EXCLUSIVE: Probe Exposes Vacant DOT Offices Costing Taxpayers $370 Million A Year

Reports exclusively obtained by the Daily Caller show that the Department of Transportation (DOT) accounts for one of the largest shares of the more than $1 billion in underutilized federal office space.

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A Government Accountability Office (GAO) report addressed to Republican Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst and Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz found that consolidating DOT and its component agencies’ office underutilized office space totaled approximately $370 million a year in rental, operations, and maintenance costs for unused federal buildings each year. (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: DOJ Has Been Hobbling State’s Epstein Ranch Investigation For Years, Former AG Says)

The report concluded that between August and September 2025, the department was underutilizing 89 percent of its 189 office buildings, falling short of the 60 percent average goal set in the Utilizing Space Efficiently and Improving Technologies (USE IT) Act.

The DOT has begun to make progress, with the GAO report saying the department had already announced plans to consolidate Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) office space in Washington, D.C., including completely vacating the FAA headquarters complex by the summer of 2027.

However, the report warns that the department’s effort to reconfigure its headquarters without a full plan to house 950 FAA headquarters personnel or detailed estimated savings could negate much of the taxpayer savings expected from the consolidation.

The GAO also found that the DOT had no plans to consolidate office space across the department despite systemic underutilization.

The report quotes the DOT as saying that while it has “proactively initiated a comprehensive consolidation of its headquarters functions,” underutilized government buildings remain a “significant government-wide challenge.”

The DOT also concurred with the GAO’s recommendations to continue developing and implementing a plan to consolidate FAA personnel in Washington, D.C., as well as a broader plan to consolidate department office space nationwide.

“Even after the Trump administration brought DOT back to work and began consolidating office space, nearly all the agency’s buildings remain largely unused,” Ernst told the Caller.

A second document exclusively obtained by the Daily Caller further underscores the scope of the problem. In a May letter to Ernst, the Public Buildings Reform Board (PBRB), responding to her request for an update on its review of the USE IT Act, also found “severe” underutilization of federal office space across the government.

The PBRB’s dataset determined that occupancy data exists for only 275,336 federal employees and contractors, contradicting April Office of Personnel Management (OPM) data that there are 2 million federal employees, excluding many contractors. The PBRB said currently reported space appears to represent only a fraction of federal workers.

The board also determined there was approximately 141 million usable square feet of federal office space nationwide, with annual operating costs for underutilized office space estimated at $1.34 billion.

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Taken together, the two reports suggest that the DOT accounts for more than 27 percent of the annual cost of underutilized federal office space nationwide.

“The cost is driven by a combination of low utilization, high maintenance requirements, and the historic nature of many properties,” the PBRB report said. “Even if these buildings reached the 60 percent target occupancy, their costs and liabilities would remain significantly above commercial market rates, which we use as a proxy reference point, not as a true benchmark.”

One example highlighted in the PBRB report is the FAA’s Wilbur Wright Federal Building in the nation’s capital. According to the report, the building operates at just 16 percent capacity, leaving taxpayers annually responsible for $155,875 per daily occupant and creating a liability that is 1,473 percent higher than comparable commercial lease rates.

“Spending more than $155,000 per employee for office space is highway robbery, especially when there is ample room in other half-filled buildings nearby,” Ernst told the Caller. “Hundreds of millions of dollars that DOT could be putting toward roads, bridges, highways, and airports are instead being wasted financing Taj Mahal buildings for bureaucrats.”

“These roadmaps provided by GAO and PBRB pave the way for saving taxpayer dollars and downsizing the government,” Ernst added.

Ernst’s office told the Caller that the senator has long advocated for selling unused federal buildings and has been involved in recent announcements regarding building sales and office consolidation.

Ernst and Cruz have pursued the issue for years. Ernst previously called on then-DOT Inspector General Eric J. Soskin to investigate the affects of telework on the agency. However, Soskin rejected her request in September 2023, saying such an investigation would be “premature,” according to a letter previously obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation (DCNF).

In June 2024, Ernst and Cruz called on the OIG to investigate the impacts of telework and and remote work on the department and whether they have contributed to waste, fraud, and abuse. The OIG later complied with the senators’ call.

Weeks later, the Daily Caller News Foundation exclusively reported that the two senators had expanded their investigation beyond the DOT’s headquarters, after learning the department was spending around $224 million annually on the headquarters buildings as well as hundreds of other DOT-owned or leased buildings. (RELATED: Democrat Attorney General Heckled By His Own Party)

The Department of Transportation did not respond to the Daily Caller’s request for comment.

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