Three influential House Republicans are pressing the Biden administration to reveal just how much of the federal bureaucracy is continuing to work from home after the administration ended the COVID-19 emergency status.
Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), chair of the House Oversight Committee; Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas), chair of the Subcommittee on Government Operations and the Federal Workforce, and Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), sent letters (pdf) to 23 federal officials last week, demanding they disclose their work-from-home policies and statistics.
The letters serve as a follow-up after the House Republicans began asking about the federal work-from-home policies in May, after President Joe Biden rescinded the COVID-19 emergency declaration.
In their initial batch of letters (pdf), the Republican lawmakers asked how many federal employees are teleworking, the average occupancy rates for federal office spaces, and how federal departments plan to address their office space needs going forward. They also raised questions about how agencies track the productivity of their employees, whether there are any negative impacts on agency performance from telework, and whether federal employees are able to keep their work appropriately secure while working from home.
As of their second batch of letters, the three Republicans were still seeking answers from Attorney General Merrick Garland, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. The Republicans also followed up with the heads of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), General Services Administration, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Department of Interior, the Commerce Department, the Labor Department, the Agriculture Department, the National Science Foundation, the Office of Personnel Management, the Small Business Administration, the U.S. Social Security Administration, and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Director.
“One of two options is currently playing out: either federal agencies are withholding information from Congress or federal agencies are not tracking telework and remote work policies as required by the law,” Mr. Comer, Mr. Sessions, and Ms. Boebert wrote in a joint statement. “Both possibilities are deeply concerning. The American people show up to work every day and federal agencies should follow their example. Committee Republicans remain steadfast in our pursuit of answers and if federal agencies continue to withhold this information, we will resort to compulsory measures.”
The Republican lawmakers included an Aug. 18 deadline for the information they’re seeking and indicated they’d use congressional subpoena power to compel the federal officials to provide the requested information if this second round of letters does not yield all the answers they’re seeking.
“The Biden Administration has allowed agencies to continue levels of telework and remote work that are significantly higher than before the pandemic,” the three Republicans said on Monday. “However, the Administration has not provided current data about the specific amount of telework occurring within federal agencies or across the entire federal workforce and has provided no objective evidence concerning the impact of elevated telework on agency performance.”
Republicans Skeptical of Federal Telework Policies
Republicans have been critical of the federal government’s work-from-home policies and have expressed concerns that these policies are driving down productivity.
“Federal agencies are falling short on their duties. They are failing the American people,” Mr. Comer said in February while advancing legislation dubbed “The Stopping Home Office Work’s Unproductive Problems Act” or “The SHOW UP Act.” The bill would require each executive branch agency to return to their pre-pandemic work-from-home policies.
At the time, Mr. Comer cited a backlog of 12.4 million 2021 income tax returns that the IRS had not finished processing, 97,000 unprocessed healthcare eligibility applications filed with the Veterans Administration, and around a million unresolved claims with the Social Security Administration.
“Veterans are waiting for months to get medical records from the national archives because the archives staff is not at the archive but at home,” Mr. Comer said in February.
Democrats Defend Telework Shift
Democrats have largely defended the increasing number of federal employees working from home
Opposing “The SHOW UP Act,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) said the federal telework policies have followed a trend set by private sector employers. He additionally credited the policies with reducing traffic congestion and providing positive environmental outcomes with fewer cars on the road.
Mr. Raskin, the ranking member on the House Oversight Committee, said the bill to return to pre-pandemic telework policies is “an assault on all the progress we have made in the last few years in federal policy.”
“The SHOW UP Act” passed in the House almost entirely along party lines, with 218 Republicans and three Democrats voting in favor. One Republican lawmaker joined 205 Democrats who opposed the bill.
The bill has seen no further progress in the Democrat-controlled Senate since February.
Unused Office Space Proves Costly: GAO
Though work-from-home options expanded across the federal workforce during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown era, the situation hasn’t reversed much alongside the relaxation of pandemic-related lockdowns.
On July 13, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) published a report on the utilization of federal office spaces. The study, which looked at federal office utilization rates across three weeks in January, February, and March, found that 17 of the 24 federal agencies audited used an estimated average of 25 percent or less of their headquarters’ capacity. Agencies on the higher end of the average used 39 to 49 percent of their occupancy, while some agencies on the low end of the scale used as little as 9 percent of their office space on some work days.
The GAO report noted that the federal government pays about $2 billion a year to maintain office spaces regardless of how they are utilized. Agencies also spend about $5 billion annually to lease office space in addition to what they already have.
Arguing in opposition to “The SHOW UP Act,” Mr. Raskin argued that various federal agencies could actually reduce their costs around leasing office space. For instance, he said forcing more in-person work would require the Federal Communications Commission to scrap a plan to reduce their office space leases by $119 million a year. He said the U.S. Trademark Office would also lose out on about $12.5 million in savings from reductions in office space.
“Are we willing to say we hate telework so much that we are going to force the taxpayers to pay more money for expensive office space?” He asked. “So we can tell workers who are already at work to get back to work?”
In response to an NTD request for comment, Mr. Comer indicated he still favors a return to in-person work at the federal level, rather than broad reductions in government office space.
“It’s past time for the Biden Administration to get federal workers back to working in-person for the American people. Americans across the country are expected to show up for work and the federal workforce must follow their example,” Mr. Comer said.
NTD News reached out to Mr. Raskin’s office for further comment but did not receive a response by the time this article was published.