GSA was established during the Truman administration to consolidate administrative functions across federal agencies. Douglas Rissing / Getty Images
The General Services Administration celebrates 75 years as the federal government’s landlord
The agency is central to efforts to promote green buildings and right-size the federal real estate portfolio.
Federal agencies do a lot of things: provide health care to more than nine million veterans, conduct research to save the bees, arrest the leaders of an international drug cartel.
But in order for federal employees to do those things, they need spaces to work, office supplies as well as any necessary technology.
That’s where the General Services Administration comes in, and this year the agency is celebrating its 75th anniversary.
“For the most part, government agencies took care of themselves [before GSA],” according to a video the agency produced for the occasion. “That caused more work, excess costs and frustration with the government.”
President Harry S. Truman and Congress established GSA on July 1, 1949, to consolidate administrative functions across the federal government, including real estate, acquisition and information technology.
In fact, the 1952 White House renovation was one of GSA’s first major projects.
GSA in the 1960s created a national phone system for agencies, in the 1980s introduced the first government charge card and in the 2010s spearheaded the adoption of cloud computing services.
Today, it oversees approximately 370 million square feet of workspace and facilitates sales for the world’s largest buyer of goods and services (the federal government).
It also leads efforts to incorporate energy-efficient building standards and implement a 2021 executive order for all new light-duty vehicles the government purchases to be zero emission by 2027.
“GSA’s thousands of employees are essential to my administration’s work of building a better future for our nation,” President Joe Biden wrote in a letter celebrating the agency’s anniversary. “As they enhance energy efficiency in federal buildings, support the transition of the federal fleet to clean energy, implement transformative technological initiatives that are improving the lives of countless people across the country, and so much more, these women and men are helping to deliver on the promise of America for all Americans.”
Two of Biden’s signature legislative accomplishments — the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law and 2022 Inflation Reduction Act — provide a total of $6.8 billion for GSA to make federal facilities more sustainable and build and improve land ports of entry on the U.S. northern and southern borders.
While GSA manages federal buildings, it has increasingly prioritized offloading underutilized government property. This issue came into greater focus during the COVID-19 pandemic when telework increased. However telework still falls under the agency’s purview because it also handles IT equipment.