The chaotic effort to reduce the government’s real estate portfolio is another example of the setbacks the administration has faced as officials try to carry out President Trump’s agenda.
During President Trump’s first week back in the White House, Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency identified an early focus of the cost-cutting operation: canceling leases for federal buildings that were considered underused.
Mr. Musk’s team has since claimed credit for terminating leases for hundreds of properties across the country, including some that house federal workers at the Internal Revenue Service, the Food and Drug Administration, the Energy Department and the National Park Service.
So far, Mr. Musk’s group has said that the effort will save around $500 million. But the Trump administration’s attempt to cancel leases and offload vast amounts of federal property has hit major stumbling blocks in recent weeks, with lawmakers and some agency officials saying those efforts could undermine vital government services and conflict with the administration’s requirement that federal workers return to the office.
Now officials at the General Services Administration, an agency that manages the federal government’s real estate portfolio, say they are reversing more than 100 lease terminations. That includes an Energy Department office in New Mexico that manages a nuclear waste repository, and an office used by U.S. Army Corps of Engineers workers who respond to hurricanes in Florida.
The turnabout comes after the agency this month released a list of more than 440 federal properties that could be sold off, including several headquarters for cabinet-level departments, before removing the entire inventory the next day with little explanation. The chaotic effort to downsize the government’s real estate portfolio is another example of the setbacks the Trump administration has faced as officials race to carry out the president’s policy agenda.
Administration officials say they will save taxpayers money through sales and lease terminations of “underutilized” federal office space and “functionally obsolete” buildings. Since the start of Mr. Trump’s second term, the G.S.A. has sent out 827 lease termination notices and 117 letters rescinding some of them, Stephanie Joseph, a spokeswoman for the agency, said in a statement last week. Officials declined to provide a full list of the canceled leases.