Feds aren’t doing asbestos checks in most government buildings

The federal government isn’t keeping up with its safety checks for asbestos in government buildings, according to an audit this week that dings the General Services Administration for the failure.

GSA requires that its buildings constructed before 1998 be checked for asbestos at least every five years, but two-thirds of properties are out of compliance. Hundreds of them haven’t been checked in more than a decade and 11 haven’t been checked in more than 20 years.

For 228 of the buildings, GSA can’t say if they’ve ever been checked, according to the comptroller general.

“GSA does not have key data needed to monitor asbestos and protect health and safety,” the Government Accountability Office concluded.

It’s the latest bungle for the agency that runs more than 1,000 federal buildings and is struggling to deal with the post-pandemic landscape. Over the last year, it has faced demands to shut down office space left unused by teleworking employees, and it saw an embarrassing string of outbreaks of Legionella, which was also blamed on GSA’s failure to properly reopen buildings after the COVID-19 pandemic.

Asbestos used to be a standard form of building insulation, but it’s fallen out of favor over health concerns. When it’s damaged, it can release fibers into the air and regular exposure can cause a build-up in the lungs, leading to cancer or lung disease.

A 1989 federal attempt to ban asbestos was blocked in the courts, though the Biden administration’s Environmental Protection Agency has proposed new restrictions on its use.

Asbestos in existing buildings remains a tricky — and expensive — matter, with landowners having to worry about damage and mitigation.

GSA’s policy requires inspections every five years for properties built before 1998. Inspections can cost up to $20,000, GAO said. Buildings with asbestos require an annual walk-through to make sure the asbestos isn’t deteriorating.

The agency is supposed to inform tenants of any problems.

But GSA isn’t inspecting most buildings, the GAO audit said.

Out of 955 buildings that are supposed to be regularly checked for asbestos, only 317 met the five-year inspection window. Roughly 200 were last inspected between five and 10 years, and roughly 200 more were between 10 and 20 years.

Eleven buildings had gone more than 20 years without an inspection, and then there were the 228 buildings where the last inspection was unknown.

“GSA has not completed asbestos inspections required by its asbestos management policy for approximately two-thirds of buildings within the last five years,” investigators said.

GSA didn’t respond to an inquiry for this report but told the auditors many of the buildings out of compliance are already shut down.

That includes 35 that are deemed unsafe for entry and where access is not permitted and 71 buildings that GSA has designated for demolition or plans to dispose of.

The agency gave GAO several excuses for why it’s falling short on asbestos mitigation.

For one, it said it has too little money and staff. In some regions, there is only one “industrial hygienist” working the entire area, and that person is responsible for “many other responsibilities” in addition to making sure the asbestos inspections get done.

GSA also said its computer systems are a mess. They can’t track when inspections were done, and in some cases can’t even handle the file sizes for inspection reports that were completed.

Staffers have to do manual searches of data for 1,000 buildings to figure out which buildings are due.

The agency said it wants to improve — it asked for $500,000 in this year’s budget to upgrade the database and perform more inspections — but the comptroller general said that’s not going to cut it.

Even if all the money went toward inspections, the agency still would be far behind, GAO said.