Washington, DC – U.S. Rep. John L. Mica (R-FL) brought to Florida today his ongoing investigation to stop the federal government from wasting billions of dollars of the taxpayers’ money by sitting on its assets and badly mismanaging valuable federally-owned properties.

Mica is the Chairman of the U.S. House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, which oversees the General Services Administration (GSA).  This agency, now known for its lavish Las Vegas conferences, exorbitant employee bonuses and other scandals, also serves as the landlord of the federal government.

To highlight the pervasive waste, fraud and abuse at GSA, Mica convened a Committee hearing in an empty downtown Miami federal building and courthouse on prime real estate which has been vacant for nearly five years and costing taxpayers $1.2 million annually.

“GSA is notorious for its Vegas hot tubber, junkets to the South Pacific, and ludicrous bonuses that cost millions of dollars, but this agency and the federal government waste billions of dollars sitting on empty and underused buildings,” Mica said.

“I am continuing to call attention to the outrageous losses on federally-owned assets with incredible but squandered potential to generate revenue,” Mica continued.  “Today’s hearing in an empty federal building in Florida continues our year-and-a-half campaign to turn federally-owned properties, sitting idle for years and bleeding the taxpayers by the millions, into productive assets.”

Prior to today’s Florida hearing at the David W. Dyer Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse, Mica has held hearings since the beginning of 2011 in three valuable but empty and underutilized federal buildings in Washington, DC.

By calling these hearings, Mica has forced GSA into long-delayed positive action on these assets.