Comer vows to bring federal employees back to work
Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer delivered scathing remarks on the first listening to of the 119th Congress, criticizing the Biden administration’s dealing with of telework insurance policies for federal workers.
Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., isn’t enjoying round in relation to bringing federal workers again to the workplace. Within the committee’s first listening to of the 119th Congress, Comer delivered remarks slamming the Biden administration’s “failure” to get federal workers again to the workplace.
“When President Trump’s staff enters federal company headquarters in and round DC, they’ll discover them to be largely empty. That’s because of the Biden administration’s failure to finish telework and to deliver federal workers again to the workplace,” Comer stated.
Whereas there are nonetheless a couple of days left in President Biden’s time period, Washington is making ready itself for a shift forward of President-elect Trump’s return to DC. In keeping with the Oversight Committee’s report, which cites “the Biden-Harris Administration’s personal information,” as of Could 2024, 1,057,000 telework-eligible federal workers had been in-office 3 times every week, and one other 228,000 distant workers “by no means come to the workplace in any respect.”
A lady works at a desktop pc in a house workplace in Bern, Switzerland in 2020. (Stefan Wermuth/Bloomberg by way of Getty Pictures)
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The report, titled “The lights are on, however everyone seems to be at dwelling: Why the brand new administration will enter largely vacant federal company workplaces,” is 41 pages and was ready by Republicans on the committee. In its report, the committee makes the case that telework insurance policies have been “detrimental” to authorities companies.
Within the listening to, Comer pointed the finger at Democrats, specifically, Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-Ny. He slammed Schumer for allegedly letting the Present Up Act “acquire mud.” The laws would deliver federal workers’ telework again to “pre-pandemic ranges.”
Rep. James Comer, left, and President Joe Biden. (Getty Pictures)
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“The Authorities Accountability Workplace discovered that 17 of the biggest 24 federal company headquarters within the DC space had been lower than 25% occupied, some a lot lower than 25% occupied. A separate examine by the Public Buildings Reform Board discovered that occupancy charges had been simply half that at 12%, 12% occupancy,” Comer stated on the listening to. “Taxpayer cash is being wasted to lease and keep all that costly, empty workplace area.”
The committee writes in its report that Trump is inheriting “a largely absentee workforce,” blaming it on the telework insurance policies “entrenched” by the Biden administration.
Comer additionally famous that the telework coverage for federal employees has resulted in a “lack of foot visitors” that’s “economically devastating” for DC, one thing Mayor Muriel Bowser has additionally identified. Bowser has been “imploring the White Home to vary” the telework coverage for almost two years.
In actual fact, the Democrat lawmaker met with President-elect Trump to debate what may very well be performed with the “underutilized federal buildings” across the metropolis.
Bowser expressed optimism after the Dec. 30 assembly, saying each she and Trump “need Washington, DC to be the very best, most stunning metropolis on this planet and we wish the capital metropolis to mirror the energy of our nation.”
Shot of a younger lady utilizing a laptop computer and going by means of paperwork whereas working from dwelling. (iStock)
The committee’s report acknowledges that Trump “invoked huge telework and distant work” at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and provides that he “rapidly sought to return federal workers to their workplaces to ship for the American folks when it grew to become clear that widespread, indiscriminate lockdowns weren’t the proper societal reply to the pandemic.”
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Brooke Singman contributed to this report.
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