CIA Suspends Plan to Relocate Offices, Cites $1.4-Billion Cost

The CIA is suspending a $1.4-billion plan to consolidate the agency’s scattered offices and move many of them to West Virginia, Director Robert M. Gates said Tuesday.

Gates cited budget constraints and increasing costs as reasons for deferring the project.

The proposal called for consolidating 21 CIA offices now in the Virginia suburbs to West Virginia and another site in Prince William County, Va., relocating 6,000 agency employees. It would not have changed the agency’s headquarters, which is in Langley, Va., just outside the nation’s capital.

A furor over the proposed move erupted last year.

Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.) was harshly criticized by some who contended he was hijacking jobs to his home state.

Since Byrd become chairman of the Appropriations Committee in 1989, more than $1 billion in projects have been awarded in economically strapped West Virginia.

Rep. Frank R. Wolf, (R-Va.), whose home district would have lost some of the jobs in the consolidation, said the West Virginia site had been ruled out by professional real estate consultants but was ultimately chosen because of political pressure from Byrd.

Byrd had said he was confident the site selection would hold up to public scrutiny. But Byrd said he respected Gates’ decision to suspend the project for budgetary reasons.