Senate committee cuts Van Hollen's FBI text from Appropriations Bill

Katharine Wilson, The Baltimore Sun on Jul 17, 2025

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The Senate Appropriations Committee removed Sen. Chris Van Hollen’s amendment Thursday that would’ve kept dollars reserved for the FBI headquarters’ move to Greenbelt, Maryland, instead of downtown Washington, D.C.

Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat, recently attempted to add language to an appropriations bill to stop funding set aside for a new bureau to go anywhere other than the selected Greenbelt site. This came after the Trump administration announced on July 1 that the FBI would move to the current Ronald Reagan Building and requested Congress use the funds allocated for the move.

The committee passed the amendment on July 10 with all committee Democrats and Alaska Republican Lisa Murkowski voting to support the Greenbelt location. But shortly after its passage, the other committee Republicans switched their votes to block the entire appropriations bill from passing out of committee.

Murkowski, who voted against the amendment on Thursday, following a meeting with FBI Director Kash Patel, said she did so because she did not want to derail the appropriations bill or lock the FBI into the Greenbelt location.

“Not only is this reversal bad for the men and women of the FBI — who deserve a safe and secure headquarters — it also represents everything the American people have come to distrust about our political process,” Van Hollen said in a Thursday statement. “How should Americans have faith in our legislating when a bipartisan amendment is what derails a bill – and the only solution to get it back on track is a partisan vote?”

Congress approved a bill in 2022 that required the General Services Administration administrator to select one of three sites for a FBI headquarters, two Maryland locations and a Virginia location. Greenbelt was announced as the selected site in Nov. 2023.

Maryland “won,” the competition for the FBI headquarters location after a nearly-decade long bid for the headquarters, which many local politicians say could bring billions of dollars in economic growth to the region. The first Trump administration scrapped plans in 2017 for a new FBI headquarters, which had started in the Obama administration for a new FBI headquarters, before the Biden administration restarted the search efforts for a new headquarters location.

Rep. Jamie Raskin of Montgomery County said Thursday that Maryland’s pursuit of the FBI headquarters “is not over” but called the latest developments “unfortunate.”

“We thought a fair process had taken place,” Raskin told The Sun.

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