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The cost expenses made by the Federal Reserve in the renewal of its headquarters and two other buildings it has in Washington, DC, are the type of things that buildings owners often deal Report the Wall Street Journal.
The agency in 2019 said that it would spend about $ 1.9 billion on renewals, but cost almost 35% up to $ 2.6 billion after the agency changed gears in aspects of the extensive project, The newspaper said.
Among other things, the agency added square images below the ground to its office building next to its historic headquarters to compensate for the space it lost after the United States Fine Arts Commission asked for plans for an addition of five floors. This commission and the National Capital Planning Commission share jurisdiction to review construction plans in Washington.
The Fed building under construction
Michael M. Santiago through Getty Images
Once the construction began, the general contractor encountered an unexpected asbestos in the building, the pollution of the toxic soil and a groundwater level higher than it was expected, according to the newspaper.
Inflation was also a problem. The budget documents published at the end of last year showed “significant increases” in the cost of steel, cement, wood and other materials that “far exceeded standard cost climbs,” said the magazine.
There was also expensive interruption when the agency fired the original architectural and engineering firm he had hired to work in one of the buildings after the FED Inspector General shouted the firm’s performance.
Academics and others are concerned that the Trump administration uses costs to shine a point of view of the Fed Chair, Jerome Powell, whom President Trump said he would I like to replace By his desire to lower interest rates. Powell was designated by Trump in his first term and is expected to serve until his appointment as President ends in May 2026.
“We are in a time of great participation in the history of the Federal Reserve,” Peter Conte-Brund, a Fed scholar at the University of Pensilvania, said in a July 11 magazine report. “It seems clear to me that the Trump administration, using various mechanisms, [has] A post-hoc explanation for Powell’s removal is now cooking. “”
Russian White House Budget Director beat overflows In a post on social media Earlier this month, calling them the cost to renew an ordinary historical federal building, at $ 1,923 per square foot. Reproduced a letter he had sent to Powell by questioning the veracity of the Fed’s head. Given in early June In an audience of the Senate. Among other things, Eighed wondered why the FED’s chief did not notify the National Capital Planning Commission when he decided to replace the addition of five floors with lower space.
Powell replied with a letter To say that the commission had no financial supervision on the project, so the FED was not obliged to warn it.
A FED official later told the magazine that the FED’s external builder manager had not warned the agency that none of the changes planned to the Commission had to be presented.
At the time of the exchange between Vough and Powell, the administration Appointed to the planning commission Several Trump advisers, including the Cabinet Deputy Director of the White House, Michael James Blair, who in mid -July Passionate Powell with Marie Antoinette on social media for what he called excess design in his plans.
“Leave them eating base points,” Blair posted.
“At a time when the FED has an operational deficit, it maintains high interest rates and is receiving significant public scrutiny, you have to ask if the so-called” Taj Mahal near the National Mall project “is of the best interest of the Council and the public that serves,” Blair. ” said in another post.
The Blair excesses and other critics were looking at a “Great shine finish ” According to the magazine, according to the newspaper.
In its most negative light, public grill and criticism could be a “dangerous step towards the manufacture of a legal justification for the elimination of Powell,” said the newspaper, paraphrasing Conti-Brown.
The legislators have warned of shooting the Fed chair. “The consequences of shooting a Fed Chair … will be to harm the credibility of the United States forward,” Senator Thom Tillis (RN.C.) said on the Senate floor Earlier this month. “If it happens, you will see a fairly immediate answer and we must avoid it.”
The United States Supreme Court in May indicated in a sentence The President can only say goodbye to the Fed Chair for Cause, usually the delaration of duty or embezzlement in office, According to the academics – And Trump has said, though he is not satisfied with Powell’s performance, Is unlikely to look for his dismissal. The ruling referred to the President’s authority to say goodbye to other officials, but distinguished the Fed Chair as an exception.
“The Federal Reserve is a quasi-private entity structured exclusively that continues in the different historical tradition of the first and second Bank of the United States,” said the sentence.
But, given their high -profile critique of the renewal project, Trump officials seem to try other means to combat Powell, according to the magazine.
“Brouhaha building echoes President Richard Nixon before the 1972 election To pressure on His Fed Chair, Arthur Burns, to maintain low interest rates by planting a false story in the press that Burns sought a salary rise while proposing national controls on salaries and prices, “said the newspaper.
