Ernst seeks to move federal offices, jobs out of Washington ‘bubble’

At the same time Congress is struggling to reach agreement on a $1.3 trillion budget deal to keep the federal government’s lights on, Sen. Joni Ernst is proposing to move executive branch agencies out of the Washington “bubble insulated from common sense” to parts of the country where the cost for office space and salaries is less.

Office space in Des Moines rents for less than a third of the cost in the Washington area, and the cost of living is significantly less, too, the Iowa Republican said Thursday before introducing legislation she called Strategic Withdrawal of Agencies for Meaningful Placement Act.

“We call it the Swamp Act for short,” told reporters on a conference call.

Currently, she said, the headquarters of nearly all executive branch agencies are located in and around Washington, concentrating hundreds of thousands of jobs in the region.

The Swamp Act aims to distribute the agencies and jobs across the country among the people most impacted by the effects of agency decisions.

“This legislation will help to ensure agencies focus on the stakeholders and not on bureaucracy within the D.C. Beltway, while also bringing good, stable government jobs to new parts of the country,” Ernst said on a conference call with reporters.

The Department of Defense and national security agencies that must be in proximity to Congress and the White House would be exempted from her legislation, which is a companion to a piece introduced in the House by U.S. Rep. Luke Messer, R-Ind.

“Every day, out-of-touch federal government agencies and bureaucrats in Washington make important decisions and rules that directly impact the lives of folks across the United States,” Ernst said.

The Waters of the U.S. Rule — WOTUS — issued by the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineer, she said, is an example of a “nonsensical” or harmful rule that might not have been written had those agencies been located where the employees could “see and hear firsthand the impact their policies have on the folks who know their states, businesses and needs the best.”

The Swamp Act, Ernst said, is in the spirit of the message American voters sent with the election of President Donald Trump that they “wanted a government that better serves them, not Washington bureaucrats.

“The USDA has a very large footprint here” in Washington, but I don’t know of many farmers and ranchers who are actively engaged in the process here,” Ernst said.

She can’t put a figure on the cost savings — and acknowledged there would be one-time costs to relocate the agencies — but Ernst said office space in the Washington area rents for about $59 a square foot. In Des Moines, the cost is about $18.

Salaries in Washington area offices reflect the high cost of living there. Moving the headquarters to other parts of the country would result in savings, she added.

“Not only will we save federal dollars, but decisions made in the areas affected by those agencies would be much better for Americans,” Ernst said.