffrey Zients noted in a recent blog post the reasons for the many obstacles the sale of federal real estate has faced.

“The sale of excess federal real estate has been slowed by a process fraught with delays and hurdles. That’s why in his budget last year, the president put forward a proposal called the Civilian Property Realignment Act — legislation that would cut through red tape and politics to accelerate the disposal of unnecessary government properties well beyond 2012,” said Zients.

While the House has been aggressive in creating legislation to act on the sale of excess federal property, the Senate has been slow on the process. OMB spokeswoman Moria Mack addressed the politics behind the delay on the sale of the property.

“The same longstanding barriers to selling off unneeded property that give some parties cause for skepticism are precisely the barriers the president is committed to tearing down,” she said. “We are already making strong progress . . . If Congress passes the president’s proposal to cut through the red tape and politics that have long delayed the sale of excess property, we are confident we can deliver even more savings for the American people.”

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