Sponsors
The bill shifts federal headquarters and work to regional locations and tightens rules/reporting to reduce federal real estate and overhead and increase regional presence, but does so at the cost of pay and telework flexibility for many employees, reduced negotiated and judicial protections, and potential local and administrative disruptions.
Federal employees and local communities: more agency staff and offices will be stationed outside Washington, improving in-person regional customer service and boosting local economies where new stations open.
Taxpayers and the federal government: consolidating and downsizing headquarters space, selling surplus buildings, and reducing litigation exposure can lower federal real estate and legal costs and improve operational efficiency.
Congress, taxpayers, and agencies: new reporting and planning requirements (relocation plans, counts of telework/heads vs. field staff) increase transparency and congressional oversight of staffing and office changes.
Federal employees relocated or reassigned: many will face lower pay when duty stations move to lower locality pay areas, producing significant take-home pay reductions for affected workers.
Union members, federal employees, and private parties: the Act can preempt conflicting collective-bargaining rights and removes a private right to sue, reducing negotiated protections and legal avenues to challenge agency actions.
Federal employees and people with disabilities: many workers will lose full-time telework authorization or be required to relocate despite telework, increasing commuting burdens and potentially concentrating relocations among those without ADA accommodations.
Based on analysis of 9 sections of legislative text.
Requires agencies to relocate 30% of headquarters staff out of the Washington metro and reduce headquarters property by 30%, limits full‑time telework, and preempts conflicting laws and agreements.
Introduced February 13, 2025 by Aaron Bean · Last progress February 13, 2025
Requires federal agencies to move a large share of their headquarters staff and cut down on Washington-area headquarters space. Agencies must relocate at least 30% of current headquarters employees to duty stations outside the Washington metropolitan area within a year, reduce owned-or-leased headquarters real property by at least 30% within two years, limit full-time telework for Washington-area staff (with narrow ADA exceptions), change pay to the locality of the new duty station, and report workforce-location data to Congress and OMB on a recurring basis. The law overrides conflicting statutes and collective bargaining provisions and bars private lawsuits challenging selections or actions taken under the Act.