Reuse Excess Property Act

Floor Speech

Mr. Speaker, I strongly support the Reuse Excess Property Act, which would dramatically increase transparency across the Federal Government by strengthening Federal reporting requirements about excess personal property.

I commend Senators Peters and Lankford for introducing it and Chairwoman McClain and Ranking Member Katie Porter for introducing the House counterpart.

The Federal Government has amassed billions of dollars in personal property, including furniture, things like chairs and desks, vehicles, office supplies, and medical equipment. Billions of dollars means a lot of tables and chairs and computers.

Federal agencies are required to survey and index their inventories of personal property annually and identify items they no longer need.

This accounting enables agencies to have a better understanding of excess items that could be considered for use in other Federal agencies or institutions, which is obviously the prudent thing to do.

The GAO identified $3.9 billion in excess personal property between FY 2016 and FY 2020 and found an additional $28.9 billion in excess personal property items that were reported but not obtained by other agencies.

These excess items could be transferred to other Federal agencies and departments, distributed to a State or local government, or even sold to the public. It shouldn't just be sitting there.

The Reuse Excess Property Act would increase Federal reporting requirements to Congress and the public and provide greater transparency of acquisition, monitoring, reuse, and disposal of personal property across the whole Federal Government. It directs the GSA and Federal agencies to report annually to Congress data that it collects related to excess personal property and would also make this data publicly available to all of us.

This greater transparency around Federal use of personal property may help agencies make far more efficient use of these items.

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Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, we urge all of our colleagues to support this legislation and for all Federal agencies to cooperate and aggressively participate in this program.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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