[House Hearing, 118 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]




                       OVERSIGHT OF OUR NATION'S
                      LARGEST EMPLOYER: REVIEWING
                      THE U.S. OFFICE OF PERSONNEL
                               MANAGEMENT
                                PART II

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                              COMMITTEE ON
                      OVERSIGHT AND ACCOUNTABILITY
                     U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS

                             SECOND SESSION

                               __________


                              MAY 22, 2024

                               __________


                           Serial No. 118-111

                               __________


  Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Accountability







                 [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]






                       Available on: govinfo.gov,
                         oversight.house.gov or
                             docs.house.gov

                               ______
                                 

                 U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE

55-827 PDF                WASHINGTON : 2024











               COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND ACCOUNTABILITY

                    JAMES COMER, Kentucky, Chairman

Jim Jordan, Ohio                     Jamie Raskin, Maryland, Ranking 
Mike Turner, Ohio                        Minority Member
Paul Gosar, Arizona                  Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of 
Virginia Foxx, North Carolina            Columbia
Glenn Grothman, Wisconsin            Stephen F. Lynch, Massachusetts
Michael Cloud, Texas                 Gerald E. Connolly, Virginia
Gary Palmer, Alabama                 Raja Krishnamoorthi, Illinois
Clay Higgins, Louisiana              Ro Khanna, California
Pete Sessions, Texas                 Kweisi Mfume, Maryland
Andy Biggs, Arizona                  Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York
Nancy Mace, South Carolina           Katie Porter, California
Jake LaTurner, Kansas                Cori Bush, Missouri
Pat Fallon, Texas                    Shontel Brown, Ohio
Byron Donalds, Florida               Melanie Stansbury, New Mexico
Scott Perry, Pennsylvania            Robert Garcia, California
William Timmons, South Carolina      Maxwell Frost, Florida
Tim Burchett, Tennessee              Summer Lee, Pennsylvania
Marjorie Taylor Greene, Georgia      Greg Casar, Texas
Lisa McClain, Michigan               Jasmine Crockett, Texas
Lauren Boebert, Colorado             Dan Goldman, New York
Russell Fry, South Carolina          Jared Moskowitz, Florida
Anna Paulina Luna, Florida           Rashida Tlaib, Michigan
Nick Langworthy, New York            Ayanna Pressley, Massachusetts
Eric Burlison, Missouri
Mike Waltz, Florida

                                 ------                                

                       Mark Marin, Staff Director
       Jessica Donlon, Deputy Staff Director and General Counsel
                      Peter Warren, Senior Advisor
                      Bill Womack, Senior Advisor
                 Alex Rankin, Professional Staff Member
                Sarah Feeney, Professional Staff Member
                 Ben Tardif, Professional Staff Member
      Mallory Cogar, Deputy Director of Operations and Chief Clerk

                      Contact Number: 202-225-5074

                  Julie Tagen, Minority Staff Director
                      Contact Number: 202-225-5051

                                 ------                                









                         C  O  N  T  E  N  T  S

                              ----------                              

                                                                   Page

Hearing held on May 22, 2024.....................................     1

                               WITNESSES

                              ----------                              

The Honorable Rob Shriver, Acting Director, Office of Personnel 
  Management
    Oral Statement...............................................     8

 Opening statements and the prepared statements for the witnesses 
  are available in the U.S. House of Representatives Repository 
  at: docs.house.gov.


                           INDEX OF DOCUMENTS

                              ----------                              

  * Statement for the Record; submitted by Rep. Connolly.

  * Letter, November 17, 2023, to OPM, from Democracy Forward; 
  submitted by Rep. Connolly.

  * Letter, February 8, 2023, to Members of Congress, from OPM; 
  submitted by Rep. Biggs.

  * Letter, November 1, 2022, to OPM, from Members; submitted by 
  Rep. Biggs.

  * Report, CBO, ``Comparing Compensation of Federal and Private 
  Sector''; submitted by Rep. Biggs.

  * Article, Harvard Business Review, ``Why Diverse Teams Are 
  Smarter''; submitted by Rep. Brown.

  * Article, Wall Street Journal, ``The Truth About `Puberty 
  Blockers'''; submitted by Rep. Gosar.

  * Article, GovExec, ``Mulvaney Relocating Offices is a 
  'Wonderful Way' to Shed Federal Employees; submitted by Rep. 
  Norton.

  * Article, AP News, ``Conservative groups draw up plan to 
  dismantle the US government and replace it with Trump's 
  vision''; submitted by Rep. Pressley.

  * Report, CBO, ``Comparing Compensation of Federal and Private 
  Sector''; submitted by Rep. Raskin.

  * Statement for the Record, for Doreen Greenwald, National 
  President of NTEU; submitted by Rep. Raskin.

  * Statement for the Record, for National Association of Retired 
  Federal Employees (NARFE); submitted by Rep. Raskin.



                      CONTINUED INDEX OF DOCUMENTS

                                 ------                                

  * Article, Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), ``Officials 
  Sideline Scientists When Establishing Air Pollution Standard; 
  submitted by Rep. Tlaib.

  * Press Release Evironmental Protection Agency (EPA), 
  ``Stronger standards for harmful soot pollution''; submitted by 
  Rep. Tlaib.

  * Questions for the Record: to Mr. Shriver; submitted by Rep. 
  Gosar.

  * Questions for the Record: to Mr. Shriver; submitted by Rep. 
  Sessions.

  * Questions for the Record: to Mr. Shriver; submitted by Rep. 
  Perry.

  * Questions for the Record: to Mr. Shriver; submitted by Rep. 
  Langworthy.

  * Questions for the Record: to Mr. Shriver; submitted by Rep. 
  Raskin.

  * Questions for the Record: to Mr. Shriver; submitted by Rep. 
  Connolly.

The documents listed are available at: docs.house.gov.











 
                       OVERSIGHT OF OUR NATION'S
                      LARGEST EMPLOYER: REVIEWING
                      THE U.S. OFFICE OF PERSONNEL
                               MANAGEMENT
                                PART II

                              ----------                              


                        Wednesday, May 22, 2024

                     U.S. House of Representatives

               Committee on Oversight and Accountability

                                           Washington, D.C.

    The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:03 a.m., in 
room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. James Comer 
[Chairman of the Committee] presiding.
    Present: Representatives Comer, Gosar, Foxx, Grothman, 
Cloud, Palmer, Higgins, Sessions, Biggs, Perry, Timmons, 
Burchett, Burlison, Raskin, Norton, Connolly, Mfume, Brown, 
Garcia, Frost, Lee, Casar, Crockett, Goldman, Moskowitz, Tlaib, 
and Pressley.
    Chairman Comer. The Committee on Oversight and 
Accountability will come to order. I want to welcome everyone 
here today.
    Without objection, the Chair may declare a recess at any 
time.
    I now recognize myself for the purpose of making an opening 
statement.
    Last March, the Oversight Committee held a hearing with 
then-OPM Director, Kiran Ahuja, to conduct oversight of the 
Office of Personnel Management. Ms. Ahuja has since left OPM, 
so we are joined today by Mr. Robert Shriver, the Acting 
Director. The rationale for today's hearing is the same as it 
was last year. The Federal Government is our Nation's largest 
employer, and this Committee must ensure the OPM and the civil 
service generally deliver for the American people. At last 
year's hearing, what Members remember most clearly is the 
inability of the Director to say how many Federal employees 
were currently teleworking. Since OPM was and is at the center 
of a major policy shift with respect to telework and remote 
work, that lack of knowledge struck Republicans as concerning, 
especially as we heard last month that the Biden Administration 
prides itself as being a data-driven organization. I understand 
OPM has made progress adding telework data to its main H.R. 
system, but I am still curious to know what this translates 
into in terms of it having current quality data upon which to 
base policy.
    Also, as was discussed last month, there are several core 
themes that run throughout the Biden management agenda, two of 
which are empowering Federal workers and Federal employee 
unions. We asked a number of questions of OPM regarding the 
data underlying the policies that stem from these themes, and I 
intend to do so again today. For example, while the Civil 
Service Reform Act of 1978 may have said labor organizations 
and collective bargaining in the civil service are in the 
public interest, and the Biden Administration's words and 
actions certainly suggest they are, it is important to know 
exactly how this might be the case. What data or evidence do 
you have to illustrate how growing and empowering Federal 
employee unions is in the public interest, and directly in 
OPM's purview, how does union membership impact Federal 
workplaces and civil servants in them?
    I also understand OPM has made progress improving 
retirement processing. I know that is an issue that impacts all 
offices, so I am eager to learn more about OPM's efforts and 
what we should expect in the year to come, but I will end with 
what is likely to be a frequent topic of conversation today. In 
April, OPM issued its final rule upholding civil service 
protections and merit system principles, which is clearly an 
attempt to make it more difficult for President Trump to bring 
back Schedule F should he win a second term. And I support 
Schedule F because I do believe Federal employees, especially 
those with significant ability to influence whether an 
Administration's policies do or do not get implemented, should 
be held to account. We cannot allow the unelected Federal 
bureaucracy to continue to think and act like it is running the 
show. There must be accountability.
    The Biden Administration is having to deal with this now as 
Federal employees protest the President's policies on telework 
and Gaza. With the latter, there is talk about what they are 
able to do ``on the inside.'' Wow. What are they able to do on 
the inside? Are they using similar tactics to those as 
described by Trump Administration alumni, to obstruct policies 
they do not like? Do you know? Is anybody looking? OPM and the 
Biden Administration made crystal clear they do not like 
Schedule F, but that implies you think the current system is 
working just fine to deal with all manner of disciplinary 
concerns, and I have never heard anybody say that. In closing, 
I look forward to your testimony, Mr. Shriver, and I thank you 
for being here today.
    I now recognize Pete Sessions, Chairman of the Government 
Operations Subcommittee, for 2 minutes.
    Mr. Sessions. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. Director 
Shriver, thank you for taking time with me yesterday for a 
rather not just introductory, but detailed call where we spoke 
about not just the essence of today's professional meeting 
where we will ask legitimate questions. We want to hear from 
you about your ideas. We find that you reside in a fishbowl 
that you find yourself in many instances, no different than a 
Republican appointee might find themself in where you do.
    So, let me just go right to this since I have a minute-24 
left. There are a few questions OPM is squarely in the middle 
of which map directly to the question of confidence of the top 
priority of agencies under the Federal workforce. Immediately 
after Donald Trump was elected, the Washington Post ran a story 
describing how Federal workers were planning to push back 
against President Trump's initiatives. In other words, Feds, as 
was in the paper, ``use time to their advantage and pushbacks 
against orders that they found objectionable.'' I am going to 
move down--I thought I was going to have 5 minutes--but it is 
also the same type of thing that President Biden finds himself 
now as Federal employees protest.
    Chairman Comer. Mr. Sessions, if you want to go longer, the 
Ranking Member said he had no problem with that.
    Mr. Sessions. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I would 
ask for 6 minutes then.
    Chairman Comer. Go ahead.
    Mr. Sessions. The gentleman is recognized then for 6 
minutes. Thank you. It is also President Biden who finds 
himself at the vise grip of employees who decide that they do 
not like his policies related to Gaza. This is causing an 
uproar with this Administration across agencies. I think it is 
OPM's responsibility to ensure that there is confidence and 
transparency around the disciplinary system. Discipline is 
important in any organization, was for my 16 years at AT&T 
where employees were not running the business. The Federal 
managers and the people who were the management were running 
that organization, were responsible to not just the results, 
but also to the shareholders. Well, I find that the taxpayer 
should be the winner in this but also the policies that related 
to that electing officer. It is OPM's responsibility to ensure 
that there is confidence and transparency around the 
disciplinary system in the Federal Government. It is not enough 
to say, well, we just cannot return to a patronage system. I 
think we must equally be wary of a civil service that is 
empowered and protected, they are entrenched and they are 
protected. Every virtue when carried out to an extreme is a 
vise, and I think that we are dealing with this circumstance 
now.
    So, Mr. Shriver, I am going to present to you a series of 
questions, but essentially, they revolve around this issue. 
What is OPM doing to ensure that Federal employees are not, 
have not, and will not seek to undermine a President, either 
party, a duly elected President of their agenda simply because 
they disagree with it? We have known for a long period of time, 
and we have seen Supreme Court cases--Chevron deference brings 
this issue up--but that was more to policy differences that the 
President brought as opposed to how it worked with law. We are 
talking about civil service employees who are holding hostage 
not only key initiatives, but that Administration that they 
serve, which is the taxpayer.
    So, would you support, in addition to the existing merit 
system principles, to state that all employees will fairly 
execute their duties without regard to their own political and 
policy preferences? And you do not have to answer these right 
now, but this is what is going to take place today. Would you 
support legislation to require an annual survey of Federal 
managers with questions specifically designed to their role of 
managers? The managers of this Federal Government have been led 
to believe that they have to follow, and I think in many 
respects they do, the President of the United States or the 
direction that OPM gives, but it has very little to do with 
their ability to be able to get the work done because this 
President has given direction that it is OK for Federal workers 
to stay at home. And you and I do not disagree, it is not 100 
percent of Federal employees. It is a large group of employees.
    And yesterday, we spoke specifically about one agency in 
particular, Millennium Challenge Corporation, that has decided, 
as a result of President Biden's leadership, they are going to 
form a union, and yet the word, well within that Agency, is 
that the first thing that they would do is gather together as 
employees and decide not to report to work because they do not 
want to come to work. And yet that workplace, just like it 
might be Federal law enforcement or other important agency, 
which Millennium Challenge is, it requires gathering together, 
working exercises, coordinated, and knowing things that would 
be in the best interest of not just the taxpayer, but the 
policy chosen by that agency, and to be held hostage is a bad 
thing. When you are held hostage by employees from a civil 
service system that protects employees and puts a Federal 
manager at a disadvantage, it is the essence of why we are 
engaging you.
    Mr. Chairman and the Ranking Member, I want to thank you 
for your allowing me to more accurately play this out. This is 
the essence of why we are here, and we appreciate your 
professionalism as you exhibited yesterday, as I am sure you 
will exhibit today, and we will offer you the same 
professionalism back. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member, I yield 
back my time.
    Chairman Comer. The gentleman yields back. The Chair now 
recognizes Ranking Member Raskin.
    Mr. Raskin. And thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Mr. 
Shriver. I know it is just your third week of work on your new 
job, and we welcome you today. I look forward to hearing from 
you about everything you are doing to strengthen the 2.3-
million-person workforce that we have in the Federal Government 
working for the American people. OPM oversees this nonpartisan 
workforce, which takes an oath to our Constitution, not to the 
President, not to a king, certainly, not to any individual, but 
rather to the Constitution and to the country. Our Constitution 
clearly defines roles for the branches of government. Congress 
writes the laws and appropriates funding. The President and 
agencies faithfully execute those laws using the resources that 
Congress provides.
    America is in a bit of a struggle right now over whether 
the job of the executive branch is to faithfully implement the 
laws that have been adopted by the people's representatives or 
whether it is to serve the personal whims and the political 
demands of the President. From the beginning of his time in 
office, the last President made clear his desire to strip the 
Federal workforce of experts and replace them with loyalists. 
Right out of the gate, then President Trump proposed cutting 20 
percent of funding from the National Institutes of Health in my 
district, the institution that has saved the lives of thousands 
and thousands of Americans through research into diseases like 
cancer, diabetes, asthma, cystic fibrosis, multiple sclerosis, 
and so on. As his Administration continued, Trump continued to 
undermine a professional, expert, nonpartisan Federal 
workforce, and to undermine scientific and policy expertise. At 
various points throughout his term, he asserted that Americans 
should inject themselves with disinfectant as a cure for the 
coronavirus, that the noise from windmills causes cancer, and 
that you need an ID to buy a box of cereal.
    The former President elevated political loyalty above 
professional expertise in the workforce, and he made no effort 
to conceal his desire to remove any official who dared to 
disagree with his particular positions. We saw that in the 
firing of Chris Krebs, the Director of the Cybersecurity and 
Infrastructure Security Agency, for daring to say that ``There 
is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, 
changed votes, or was any way compromised in the 2020 
election.'' In his zeal to rid the government of anyone who 
might dare to contradict him, Trump took drastic action to 
convert the traditional nonpartisan Federal workforce into an 
army of partisan loyalists. He did this by creating a new 
category of Federal workers called Schedule F, for which civil 
service protections would not apply. Schedule F would make it 
possible for the President to fire any Federal worker who 
disagreed with his particular spin on policies or who dared to 
tell the truth about public safety, public health, science, or 
the law. And it does not take much imagination to picture how 
this policy could transform our government into what one former 
Republican political appointee called ``an army of suck-ups'' 
because this is how our government used to work before the 
Civil Service Act of 1883, the Pendleton Act. Federal jobs were 
basically at the control of political bosses and were for sale 
to the highest bidder, and now there is an effort to revive 
this system.
    Thankfully, during his first week in office, President 
Biden revoked the Schedule F executive order, and OPM recently 
finalized a rule to strengthen our workforce and ensure that it 
remains expert and nonpartisan. But the former President has 
been explicit about his plans to revive Schedule F and to strip 
the workforce of its nonpartisan productions very aggressively 
should he return to office. Well, what would government be like 
if we moved in the direction of this assault on the 
professional civil service? Well, here is the example I like to 
think of. In 2019, the then-President declared that, despite 
all the evidence to the contrary from the scientific experts at 
the National Weather Service in NOAA, Hurricane Dorian, he 
said, was going to hit the state of Alabama. Now, all the 
meteorologists said that was wrong. It was not going to hit 
Alabama. It was going to hit Florida's Atlantic coast, which it 
did, wreaking devastation across the state. The experts at the 
Weather Service had to scramble to try to undo the 
misinformation that had been spread by the President. But what 
if they had not been able to do that? What if they feared that 
speaking up about where the hurricane was really going to land 
would cost them their jobs? What if they stayed silent and 
allowed the dispatch of hundreds of emergency personnel to the 
wrong states, leaving communities to drown without essential 
help and services?
    Well, the former President promptly instructed his team to 
track down the scientists who corrected his predictions by 
sharpie. According to a 2020 report by the Office of Inspector 
General at Commerce, Trump's Chief of Staff, Mick Mulvaney, 
wrote an email to Commerce Department officials stating, ``as 
it currently stands, it appears as if the National Weather 
Service intentionally contradicted the President, and we need 
to know why,'' and then they demanded a correction or an 
explanation. And his leadership, under Trump, went so far as to 
rebuke the National Weather Service's Birmingham Alabama office 
for tweeting accurate, lifesaving hurricane prediction 
information simply because it contradicted what the President 
had to say. Now, no one got fired because the old protections 
were in place, the very protections that Trump pledges to 
destroy if he is elected again. Is that the government we want? 
Do we want the reign of folly over science and whim over 
professional expertise or big money over the public interest?
    I am sure everyone saw the former President's meeting with 
oil and gas executives where he asked them to raise a billion 
dollars and then pledged he would issue a series of regulations 
undoing all of the climate progress that has been made in the 
Biden Administration. Look, our Constitution put in place a 
series of checks and balances, and we elect a President to 
faithfully execute the laws. That is the job of the President, 
that is the job of the executive branch, not to rewrite the 
laws, not to distort the laws, not to mangle the laws, and not 
to override the laws with a sharpie. And so, we must preserve 
those safeguards, and I will be interested to hear from our 
witness about what he will do to make sure that those 
safeguards are kept in place.
    With that, I will yield to Mr. Connolly for his, I suppose, 
5 or 6 minutes, depending on the Chairman's grace. Thank you.
    Mr. Connolly. I thank the Ranking Member. I thank the 
Chair. Welcome, Mr. Shriver, to your first experience with the 
U.S. Congress. Just be grateful you were not here the other 
night.
    And I do want to begin by noting for my friend from Texas, 
Mr. Sessions, it is not a deep state bureaucracy that thwarted, 
for example, the ill-advised plan to abolish your Agency and to 
fold it into GSA. I worked with a Republican named Mark Meadows 
to make sure that was killed. That was Members of Congress 
working on that. And as the Ranking Member just indicated, it 
is going to be Members of Congress working on Schedule F as 
well, not a deep state thwarting of the Presidential will, 
whether it be President Trump or President Biden or some future 
President.
    This hearing ought to be an opportunity to explore ways we 
can agree in a bipartisan manner to continue to invest in and 
improve our Federal workforce, and to deliver more efficient 
and effective services for the American people. After all, OPM 
is the human resources Agency of the Federal Government. We 
ought to be finding ways to close the 22.47 percent income gap 
between private sector and public sector employees, such as 
bypassing the FAIR Act, which I have introduced with many co-
sponsors, which would provide Federal employees with a 7.4 
percent increase in 2025, and by following up on the Biden 
Administration's historic decision to establish a $15 per hour 
minimum pay raise for Federal employees.
    We ought to be strengthening and reforming OPM itself to 
maintain the Agency is a preeminent, independent H.R. and 
personnel policy manager for the entire Federal Government, 
such as through the Office of Personnel Management Reform Act, 
which would codify essential recommendations included in the 
National Academy of Public Administration's congressionally 
directed report from March 2021. And we ought to be expanding 
benefits that help recruit younger, talented employees, such as 
requiring the Federal Employee Health Benefit Program to cover 
in vitro fertilization, and other assisted reproductive 
technology--ART--a mandate we could establish today by enacting 
the Family Building FEHB Fairness Act.
    Four years ago, President Trump signed Executive Order 
13957 creating a new schedule for the civil service, Schedule 
F. This executive order intended to undermine the merit system 
principles of our Federal workforce by requiring Agency heads 
to reclassify ``policy determining, policymaking, or policy 
advocating'' positions to a newly created schedule of category 
of Federal employees and remove Federal workers' due process 
rights and civil service protections. The real purpose of the 
executive order was to provide the former President with the 
ability to dismiss, at start, at least 50,000 dedicated civil 
servants and replace them with political appointees and 
sycophants. The previous Administration intended to turn our 
skilled nonpartisan civil service into an army of ill-prepared 
and unqualified loyalists. That is the risk. We have not done 
that since the Pendleton Act of 1883. Returning to the spoils 
system is a bad idea for America.
    In response, I introduced a bipartisan bill, the Saving the 
Civil Service Act, which would require any President must seek 
the approval of Congress before significantly expanding the 
accepted service in the civil service and, in doing so, 
depriving huge classes of existing Federal employees of their 
civil service protections. This legislation would preserve our 
merit-based civil service system, which is necessary to 
guarantee continuity through changing administrations, to 
preserve institutional knowledge and expertise within the 
Federal Government, and protect the rule of law. I also made 
sure to reintroduce this bill in this Congress, which currently 
has 36 co-sponsors, including a number of Republicans.
    While I am grateful that the latest OPM rule to reinforce 
and clarify protections for nonpartisan career civil service is 
a great first step, the civil service will not be protected 
from reclassification unless it is codified into law--an 
executive order can be overturned. I call on all stakeholders 
to support the Saving the Civil Service Act and push for its 
passage so that it is certain that no future President, 
irrespective of party, can with the stroke of a pen fire tens 
of thousands of Federal employees who are currently protected 
under the law. While we fight this existential threat, I remain 
committed to helping OPM find ways to ensure that we have a 
Federal workforce our Nation needs to meet current and future 
challenges and that best serve our constituents, the American 
people. I yield back.
    Chairman Comer. The gentleman yields back. Mr. Robert 
Shriver serves as Acting Director of the U.S. Office of 
Personnel Management, the Federal Government's chief human 
capital agency. Mr. Shriver was appointed as the Agency's 
Deputy Director in December 2022 and previously served in 
several roles within OPM during the Obama Administration.
    Pursuant to Committee Rule 9(g), the witness will please 
stand and raise his right hand.
    Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony that you 
are about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing 
but the truth, so help you God?
    Mr. Shriver. I do.
    Chairman Comer. Let the record show the witness answered in 
the affirmative. Thank you, and you may take a seat.
    We appreciate you being here today, Mr. Shriver, and look 
forward to your testimony. Let me remind you that we have read 
your written statement, and it will appear in full in the 
hearing record. Please limit your oral statement to 5 minutes. 
As a reminder, please press the button on the microphone in 
front of you so that it is on, and the Members can hear you. 
When you begin to speak, the light in front of you will turn 
green. After 4 minutes, the light will turn yellow. When the 
red light comes on, your 5 minutes have expired, and we would 
ask that you please wrap up.
    I now recognize Acting Director Shriver for his opening 
statement.

                  STATEMENT OF ROBERT H. SHRIVER, III

                            ACTING DIRECTOR

                     OFFICE OF PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT

    Mr. Shriver. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Ranking 
Member Raskin, Members of the Committee. I am happy to be here 
and appreciate the opportunity to discuss the important work of 
the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. I would like to start 
by acknowledging former OPM director, Kiran Ahuja, for 
championing our Agency and the Federal workforce. Director 
Ahuja and I share a deep commitment to public service and to 
OPM. This shared commitment drove Director Ahuja's efforts to 
stabilize the Agency after years of uncertainty, deliver on the 
Biden-Harris Administration's priorities, and begin a multiyear 
modernization transformation across the Agency. I am proud to 
now serve as the Agency's Acting Director. I am committed to 
building on our culture of service to the Federal workforce and 
partnership with Federal agencies.
    The Federal Government cannot deliver for the American 
people without a highly qualified Federal workforce. As Acting 
Director, I plan to continue improving our customer service and 
advancing OPM's transformation into a digital-first, data-
driven Agency that can lead our Federal workforce into the 
future. We cannot do this without the support of Congress, and 
I am asking for your partnership to achieve these goals. This 
Committee understands the critical services that Federal 
workers deliver to the American people. They are firefighters 
putting out wildfires in your states, doctors and nurses 
getting veterans the care they need, cyber experts defending 
our grid, law enforcement officers protecting our borders, 
ports, and transportation systems, and so much more. These 
workers are also members of your communities with over 1.6 
million living in states represented by the Members on this 
Committee. In fact, more than 85 percent of the Federal 
workforce serves outside the National Capital Region. These 
workers are delivering, and the workers at OPM from Boyers and 
Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania to Kansas City, Missouri; Macon, 
Georgia; and here in D.C., are supporting them every day.
    OPM has made critical progress strengthening Federal 
agencies and the Federal workforce. A comprehensive list is 
contained in my written statement, but I did want to highlight 
a few key initiatives. First, OPM has issued a final rule on 
the Pathways Programs designed to significantly expand 
opportunities for early career talent in the Federal 
Government. This is one of the most significant actions the 
Federal Government has taken since the program's inception 14 
years ago to help Federal agencies recruit early career talent. 
Second, OPM has issued a final rule that clarifies and 
reinforces longstanding protections and merit system principles 
for career civil servants. OPM is proud to continue preserving 
this longstanding bipartisan practice that allows the Federal 
Government to better recruit and retain qualified career 
professionals. Finally, OPM published a final regulation 
prohibiting the use of prior non-Federal salary history in 
setting pay for Federal employment offers. This is an important 
step in promoting equality and fairness to help the Federal 
Government attract the best talent.
    Congress has also entrusted OPM with the implementation of 
the new Postal Service Health Benefits Program, and I am 
committed to successfully launching this program on time. I 
thank Congress for your support through our Fiscal Year 2024 
appropriation and ask for your continued support for this 
program going forward. In addition, there is important work we 
must do to modernize the Federal Employee Health Benefits 
Program and our Retirement Services Division. OPM has a vision 
and a plan to modernize FEHB, built on the implementation of 
the Postal Service Health Benefits Program. By expanding this 
modern platform to FEHB, we will not only improve customer 
service, we will also address many of the challenges with our 
current system, particularly with ineligible enrollments. I am 
personally focused on this issue as I know Members of this 
Committee are as well.
    Just last week, OPM delivered a legislative proposal that 
would allow us to access consistent, stable funding through the 
Employee Health Benefits Fund to do this work. I hope to work 
with this Committee on advancing this legislation, and while we 
have made significant progress addressing inventories for 
retirement services, I know there is more work to be done. 
Success can only be achieved by modernizing our paper-based 
system to a digital process. This transformation cannot have 
been without Congress.
    Thank you for the opportunity to appear before the 
Committee. I look forward to today's discussion on OPM's work 
and our plans to further enhance how we support the Federal 
workforce and the American people as well as the critical need 
to work with Congress to fully implement these plans. Thank 
you.
    Chairman Comer. The gentleman yields. We will now begin 
questions. The Chair recognizes Mr. Gosar from Arizona for 5 
minutes.
    Mr. Gosar. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Putting 
children on puberty suppressors and cross-sex hormones can lead 
to infertility and an outcome known as chemical castration. Do 
you believe that Federal taxpayers should pay for the 
mutilation and chemical castration of children confused about 
their gender in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program?
    Mr. Shriver. Congressman, the Federal Employee Health 
Benefits Program provides coverage to 8 million Federal 
employees.
    Mr. Gosar. I am just asking you a question. Yes or no. Yes 
or no.
    Mr. Shriver. So, there has been an exclusion that 
previously precluded coverage of gender-affirming care. It was 
lifted in 2016.
    Mr. Gosar. OK. I am glad. Is it the government's right to 
exclude any other type of benefit?
    Mr. Shriver. So, Congressman, the way the FEHB Program 
works is we provide for essential health benefits to be made 
available across plans, and then we work with the plans to make 
market-based offerings available to Federal employees.
    Mr. Gosar. Just a couple of months ago, the National Health 
Service of England decided to prohibit the use of puberty 
suppressors for children confused about their gender due to a 
lack of safety and effectiveness. Would you consider only 
contracting with plans in the Federal Employees Health Benefits 
Program that refuse to chemically castrate children, which is 
what puberty suppressors followed by cross-sex hormones due to 
children? Yes or no.
    Mr. Shriver. Congressman, we make decisions based on the 
best scientific and medical evidence that are available to us.
    Mr. Gosar. I am glad you went there. OK. Stop right there. 
I am reclaiming my time. So, I would like to enter into the 
record a Wall Street Journal article from June 7, 2023, 
entitled ``The Truth About Puberty Blockers: The FDA hasn't 
approved them for gender dysphoria, and their effects are 
serious and permanent.''
    Chairman Comer. Without objection, so ordered.
    Mr. Gosar. Now, here is a quote from the piece: ``The 
Center for Investigative Reporting revealed in 2017 that the 
FDA had received more than 10,000 adverse events from women who 
were given Lupron, an off label, as children, to help them grow 
taller.'' They reported thinning and brittle bones, teeth that 
shed enamel or crack, degenerative spinal discs, painful 
joints, radical mood swings, seizures, migraines, and suicidal 
thoughts. Some developed fibromyalgia. There are reports of 
fertility problems and cognitive issues as well. Does this 
information make you reconsider allowing FEHB to be contracted 
with plans that would experiment with our children in this way?
    Mr. Shriver. Congressman, the health plans that participate 
in the FEHB decide on the benefit package----
    Mr. Gosar. Whoa, whoa, stop right there. So, you are 
allowing a bad product to go forward here? This is unbelievable 
here. So, in her oral and written testimony from last year, 
Director Ahuja refused to require FEHB to report on how many 
children receive sex changes surgeries and chemical castration. 
Will you today commit to greater transparency and begin 
collecting data on how children are being abused in the FEHB 
Program through life-altering sex change surgeries and 
debilitating infusions of puberty suppressors and cross-sex 
hormones?
    Mr. Shriver. Congressman, once again, we----
    Mr. Gosar. Once again, you did not give a ``yes'' or 
``no.'' So, yes or no?
    Mr. Shriver. So, we administer the FEHB Program----
    Mr. Gosar. So, you are going to actually support using 
these children as an experiment?
    Mr. Shriver. The health plans decide which benefits 
packages----
    Mr. Gosar. No, no, no, no, the government decides, not the 
health plan. Sorry to tell you that, because you can pick and 
choose. Now, the United States is behind the curve on 
protecting children as a growing number of countries have 
restricted access to puberty blockers in recent years, 
including England, Finland, Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. Former 
Director Ahuja wrote to me in a written testimony last year 
that the OPM requires that FEHB carriers adopt an acceptable 
standard of care based on credible science and evidence. By 
allowing children to access puberty blockers, which the 
government of England believes to be unsafe, as well as others, 
and ineffective for people confused about their gender, are you 
concerned that the FEHB is now not following the latest 
science?
    Mr. Shriver. Congressman, the health plans decide what 
benefits to offer and----
    Mr. Gosar. Once again, you as the purchaser of that is 
going to decide everything about that FEHB. I thought the USA 
was better than that. I thought we were the leaders in science, 
not followers. I find it disgusting that you still sit there 
and hide behind that, when children are being mutilated, do not 
have a chance, and we are using a healthcare plan as our 
hiding. First of all, I am a healthcare provider. I do 
understand this very, very well. With that, Mr. Chairman, I 
yield back.
    Chairman Comer. The gentleman yields back. The Chair 
recognizes Mr. Raskin from Maryland.
    Mr. Raskin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Some people love to 
denigrate and castigate the Federal workforce, but I do not do 
that. My district borders Washington, DC, and it is filled with 
thousands of devoted Federal workers who make our government 
function. And I have people in my district who work at NOAA, 
the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. I have 
people who work at the National Institutes of Health, the 
National Institute of Mental Health, people at the FDA, the 
Food and Drug Administration. All of these are in my district. 
These people predict the direction and the potential landfall 
locations of deadly storms and hurricanes. They innovate new 
medical treatments to protect public health. NIH discovered 
fluoride to prevent tooth decay and has pioneered vaccines for 
lots of diseases including hepatitis B and hepatitis C.
    Mr. Shriver, you are a political appointee. Can you talk 
briefly about how the expert Federal workforce partners with 
and interacts with political appointees who are brought in to 
serve the American people?
    Mr. Shriver. Thank you for the question, Ranking Member. We 
work every day at OPM with our career workforce. We have people 
at OPM that are economists who work on pay issues. They are 
health insurance specialists who understand how to review 
medical claims. They process complex retirement applications. 
They have built up an expertise in their area over many, many 
years, and we rely on them to carry out the business of OPM day 
in and day out. We lead and we set priorities, but the input 
that we get from our career leaders is essential to making sure 
that the policies that we deploy and the things that we 
prioritize are going to be in the best interest of the American 
people.
    Mr. Raskin. NOAA's National Weather Service experts who 
work in my district develop the weather forecasts that are 
depended on by businesses, farms, airlines, rail systems all 
over the country. They forecast the strong tornadoes in Mr. 
Burlison's district yesterday, and these forecasts ensure that 
Federal emergency responders are ready to help communities that 
are affected, especially in this age of climate change with the 
accelerating ferocity of storms and bad weather. Can you 
describe some other essential first responders who serve in the 
Federal workforce?
    Mr. Shriver. Thank you for the question, Mr. Ranking 
Member. So, I have been able and privileged to do a lot of work 
on behalf of wildland firefighters, and we know that wildland 
firefighting has changed from a season to, in many cases, year-
long. There are Federal wildland firefighters who are deployed 
to areas of need, and those decisions are based on science 
about where the biggest need is. We have poultry inspectors, 
people who go to poultry plants and make sure that our food 
supply is kept safe. We have people who make sure that the 
water is kept safe, people who make sure that grant money gets 
into your districts.
    Mr. Raskin. All right. So, I started off by talking about 
the example of the former President using a sharpie to change 
the direction of a hurricane, and had that advice been 
followed, that could have been a disaster, both for the areas 
that were hit and then the areas in Alabama that were not hit, 
but which the President insisted were the eye of the storm. 
One, what is the value of having independent scientific experts 
working for us, and two, does that mean that the President 
cannot, in fact, faithfully execute the laws, according to his 
own interpretation? In other words, is there unnecessary 
conflict between political appointees like you and the 
scientists and experts who populate most of the Federal 
Government?
    Mr. Shriver. I think it is critical for the American people 
to have trust and confidence that decisions and information and 
data that is being presented is being done so by experts in the 
field. Especially when you are talking about risk to life and 
risk to property, that we make sure that the American public 
understands that the information they are receiving comes from 
the experts. And I do not see any conflict whatsoever, 
Congressman, with that really important public interest and 
being able, for political appointees, to work with career 
employees on the President's priorities.
    Mr. Raskin. Well, I appreciate that, and I hope that there 
is not a conflict and that we will be able to continue to have 
political leadership working together with an independent and 
expert civil service. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I yield back 
to you.
    Chairman Comer. The Chair recognizes the Chairman of the 
Government Operations Subcommittee, Mr. Sessions from Texas, 
for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Sessions. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. I hope 
that the gentleman, Mr. Shriver, sees that, as I spoke to you 
yesterday, on both sides of this Committee, Republican and 
Democrat, you would be offered and asked what I consider to be 
professional questions that are important to the legislative 
responsibility that we have. And I appreciate the distinguished 
gentleman from Maryland and Kentucky and my other Members for 
attempting to follow the same norm. I think it is important 
that the American people also see that we make this about them 
and not about either one of our parties.
    Mr. Shriver, there are two overwhelming questions that I 
would like to engage in right now, and one is the term, 
``qualified versus diversity,'' hiring on diversity. You have 
heard conversations, I am sure, out of this Committee and in 
the press, I am sure in your Administration, about hiring 
qualified employees as opposed to adding a diverse workforce. 
Could you please tell me the OPM decision structure on this 
issue?
    Mr. Shriver. Thank you for the question, Congressman. So, 
we support the President's initiative on diversity, equity, 
inclusion, and accessibility, that we are implementing that 
initiative consistent with the merit system principles, which 
require fair and equitable treatments without regard to----
    Mr. Sessions. All right. So, thank you very much. Well, I 
am talking about the hiring procedures. So, under this term 
that we just used, diversity, does a person have to be 
qualified and fit the same parameters and recommendations that 
it would for any employee being hired?
    Mr. Shriver. One hundred percent, sir. That is part of the 
merit system principles.
    Mr. Sessions. So, what you are attempting to do is to 
upgrade the number of people, I get this, across our country, 
to give everyone a fair and equitable chance, so to speak, at 
getting a job, and you are simply highlighting the need where 
numbers do not reflect that. Would that be appropriate way to 
say this?
    Mr. Shriver. Right. So, we look for barriers, and so one 
barrier, for example, Congressman, is the lack of paid 
internships in the Federal Government. That is a barrier to 
people seeking Federal employment. So, we issued guidance early 
in the Administration to require more paid internships as an 
example.
    Mr. Sessions. You think that also helps people who do not 
have those opportunities for an internship? Is it simply a 
check that is given them that you will now give them a higher 
threshold for entrance?
    Mr. Shriver. I am sorry. I am not quite following your 
question.
    Mr. Sessions. Do you use that as a measure then determine 
to give them, like a veteran, an extra plus because they have 
completed it? So, you use that as a measure?
    Mr. Shriver. Thank you for the clarification. So, any time 
spent working in a Federal job can help you qualify for your 
next Federal job.
    Mr. Sessions. Thank you very much. Director, I would like 
to move down to the question of the government inventing new 
processes, procedures to compete against the free enterprise 
system about what already exists and the government developing 
these rather than seeking opportunities. We have talked about 
D-18, which was an organization that was brought in under 
President Obama that we believe, after a hearing, on both 
sides, that they did not perform the duties that they said they 
did. It caused great consternation to .gov with deception. I 
would also bring up other agencies that can go and compete, 
like, for instance, Jobs USA. Meanwhile, there are numerous 
pre-enterprise system people that have a broader grasp of 
people to find government jobs, whether it be in Waco, Texas or 
whether it be in New York City, that they are already 
established. And I find that this government is going and 
creating, spending taxpayer money to embellish their systems to 
go and hire more people. What are you finding? Are you finding 
that they just get this money and go do that, or is OPM saying 
let us not recreate a marketplace answer that is already there? 
What would the OPM answer be as your direction to agencies?
    Mr. Shriver. Thank you for the question, Congressman. So, 
with respect to USA Jobs, that has been something that OPM has 
run now for, I think, some 15 years. One of the key design 
features of USA Jobs was, we called it a universal trailer 
hitch, which basically the idea is that any staffing system 
could plug into USA Jobs, and so agencies could use whatever 
staffing system they wanted from the private sector.
    Mr. Sessions. Without regard for OPM trying to direct those 
agencies about a preference or a way to use it? So, would you 
consider if OPM went to an agency and said we are trying to 
stay leading edge, but let us not do something that might be a 
competitive edge or against another provider that is already 
out there, you are saying that would not be tolerated?
    Mr. Shriver. I think it is very important that we maintain 
a level playing field for all of these staffing systems. As 
long as they meet the requirements, which are like 
cybersecurity requirements and such and an agency wants to use 
them, then they should be able to use them.
    Mr. Sessions. But I am talking about the agency giving 
preference to their own development and their own product.
    Mr. Shriver. Again, I think it is really important that we 
maintain a level playing field, so when we are offering a 
product as an Agency that also the private sector is offering, 
a staffing system is the primary example.
    Mr. Sessions. OK. Let me go back on this.
    Mr. Shriver. OK.
    Mr. Sessions. Would you use your competitive insight to 
offer to a Federal agency that they should use you and not 
someone else, a preference?
    Mr. Shriver. No.
    Mr. Sessions. Would that be permissible under your rules 
and regulations from OPM for you to direct or to solicit 
something against another competitor in the marketplace?
    Mr. Shriver. No. My clear direction is that we maintain a 
level playing field for private sector vendors.
    Mr. Sessions. Thank you very much. Mr. Chairman, I 
appreciate the time and to the Ranking Member. I think that 
this is a great hearing, and I appreciate both of you for 
professionally moving this forward. I yield back my time.
    Chairman Comer. The gentleman yields back. The Chair 
recognizes Ms. Norton from Washington, DC.
    Ms. Norton. I do not have any questions.
    Chairman Comer. The Chair now recognizes Mr. Mfume from 
Maryland.
    Mr. Mfume. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank you and 
the Ranking Member, and it is good to have the remarks also 
from the gentleman from Texas. He serves as the Chair and I am 
the Ranking Member, as many of you know, on the Subcommittee of 
Oversight.
    Day in and day out, 2.2 million civil servants that are 
employed in the Federal workforce keep our government 
operating, to preserve and protect our Federal workforce. Many 
of us believe, Mr. Shriver, that Congress should focus more on 
legislative action that supports efforts to recruit and retain 
top talent and focus less on chasing away high-quality 
employees into the private sector.
    I do want to say on the record, you have done an excellent 
job of keeping me and many Members of the Committee apprised of 
all the hard work that OPM is doing to protect the Federal 
workforce from political maneuvering, which is so extremely 
important. I also applaud OPM's finalization of the upholding 
civil service protections and merit systems principal rules, 
which implement protections that, as we know, would make it 
difficult for future administrations to reapply what is known 
as the Trump policy at Schedule F, which sought to convert tens 
of thousands of Federal employees to at-will workers. Several 
of my colleagues and I fought together to give this policy the 
sort of treatment that it deserves and to give the Federal 
workforce reassurance that they will never have their 
employment in jeopardy because of political manipulation. The 
last thing that any of us want to do, I believe, is to force 
agencies to adopt policies that bow to the politics that 
hamstring their mission, regardless of what party might be in 
control.
    I also want to highlight that one of those flexibilities 
that attract and retain high-quality employees is telework, 
which sometimes is a bad word in this body. I think that we 
have got to support telework and remote work arrangements at 
certain agencies, as long as it does not hamper the delivery of 
service to our constituents. I do want to ask you, Mr. Shriver, 
if you could take a minute to paint a picture for us of what 
our Federal workforce would look like if Schedule F prevailed 
under this Administration or any other administration, and to 
talk about what you may see as the hindrance of political 
loyalists over policy experts, and why that is a threat to what 
we would like to believe is creation and protection of the best 
workforce possible.
    Mr. Shriver. Thank you for the question, Congressman. I 
think what is really critical for the American people is that 
they have confidence that the career civil servants are 
offering their expert advice and they are offering their expert 
opinions. And I think a system that transforms large portions 
of the Federal workforce into a world where they do not have 
for-cause protections, I think that it puts that important 
principle at risk. When Congress enacted the Civil Service 
Reform Act, there were several value judgments in that law, 
right? And one of those value judgments were that we want to 
make sure that Federal employees are not chilled for speaking 
out, to offer their expert advice or identify problems that 
they see. As a leader of an agency that is critical to me, I 
need our career workforce to feel confident that they can give 
me the best information and the best advice they have.
    Mr. Mfume. And what would you describe as the immediate and 
long-term effect on both recruitment and retention if Schedule 
F, as we know it, were to be effective?
    Mr. Shriver. I think that if we were to send a message to 
the public, that you no longer are prioritized in the Federal 
Government based on the skills, abilities, knowledge that you 
have, but instead that you are going to be valued based on some 
other non-merit factor, I think that the human capital 
challenges that the Federal Government already faces will be 
dramatically exacerbated.
    Mr. Mfume. Well, I want to thank you, and I want to thank 
you for your work and your attentiveness to Members of both 
sides of the aisle in the Committee and Subcommittee on issues 
that are being discussed today. I would also associate, again, 
myself with the remarks from the gentleman of Texas and to 
thank both the Chair and the Ranking Member for calling this 
hearing. I yield back, sir.
    Chairman Comer. The gentleman yields back. The Chair now 
recognizes Mr. Biggs from Arizona.
    Mr. Biggs. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As I begin, I want to 
ask unanimous consent to enter a report recently issued 
comparing the compensation of Federal and private sector 
employees in 2022, which found the Federal workers, on average, 
receive greater total compensation than similar workers in the 
private sector. Mr. Chairman?
    Chairman Comer. Without objection, so ordered.
    Mr. Biggs. Thank you so much. There are a lot of areas I 
would like to discuss with you, but I am going to begin with 
this right here. It was widely reported that members of the 
civil service organized and participated in strikes or misusing 
leave to protest the Biden Administration's policies with 
respect to Israel and Gaza. What steps does OPM recommend for 
agencies dealing with employees whose strike, misuse leave, or 
abuse their authority to undermine the policies of the Biden 
Administration?
    Mr. Shriver. Thank you for the question, Congressman. We 
have well-established leave administration rules and policies.
    Mr. Biggs. So, what did you do? What do you recommend?
    Mr. Shriver. So, I think that anytime that any agency 
suspects that somebody is misusing leave, and I am not familiar 
with the specifics of the hypothetical that you raised----
    Mr. Biggs. It was not a hypothetical. Let me give you an 
example. I am looking at an MSN story. I have got four other 
stories that I can introduce. This was not a hypothetical. This 
is folks from NASA, this is folks from staff and Congress, this 
is all across agencies of the Federal Government, where people 
were walking out, organizing letters of protest against Biden 
policy. They are formally engaging in opposing this 
Administration's policy, which is OK for us because we are 
elected officials, but how is that OK for Federal employees?
    Mr. Shriver. Congressman, so Federal employees have to 
follow the leave rules, and they are also governed by the Hatch 
Act, and they need to comply with the requirements of the Hatch 
Act on any political activity they may engage in.
    Mr. Biggs. So, my question gets back to this: what did you 
all do in dealing with that and recommending to agencies, and 
as far as you know, has there been any investigation, anybody 
disciplined for violations of what seems to be a violation of 
Hatch Act?
    Mr. Shriver. Congressman, I would not have known what is 
going on with respect to other agencies----
    Mr. Biggs. You have not had any conversations with them, 
with the directors? You have not had any communications with 
them? Isn't that really what is part and parcel of what OPM 
does?
    Mr. Shriver. Well, OPM sets the rules, and then agencies 
follow and implement the rules. And with respect to questions 
around leave or the Hatch Act, those are always matters that 
are taken up as a management matter at the Agency.
    Mr. Biggs. So, this becomes--since you set the rules and 
then agencies are supposed to implement them, then that becomes 
the question. What are you doing to make sure and hold agency 
heads accountable for following the rules that OPM implements?
    Mr. Shriver. Well, we rely on agencies to follow those 
rules. We have an audit function that we are able to evaluate 
the way that agencies----
    Mr. Biggs. So, you are telling me you audit them.
    Mr. Shriver. That is one of the functions that we perform.
    Mr. Biggs. And what do you do if they have not enacted the 
rules that you put in place with regard to Hatch Act, for 
instance?
    Mr. Shriver. Well, so we are not the enforcement mechanism 
over Hatch Act. That is the Office of Special Counsel, so our 
audit authority is primarily around the hiring area, for 
example.
    Mr. Biggs. So, it is not your job, is what you are saying?
    Mr. Shriver. The Congress gave the Office of Special 
Counsel the authority to enforce the Hatch Act.
    Mr. Biggs. OK. I am going to leave that now because I have 
got two other areas that I am not going to clearly get to, but 
I got to ask this. Can you tell me how many states actually 
have an at-will employment?
    Mr. Shriver. No, I cannot tell you that, Congressman.
    Mr. Biggs. I mean, you have given a story, your legend 
about why at-will or the Schedule F would not work for you, you 
think. Have you examined states that actually have at-will in 
the private sector?
    Mr. Shriver. What I have examined is the value proposition 
that Congress put in the Civil Service Reform Act.
    Mr. Biggs. So, the answer is no, you have not looked at it. 
You were just opining here to somebody else previously about 
had the Schedule F been imposed that you might have this 
problem or that problem, but you have not looked at states 
where that have at-will. That is what your testimony is today?
    Mr. Shriver. Well, I would refer you, Congressman, to the 
lengthy discussion or those kinds of comments that we got in 
response to our proposed regulation on strengthening the civil 
service. That issue is addressed there.
    Mr. Biggs. So, your testimony here today is you did not 
examine at-will status in states that have and the impacts of 
at-will status for employment in any of the states that do, 
right? You did not study that? You did not look at it?
    Mr. Shriver. We built a robust administrative record with 
4,100 comments that includes a variety of thoughts and 
opinions, including on at-will status.
    Mr. Biggs. Well, you guys were talking about science 
earlier, and I am just curious what data you actually garnered 
from these at-will states, which I come from an at-will state, 
and it is one of the fastest-growing states. It has tremendous 
employment opportunities, has higher than average wage, et 
cetera. I yield back.
    Chairman Comer. The gentleman yields back. The Chair now 
recognizes Ms. Norton from Washington, DC.
    Ms. Norton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to begin by 
acknowledging the amazing work and tireless devotion my 
constituents, who are Federal workers that I represent, many 
Federal workers, that they demonstrate to the American people 
every single day. Federal employees are the backbone of our 
government and the driving force behind the programs and 
services Americans depend on for healthcare, business loans, 
community grant funding, and so much more.
    Before I go into the bulk of my question line, I briefly 
want to highlight H.R. 7236, my bill that would require the 
Office of Personnel Management to make permanent the free 
identity protection coverage that Congress required OPM to 
provide at that point for 10 years to individuals whose Social 
Security Numbers were potentially compromised during the 2015 
OPM data breaches. Under current law, OPM is only required to 
provide identity coverage through Fiscal Year 2026. Congress 
needs to extend the identity protection given that there is no 
limit to when the stolen identity data may be exploited. 
Therefore, there should be no limit on the duration of the 
coverage provided individuals. Mr. Shriver, does the 
Administration support extending identity coverage, and if so, 
for how long?
    Mr. Shriver. Thank you for the question, Congresswoman. I 
am happy to take that back, but I certainly want to emphasize 
your point that identity theft protection is a critical tool 
that we have been able to leverage to protect Federal 
employees, and we will continue to do so as needs arise. And I 
look forward to working with you and talking with you more 
about that.
    Ms. Norton. Mr. Shriver, you led the Agency's efforts to 
issue a regulation that clarified and reasserts that Congress 
vested our Nation's 2.2 million expert Federal employees' 
protections from being removed from civil service for arbitrary 
and political reasons. Mr. Shriver, why did OPM think this 
regulation was needed?
    Mr. Shriver. Thank you for the question, Congresswoman. 
There is a long history in this country, going back 140 years, 
to preserving a nonpartisan career civil service. That is 
critical to trust in government, to the American people being 
able to feel confident that the information they are receiving 
from their government comes from the experts. The regulation 
was important in order to clarify what those procedures are and 
what those protections are. In light of some changes, namely 
Schedule F, that the prior Administration attempted to 
implement, we thought it was important to clarify the rules 
that are on the books.
    Ms. Norton. Well, a prime example of the Trump 
Administration's efforts to attack the Federal workforce was 
the 2019 effort to relocate hundreds of Department of 
Agriculture employees from their longtime Washington, DC. 
worksites. The Trump Administration took this action with 
little notice and flawed research into the move's potential 
consequences for service and mission. In 2022, a Government 
Accountability Office audit of the move found that, ``USDA 
overlooked key evidence,'' and that, ``USDA leadership may have 
made a relocation decision that was not the best choice to 
accomplish its stated objectives.'' For GSA, that is an extreme 
rebuff. Mr. Shriver, from an H.R. perspective, what are the 
consequences of making decisions based on politics instead of 
data of evidence?
    Mr. Shriver. Thank you for the question, Congresswoman. 
Relocations are very disruptive, and agencies should make 
decisions about relocations based on what is best to deliver 
their mission, and, in fact, that should be the North Star for 
agencies on all of the workforce matters that they are 
considering, is this approach going to best allow us to advance 
our mission? And if agencies make decisions that are for other 
reasons, then it creates a lack of confidence in that agency's 
mission.
    Ms. Norton. Following USDA's decision to relocate, Trump's 
Office of Management and Budget Director boasted about the mass 
exodus of Federal workers it caused. I ask the Chair for 
unanimous consent to introduce into the record this Government 
Executive article entitled ``Mulvaney: Relocating Offices is a 
'Wonderful Way' to Shed Federal Employees.''
    Chairman Comer. Without objection, so ordered.
    And the gentlelady's time has expired. The Chair now 
recognizes Mr. Palmer from Alabama.
    Mr. Palmer. Mr. Shriver, back in August 2023, White House 
Chief of Staff, Jeff Zients, sent an email to Cabinet 
leadership calling on them to aggressively increase in-person 
work, saying that doing so was a priority of President Biden. 
His email said that doing so would allow the executive branch 
to deliver better results for the American people by improving 
teamwork and productivity within the Federal workforce. Then in 
January, he sent a follow-up email demanding that further 
action be taken, stating that some Federal agencies are not 
where they need to be in the transition to greater in-office 
work. Should we take from this that Federal agencies' 
operations and performance are not what they should be because 
Federal employees are not returning to the office? That is a 
``yes'' or ``no'' because I have several questions about that.
    Mr. Shriver. No, I do not think that should be your 
conclusion from that. I think----
    Mr. Palmer. Well, now, just looking at some of the problems 
at OPM, it would indicate that there is something wrong there. 
Either you have got people not able to do their job or they are 
not there to do the job. You know, why does the government 
allow people not to come to work when they have a directive 
from the Office of the President to come back to work?
    Mr. Shriver. So, many agencies have hybrid working 
arrangements where people are able to----
    Mr. Palmer. I understand that. You had that before they 
started not showing up. I mean, the gentlelady from District of 
Columbia just mentioned the Department of Agriculture. It is my 
understanding that only about 6 percent of the office space 
that the Department of Agriculture has is actually occupied. 
That means that 94 percent of the people who should be there 
are not there. You cannot run an organization of any kind when 
you have that kind of absenteeism. Even if you have got 15 or 
20 percent of your workforce not showing up for work, it is 
very rare that you are going to have the productivity that is 
necessary to make an organization successful.
    Mr. Shriver. Congressman, there is a difference between 
working in the office and being absent. For many, many years, 
prior to the pandemic, the Federal Government was able to have 
people that could spend some of their time working in an 
alternative location. I think----
    Mr. Palmer. I understand that. Having worked in the private 
sector, I understand that, but what I am telling you, and you 
understand this and you do not want to answer the question, and 
I get it. You are trying to cover your backside. That happens a 
lot in this Committee. Why isn't there a governmentwide 
standard for a minimum number of days that workers should be in 
the office?
    Mr. Shriver. So, first of all, Congressman, 54 percent of 
Federal employees do not telework at all. They show up in the 
office.
    Mr. Palmer. That is wonderful. That means 46 percent do.
    Mr. Shriver. Right. Forty-six percent have a mixed 
arrangement, and our telework report that we issued back in 
December----
    Mr. Palmer. Let me ask you this. As my colleague from 
Arizona mentioned, the protesters, Federal employees out 
protesting Biden Administration policies, I am not fine with 
that. I mean, they can have their political view and their 
position on issues, but they should be at work, and clearly, 
they are not teleworking. They are telegraphing their policy 
agenda. So, why haven't those employees been held accountable 
for not only not showing up for work but out protesting?
    Mr. Shriver. Federal employees are responsible for 
following the rules regarding leave and following the rules 
regarding the Hatch Act.
    Mr. Palmer. Now, Federal supervisors are responsible for 
making sure that the work gets done, that Federal employees 
follow the rules, and I think a lot of this is political. I 
want to also bring up something that the gentlelady from the 
District of Columbia brought up, and that was the 2015 hack of 
the OPM that resulted in 22 million records for former and 
Federal employees being compromised, including those who had 
security classifications. What has OPM done to shore that up, 
and are you monitoring that on a regular basis to ensure that 
does not happen again?
    Mr. Shriver. Congressman, we constantly monitor and 
strengthen our cybersecurity posture, and I would ask for 
Congress' help in supporting our Fiscal Year 2025 budget, which 
includes additional resources to allow us to do this and stay 
strong.
    Mr. Palmer. Let me ask you this. In addition to that, in 
terms of Federal health insurance benefits, you have got a 
number of ineligible people who are getting those benefits, and 
OPM has not been able to identify all of them, has not been 
able to remove them. In addition to that, you have got a long 
waiting period for Federal retirees to get their pension 
benefits, their payments started. It just seems to me, Mr. 
Chairman, that OPM is overstretched, and there is a lack of 
accountability and transparency in the Agency and other Federal 
agencies, particularly in regard to the conduct and whereabouts 
of their employees. So, I really think that this is something 
we need to go a little deeper in.
    Chairman Comer. Absolutely.
    Mr. Palmer. And with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
    Chairman Comer. The gentleman yields back. The Chair now 
recognizes Ms. Brown for 5 minutes.
    Ms. Brown. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As we have heard today, 
a nonpartisan, expert, and merit-based civil workforce is 
essential to delivering the services Americans expect from our 
government. Our national security depends on it, as do the day-
to-day services we rely on like timely mail, SNAP benefit 
delivery, and Social Security checks. Our Federal agencies can 
be exceptional if their workers reflect the diverse experiences 
and demographics of our population. Diversity and inclusion are 
not just nice to have, they are a must have. One of OPM's 
guiding principles is, ``When experienced and diverse teams tap 
their collective knowledge, we get better results.'' We know 
that prioritizing DEIA will improve individual and team 
performance. To get the most from our workforce, every employee 
should feel welcome. So, Acting Director Shriver, how do you 
make the case for efforts to promote diversity, equity, and 
inclusion in the Federal Government?
    Mr. Shriver. Thank you for the question, Congresswoman. I 
am proud of OPM's efforts as an Agency, including with respect 
to promoting DEIA. I think the business case is closed, that, 
in order for organizations to maximize their performance and 
their effectiveness, they need to pay attention to DEIA. That 
is why we have emphasized removing barriers to Federal 
employment opportunities by doing things like requiring 
internships to be paid, by improving pay for blue collar 
workers, and instituting a $15-an-hour minimum wage, by hiring 
people based on the skills they have and not imposing 
unnecessary degree requirements, by conducting barrier 
analyses, by launching the first-ever military connected 
strategic plan so we can get more military spouses into the 
government. Those are the actions we are taking, Congresswoman.
    Ms. Brown. Thank you very much, and there is plenty of data 
to back up your claims, Mr. Shriver. I ask unanimous consent to 
enter into the record this article from Harvard Business Review 
entitled ``Why Diverse Teams Are Smarter.''
    Chairman Comer. Without objection, so ordered.
    Ms. Brown. Thank you. Unfortunately, my colleagues on the 
other side of the aisle would rather weaken, shrink, and 
undermine our Federal workforce by eliminating diversity 
initiatives that bring people with new ideas, backgrounds, and 
experiences to the table. The Republican nominee for President 
has made his intention to fire experienced and expert officials 
in the government with whom he disagrees politically very 
clear. This is extremely dangerous and would make us all less 
safe, less secure, and worse off. So, Acting Director Shriver, 
can you speak to the need for expert, nonpartisan officials in 
all aspects of the Federal workforce, including the agencies 
maintaining our food safety, our transportation, and even our 
justice system?
    Mr. Shriver. Thank you, Congresswoman. I think it is 
essential for the American people to be able to count on the 
information that is provided by the Federal Government, to be 
able to count on the fact that our political leaders are 
getting the best advice they can get based on subject matter 
experts who have experience and expertise in their fields, and 
that all of us are better as leaders and our government 
operates more effectively and more efficiently if we can rely 
on the expert advice of our career civil service.
    Ms. Brown. Thank you so much. This cannot be more important 
as our country faces efforts to politicize the Federal 
workforce rather than strengthen and support the agencies doing 
lifesaving and critical work every day. I just want to 
personally thank you, Acting Director Shriver, and the Biden-
Harris Administration for your continued commitment to the best 
interests of all Americans, and with that, Mr. Chairman, I 
yield back.
    Chairman Comer. The gentlelady yields back. Before I 
recognize Mr. Perry, I believe Mr. Biggs has something to enter 
into the record.
    Mr. Biggs. Yes, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. I ask to enter 
into the record a letter that I wrote, signed by many Members 
of this Committee in November 2022, and the response of 
February 2023 by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.
    Chairman Comer. Without objection, so ordered.
    The Chair now recognizes Mr. Perry from Pennsylvania.
    Mr. Perry. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. The Ranking Member talked 
about the increasing severity and frequency of storms related 
to climate change, and while I appreciate he is welcome to his 
own opinions, however, he is not welcome to his own facts, and 
a very quick search just shows NOAA saying that there is a 
downward trend in Atlantic hurricanes in recent decades in 
severity and frequency. Now, you can continue on down, you can 
get a number of different opinions--Center for Climate and 
Energy Solutions' carbon brief, NASA, CNN. The American people 
really do not know exactly what to believe, so they want to 
multisource their information, and they should do that, and 
they should be allowed to do that. And we should be allowed to 
question the systems without being accused of impugning the 
Federal workforce. I represent many Federal workers that get up 
early in the morning and go to work and believe in their 
mission and work hard. We are surrounded by Federal workers 
right here that are on their mission and believe in doing the 
right thing, but that does not mean that everything is hunky 
dory, and we should not have to be worried about being accused 
of being against the Federal workforce simply by asking 
reasonable questions about the system.
    And so, with that, sir, I want to go to occupancy and 
whether OPM has a plan to advocate for re-leasing unused 
workspace by the Federal Government. Over a 3-month average in 
2023, some agencies are barely hitting 25 percent occupancy, 
and we have had bills related to that--the Department of 
Veterans Affairs, 14 percent; Social Security Administration, 7 
percent; the Office of Personnel Management, 12 percent--that 
is the occupancy rate. Now, as long as we are getting the work 
done, we understand that times are changing, people telework, 
people working from home, et cetera. We get that, but sometimes 
the work is not being done.
    I am just going to cite an example that I have. I 
personally called the Federal Aviation Administration about a 
constituent concern that I have. It has been 3 months, and I 
have not gotten a response, and I do not know if it is because 
people are not at work at the office. I do not know if it is 
because they do not care, they do not know, they do not want to 
answer. I do not know what the answer is. I know I cannot get 
an answer and neither can my boss and neither can the boss of 
all the people at the Federal Aviation Administration. So, I am 
just asking now, based on this, will OPM commit to advocating 
for the re-lease of these buildings, this infrastructure that 
we have when the occupancy rates are so low?
    Mr. Shriver. Congressman, let me first say, a fair point, 
and these are the issues that we are all wrestling with today, 
is how the intersection of the work arrangements that are in 
place now measure up to our footprint.
    Mr. Perry. Sir, with all due respect, I appreciate that 
answer, but we know how it measures up. I just went through 
some numbers with you. They are not at work at the location. 
They might be at work somewhere--that has to be yet 
determined--but they are not at the location. The building is 
essentially sitting empty. Will you advocate for getting rid of 
that excess space that is costing the taxpayers money when it 
is not being used? Will you advocate for that? Will your Agency 
advocate for that?
    Mr. Shriver. So, I have to defer to GSA generally on that, 
Congressman.
    Mr. Perry. All right. Let me move on. I am concerned about 
the use of taxpayer money when we are working for a collective 
bargaining unit. Particularly, I am going to use the VA as an 
example because many of my constituents count on the VA. They 
count on them for their care, and when we hire somebody like a 
physician, a dentist, a podiatrist, a nurse, a chiropractor, an 
optometrist, we want them to do that work because there is a 
backlog of individuals waiting. They have to travel in many 
cases. We want those folks doing that work. Yet we see that in 
many cases, those very individuals are doing work a hundred 
percent of their time on union organizing or union work. And 
the past Administration said those particular vocations could 
not be used to do union advocacy or union work, but the new 
Administration not only remanded that--not remanded, 
countermanded--that decision, but then went back and paid all 
those people for that time that had been used in the previous 
Administration. And so now what we have is, is veterans that 
cannot get care because the person, like a nurse or any of the 
other specialties that I listed, are doing 100 percent of their 
time doing union work.
    Will you support a bill that requires OPM to track the 
official time used to do nonofficial work or organized labor 
work on these locations? Will you advocate or support that 
legislation?
    Mr. Shriver. Congressman, I am happy to take that back and 
work with your office, but I would like to add that in the 1978 
law, Congress compromised and required unions to represent 
everybody in their bargain agreements, whether they represent 
them or not.
    Mr. Perry. Well, I get that, sir, but that is 35 years ago, 
1978. I understand that, but we are talking about now, a 
hundred percent of time used for union activity by people like 
nurses and physicians' assistants and optometrists and doctors. 
Is that OK with you folks, or will you support a bill, even if 
it is OK with you, just to track that, just to track it. You 
should not have to go back to anybody. Will you advocate for 
tracking the use of that time?
    Mr. Shriver. Congressman, again, I am happy to take that 
back and to work with your team on it.
    Mr. Perry. OK. Thank you, Chairman. I yield the balance. I 
think we got our answer.
    Chairman Comer. The Chair now recognizes Mr. Frost from 
Florida.
    Mr. Frost. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think it is important to 
know that the government is already saving money on the hybrid 
and telework policies. GSA reports that over $150 million were 
saved across government agencies in 2022, and so I am glad that 
work is already being done right now. An expert, nonpartisan 
government is the only way government can deliver critical 
services. My constituents in Central Florida rely on the 
Federal Government for their benefits and help keep them safe. 
Mr. Shriver, if anyone in our Federal workforce could be fired 
for pursuing evidence-based policy implementation and were 
instead forced to do the partisan bidding of a particular 
politician, how might that impact the safety of Americans?
    Mr. Shriver. Thank you for the question, Congressman. I 
think that kind of system would do a huge disservice to leaders 
in Federal agencies and to the American people. It is critical 
that Federal workers have the protections so that they are able 
to offer their honest advice, their honest opinions even when 
unpopular or perhaps even when their opinion based on their 
expertise may be something that the leadership would disagree 
with. The leaders always have the opportunity to make the 
decision that they need to make, and then Federal employees 
need to follow and implement it. But it would do great damage 
to our system and a disservice to the American people, 
including to safety and national security, if our experts were 
chilled in their ability to bring their honest analysis to 
their leadership.
    Mr. Frost. Yes. I mean, when Donald Trump was President, he 
proposed the policy--it has been brought up--Schedule F, which 
he is still campaigning on right now, which would have allowed 
him to replace civil servants with Trump henchmen, and it is 
dangerous because these goons have no mandate to protect 
Americans. I mean, last year, Americans suffered over 43,000-
gun violence deaths, including 655 mass shootings. Trump and 
Republicans in Congress will not take any action to prevent gun 
violence and they have even promised to tear apart the ATF--
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. The ATF 
is the Agency responsible for regulating the types of gun 
modifications used in mass shootings and for preventing 
firearms from being trafficked to those involved in community 
gun violence.
    Mr. Shriver, just this past Saturday at an NRA event, Trump 
reiterated his vow to roll back the Biden Administration's gun 
violence prevention policies and work. As of right now, would 
civil servants risk losing their jobs if they did not abandon 
long-term, science-driven projects to carry out Trump's 
campaign promises?
    Mr. Shriver. As of right now, Congressman?
    Mr. Frost. As of right now.
    Mr. Shriver. As of right now, what is expected of Federal 
employees is that they will bring their expertise, their 
analysis, their skills to their job every day and offer the 
best advice that they can to their leadership. That is what is 
expected of them today. I cannot speak to what might be 
expected of them under a different administration.
    Mr. Frost. Exactly, because Schedule F is not currently 
law, and our Federal workforce is still highly trained, 
nonpartisan group of dedicated civil servants doing the work. 
What steps has OPM taken to ensure that the rights and 
independence of our Federal workforce are better protected?
    Mr. Shriver. Thank you for the question, Congressman. First 
of all, I think that we have made clear at OPM that every 
Federal employee is to be valued and treated with dignity and 
respect. We have worked over the last several years to 
strengthen the Federal workforce through a number of policy 
initiatives, to improve the hiring process, to remove barriers 
by eliminating unnecessary degree requirements and focusing on 
skills. And the regulation that you mentioned, the 
strengthening of the civil service protections regulation, 
which we believe clarifies what the existing rules are under 
the laws passed by Congress.
    Mr. Frost. In 2020, firearms became the leading cause of 
death for American children, and then in 2022, homicide emerged 
as the leading cause of death for pregnant people in the United 
States, and according to a Harvard study over 10 years, 68 
percent of those homicides involved a gun. The Biden 
Administration created the first-ever White House Office of Gun 
Violence Prevention. I am worried about what, you know, a 
potential President Trump would do to these sort of offices, 
whether taking them apart and removing the evidence-based work 
that is going on, or installing political goons that do not 
care about science and evidence-based work that experts know 
that we need to do. We need a government focused on improving 
the lives of children, those who are pregnant, everybody else 
facing the gun violence crisis. And for that, we need an 
expert, nonpartisan Federal workforce vested and the authority 
to follow science and evidence. Thank you, and I yield.
    Mr. Raskin. Would the gentleman yield for a question?
    Mr. Frost. I would yield the remaining of my time to the 
Ranking Member.
    Mr. Raskin. Say a word about what that office is doing, if 
you would, Mr. Frost, and explain why it would be risky to get 
rid of it.
    Mr. Frost. Well, the Office of Gun Violence Prevention does 
a few things, but two I want to highlight is, No. 1, speeding 
up implementation of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, 
money that goes to all of our districts; and No. 2, working to 
act as sort of a FEMA to help municipal governments after a 
shooting happens, which they have helped in Republican 
districts as well. This is why when a bill came to the Floor to 
defund this office, not only was it saved, it was saved in a 
bipartisan way with seven Republicans voting to save the office 
because they see why this nonpartisan important office is 
important to saving the lives of our constituents. Thank you. I 
yield.
    Chairman Comer. The gentleman's time has expired. The Chair 
recognizes Dr. Foxx from North Carolina.
    Ms. Foxx. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, 
Mr. Shriver, for being here. Last Congress, I was pleased to be 
part of the bipartisan coalition that helped bring about 
passage of the Postal Service Reform Act. As you know, that 
legislation requires employees, dependents, and retirees of the 
Postal Service obtain health insurance coverage through the 
Postal Service Health Benefit, or PSHB Program, by 2025. Is OPM 
on track to implement the PSHB program by 2025 as required by 
law?
    Mr. Shriver. Thank you, Congresswoman. Yes, we are on 
track. I have been involved in enough IT projects in my time to 
say that until it is done, it is not done, but it is our honor 
to be able to implement this provision for the postal 
employees. And we look forward to turning on a modern system 
that can be a model for FEHB reform going forward. So, thank 
you, Congresswoman.
    Ms. Foxx. When OPM was last before this Committee, I noted 
that OPM's Inspector General had stated that, ``It will be a 
challenge to stand up the Postal Service Health Benefits 
program in such a short timeframe, while continuing to ensure 
that sufficient resources are devoted to the continued 
management of the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program,'' 
or FEHB. What has OPM done to address these concerns?
    Mr. Shriver. Thank you, Congresswoman. It is a challenge 
given the timeframe and that the project has not been fully 
funded, and we do appreciate the funding that we got from 
Congress in 2024 and hope to have continued support from 
Congress in our 2025 budget. We have taken several steps to 
mitigate the risk. Congresswoman, one of the things I am 
proudest of is that we do a monthly demonstrations of our 
system that I attend along with our Inspector General. We have 
been working very closely with our Inspector General throughout 
the deployment to make sure we are de-risking this as much as 
possible.
    Ms. Foxx. Well, you have emphasized in your other testimony 
about following the law, so I am glad that you are focused on 
following this law, and we will be holding you accountable. It 
is vital the Federal Government be held accountable again for 
providing good service. This includes making sure that the PSHB 
has numerous plans participating so that Postal employees and 
retirees have as many choices as possible, allowing them to 
choose the plan that works best for them. How many plans do you 
expect to participate in PSHB, and how does that compare to 
FEHB?
    Mr. Shriver. We have 32 plans, Congresswoman. We have 
national plans, local plans. These Postal-specific plans are 
all participating. We fully expect that these plans will get to 
the finish line and Postal employees will have robust choices 
available to them.
    Ms. Foxx. OK. I have a couple of more questions, but I want 
to ask one that you could talk a lot about, but I want you to 
be succinct. What lessons learned from FEHB is OPM applying to 
the PSHB?
    Mr. Shriver. We absolutely need a central enrollment 
platform. That is the key to us being able to administer the 
Postal program in a way that both provides the best customer 
service and the highest levels of program integrity.
    Ms. Foxx. All employers expect employees to perform well 
and provide good service, and employees should be held 
accountable for their performance. The Federal Government 
should be no different, which is why the Trump Administration 
created Schedule F to allow certain poor performing Federal 
employees to be held accountable. Since the Biden 
Administration rescinded Schedule F, how does OPM plan to 
improve employee accountability in the civil service?
    Mr. Shriver. Thank you, Congresswoman, and I agree with you 
that Federal employees need to be accountable to their 
performance plans and to the performance of their agencies. We 
have focused on providing training to managers across 
governments. We have provided over 300 training courses just 
last year through our Federal Executive Institute. And we also 
provided free training to, I believe it is over 10,000, 
managers and supervisors about thriving in a hybrid work 
environment that helps them conduct performance management for 
teleworkers.
    Ms. Foxx. You know, I hate that ``T'' word. You train dogs 
and you educate people. You need to get rid of that. You can 
spend your life trying to teach people to do things. You train 
them. They are not learning, they are not learning how to 
think. I do not know how you are going to help their employees 
perform better when all you are doing is treating them like 
trained animals. How does OPM's new rule, which reduces civil 
service accountability, align with OPM's stated values, 
including service and excellence?
    Mr. Shriver. Our new role, Congresswoman, simply clarifies 
the existing rules that have been in place, in some cases, 
going back to the 1950's. It preserves all of the tools that 
are available to hold Federal workers accountable. And we are 
providing the education to Federal leaders to make sure that 
they are better equipped to use those tools.
    Ms. Foxx. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I am going to spend some 
time looking into this accountability issue a little bit more, 
and I look forward to working with you on that.
    Chairman Comer. Thank you, Dr. Foxx. The Chair now 
recognizes Mr. Connolly from Virginia.
    Mr. Connolly. I thank the Chair. Mr. Shriver, how many 
Presidential management appointments are there in the Federal 
Government in a normal Presidential term?
    Mr. Shriver. Around 4,000.
    Mr. Connolly. That is right. Four thousand and thirteen, 
currently, as I understand it. And would it be fair to say that 
a lot of times we have a pretty high number of vacancies among 
those 4,013 positions?
    Mr. Shriver. Presidential personnel would be the one that 
has that information, but I think you are probably right.
    Mr. Connolly. And what is the reason we give Presidents 
that kind of latitude in making non-civil service career 
appointments?
    Mr. Shriver. So, they can have leaders and confidential 
employees working in the agencies to advance their agenda.
    Mr. Connolly. To advance their agenda, and do you think 
based on your experience that that system works?
    Mr. Shriver. I do.
    Mr. Connolly. So, that is why the idea of creating a new 
schedule, Schedule F, that Ms. Foxx just referred to, is sort 
of a bolt out of the blue and was at the time President Trump 
proposed it, given the fact that we already have a system of 
political management that is superimposed on the civil service 
to ensure that the political mandate, whoever is President, got 
in an election, is respected. Is that a fair statement?
    Mr. Shriver. Congressman, I would say that we viewed 
Schedule F as an aberration that is a break from 140 years of 
bipartisan support to strengthening the non-career civil 
service.
    Mr. Connolly. So stipulated, but I am sort of making a 
different point. My point is, we already have a system in place 
that works that is designed to ensure that the President has 
some discretion in actually who manages Federal agencies by 
having this power of political appointment separate from normal 
civil service promotion.
    Mr. Shriver. I agree with you, Congressman.
    Mr. Connolly. Right. So, I do not know, what should we be 
worried about? And remember, the 50,000 number being proposed 
in Project 2025 is a floor, not a ceiling, so it could be much 
higher. What could go wrong with suddenly taking away civil 
service protections from a professional cadre of Federal 
employees and making them essentially political appointees 
without normal due process or civil service protections? What 
can go wrong with that?
    Mr. Shriver. I think it would be a fundamental 
transformation of our system that takes us back to the 1800's 
when we had a spoil system, when there was massive turnover 
among Federal workers with any new election that changed. The 
people that were hired were hired based on their loyalty to 
that particular candidate, and I think that unchecked, a policy 
like Schedule F could open the door to a return to that.
    Mr. Connolly. So, could that also extend to benefits and 
beneficiaries? For example, if now my appointment is based on 
my party affiliation and my political loyalty and I get 
appointed to manage something, could it also pollute my 
decisions about who gets benefits and when, and what ranking, 
order of prioritization I get around to your case, if ever? Is 
that a risk?
    Mr. Shriver. Congressman, it could in reality do that, and, 
at a minimum, it would lead to the perception that that is what 
was happening, which would undermine trust in government by the 
American people.
    Mr. Connolly. When we adopted the Pendleton Act, Chester A. 
Arthur, a product of the spoil system, and, you know, kind of 
the archetype of political patronage in New York, ironically 
was the one who agreed to clean it up with the Pendleton Act. 
Is that correct?
    Mr. Shriver. Yes, Congressman.
    Mr. Connolly. And is it correct that the reason he did that 
was that in the spoils system, political appointees in what are 
now civil service jobs became so polluted and so corrupt and so 
tainted that they were not primarily serving the American 
people. They were primarily serving their political patron. 
Would that be a fair statement of what happened that led to the 
adoption of the Pendleton Act in 1883?
    Mr. Shriver. Yes, Congressman, I think that was the factual 
pattern against which the Pendleton Act was considered and 
enacted.
    Mr. Connolly. And do you think that maybe it is a fair 
statement to say that is something we do not want to go back 
to?
    Mr. Shriver. I care deeply about the Federal workforce and 
the people who work in it, and I would be very concerned about 
going back to a world like that.
    Mr. Connolly. And you have an executive order to address 
that. We have legislation to codify that. What is your view 
about that legislation?
    Mr. Shriver. My view, Congressman, is that the President's 
executive order and our regulations are consistent with the law 
as defined currently and the value statements that were enacted 
in the CSRA. If there is interest in strengthening those values 
or changing them, only Congress can do that.
    Mr. Connolly. Well, that is a nice diplomatic answer. All 
right. I continue to believe we have to codify it or we are in 
trouble. I yield back.
    Chairman Comer. The gentleman yields back. The Chair now 
recognizes Mr. Burchett from Tennessee.
    Mr. Burchett. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Shriver, in your 
opening statement, you mentioned efforts to make it harder to 
fire career bureaucrats. Does retaining incompetent career 
bureaucrats for over 20 years benefit the American people?
    Mr. Shriver. No, Congressman. If there are performance 
issues with Federal employees, those should be addressed.
    Mr. Burchett. OK. Since you mentioned taking an 
increasingly data-driven approach to workforce management, can 
you tell me how many Federal employees have been terminated for 
misconduct or poor performance since 2021?
    Mr. Shriver. So, Congressman, my understanding is that, 
generally, on a year-to-year basis, there is in the nature of 
10,000 to 15,000 Federal employees who were terminated for 
cause.
    Mr. Burchett. OK. Thank you. How often has an Agency tried 
to fire or discipline an employee only for that decision to be 
overturned?
    Mr. Shriver. I do not have the statistics, sir. Certainly, 
there are appeal rights depending on the type of actions that 
are taken, and some decisions can be overturned if they are not 
adequately supported by the record.
    Mr. Burchett. OK. It seems like the answer to how often 
Federal employees should be allowed to telework is always ``it 
depends.'' As the Federal Government's human capital expert, 
what exactly you are going to do to help different agencies to 
find what the right amount of telework is?
    Mr. Shriver. So, I think this is the heart of what we need 
to be talking about now, Congressman, so thank you very much 
for the question. We always have to be governed by what work 
arrangements are going to best advance the Agency's mission, 
and that might be different depending on different jobs. I can 
tell you, Congressman, one example is the cybersecurity 
workforce across the country, whether you work in government or 
out of government, works a lot from home. And so, if we were to 
require cybersecurity professionals to come into the office 5 
days a week, I think we would not be able to recruit the kind 
of workforce we need. There are other kinds of jobs, though, 54 
percent of Federal workers, who never telework because the 
nature of the job requires them to do it on the worksite. Then 
there is a whole group that is in between, and I think agencies 
need to keep working there to make sure they are getting it 
right, that those arrangements are driving good performance.
    Mr. Burchett. Thank you, Mr. Shriver. Mr. Chairman, I yield 
the rest of my time to my dear friend from the great state of 
wherever he is from, Mr. Pete Sessions.
    Mr. Sessions. I want to thank the gentleman very much for 
yielding the time. Director, I would like to go to something 
which you just brought up, and that was the integrity of your 
data bases and your systems. Could you please bring us up to 
date on the OPM data base breach?
    Mr. Shriver. So, Congressman, that breach happened in 2015. 
Ever since then, OPM has been working to strengthen its 
cybersecurity posture. I am honored to have a fantastic CIO and 
a fantastic CISO, who work hard every day to stay ahead of the 
bad actors. We manage multiple systems and are managing cyber 
threats constantly. OPM undertook a substantial effort last 
year to bring its systems into compliance with things like 
multi-factor authentication, anti-phishing, and encryption.
    Mr. Sessions. Was that out of D-18? Were you counting on 
that organization to provide this biometric improvement?
    Mr. Shriver. I am not familiar, Congressman, with D-18, so 
I am not aware that OPM works with that organization.
    Mr. Sessions. OK.
    Mr. Shriver. I am just not aware. I have to take that back.
    Mr. Sessions. It is inside the government. Thank you very 
much. Could you tell me what percent of Federal workers fall 
under the Hatch Act?
    Mr. Shriver. I believe that all--there are different rules 
on different categories, but they all fall under the Hatch Act.
    Mr. Sessions. I believe they do also. And so, what you are 
suggesting is that every employee, even if they work for the 
government, if they disagree with someone and bring up the 
issues that they have, like we have seen with Gaza right now 
under this Administration, tell me how those employees fell 
under the Hatch Act and created what they did properly?
    Mr. Shriver. So, Congressman, I appreciate the question. It 
is hard for me to provide sort of an on-the-spot answer of the 
Hatch Act.
    Mr. Sessions. But aren't you the expert across the 
government Office of Professional Management? So, you are 
trying to suggest to me maybe you are not aware of it or could 
not comment on it. You are the official agency, not for every 
agency. But as the head of those agencies, what would be your 
take on this and those employees that on a political basis--
this was politics--they exhibited what they did in a political 
way and held the government at, I believe, accountable for 
things that were against the government's best interest, the 
employers' best interest, the taxpayers' best interest, and 
this Administration. Your opinion is?
    Mr. Shriver. So, Congressman, those are fact-based 
determinations. There are really years and years of precedent 
that interpret how the Hatch Act applies and----
    Mr. Sessions. We are talking about specifically the things 
that happened that were enumerated in the media that they were 
holding, in a way, their job as forward against this 
Administration based upon a political issue. And I think that I 
would say that it would be bad for any administration, 
Republican or Democrat, to find someone who thinks they are 
hidden under a Hatch Act to be able to provide this sort of 
political content. That is what the Hatch Act is there for, and 
if they said that they wanted to come and protest over 
something else, but this was directly aimed at policy of the 
United States that this Administration was trying to support 
and was important in this country.
    So, Mr. Chairman, I see I am past my time, but these are 
the kinds of things that I think this Committee really wants to 
hear your insight. We have our own opinions. As I said to you 
yesterday in our conversations, we are interested in what you 
think and I think being specific will help us. So, Mr. 
Chairman, we will politely follow back up, as I told the 
gentleman we would yesterday, and I want to respect your 
opinions and your ideas. I do not want to ask you something 
that you have not thought about, but this was a professional 
meeting, and I appreciate both sides for this.
    Chairman Comer. Thank you.
    Mr. Sessions. I yield back my time.
    Chairman Comer. Thank you. The Chair now recognizes Ms. Lee 
from Pennsylvania.
    Ms. Lee. Thank you, Mr. Chair. The Office of Personnel 
Management is one of those agencies that many people, it seems 
like even some of our Republican Members of Congress, just do 
not quite understand. Partially, this misunderstanding has to 
do with OPM's wide-ranging responsibilities, including shaping 
hiring policies, developing programming to build agency 
leaders, administering the world's largest healthcare system, 
and processing retirement benefits for America's largest 
employer. Mr. Shriver, how does OPM's workforce help you as a 
political appointee achieve these missions?
    Mr. Shriver. Thank you for the question, Congresswoman. The 
OPM workforce is professional, is dedicated, is mission driven, 
is expert. They work hard day in and day out to try to make the 
government better so the government can deliver for the 
American people. We would not have the accomplishments that we 
have had in this Administration on the workforce without the 
commitment of the OPM workforce, things like expanding career 
opportunities through our pathways regulations to early career 
talent, things like supporting the Administration on delivering 
on the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and hiring 6,000 people at 
those agencies, the work that we have done to bring tech talent 
into the government, the work we have done to implement the 
President's artificial intelligence executive order. Career 
Federal employees add their expertise to these projects and the 
many more that we do at OPM every day.
    Ms. Lee. Yes. So, with that in mind, how does keeping that 
workforce nonpartisan and consistent help ensure that Federal 
agencies can serve the American public?
    Mr. Shriver. Congresswoman, I need the career leaders at 
OPM to feel confident that they can tell me their honest 
opinion, that they can use their experience to help guide me to 
avoid unintended consequences, and to come up with creative 
ideas to advance the policy goals that I have. That is what a 
good career civil servant does, is it understands what the 
agency leaders' policy goals are and it finds ways to help them 
get there, and the OPM team works with me every day to do that.
    Ms. Lee. Thank you. As we have heard today, if elected, 
Trump has touted a plan to remove the guardrails that protect 
Federal workers from partisan retaliation if they speak truth 
or evidence to power. Trump's plan to remove worker protections 
will put in jeopardy the careers of tens of thousands of 
scientists, engineers, contracting officials, weather experts, 
disaster recovery experts, and all the others who help 
communities recover from disasters. It will also affect experts 
in charge of grant distribution and recipients of those grants, 
like Carnegie Mellon and the University of Pittsburgh in my 
district.
    Federal grant dollars help us to innovate and build tools 
that combat climate change and rebuild communities after years 
of neglect. This research helps the government make better 
evidence-based decisions about where to target government 
resources to remediate communities working to recover from 
years of under investment. Expertise matters. This Congress, I 
was proud to have my bipartisan bill, the Abandoned Wells 
Remediation Research and Development Act, pass the House. That 
bill directs the Department of Energy to research, develop, and 
implement demonstration projects on abandoned wells. These 
abandoned wells are sometimes more than a century old, yet they 
still emit harmful pollutants into the air, causing both 
environmental and health damage.
    Right now, the process for plugging and remediating 
abandoned wells is woefully ineffective. Upon enactment, my 
bill's effectiveness depends on the expert scientists at the 
Department of Energy, who will use their talents to find and 
implement a solution to this century-old problem. Mr. Shriver, 
generally, are scientists at the Department of Energy 
considered nonpartisan career Federal workers?
    Mr. Shriver. Yes, Congresswoman.
    Ms. Lee. Is there a possibility that they could be 
reclassified under Schedule F plan?
    Mr. Shriver. The scope of that effort is unknown, and so 
Federal jobs like that could be at risk.
    Ms. Lee. Thank you. Our Federal Government needs expert 
scientists committed to following data and evidence to serving 
the American people. These experts should not have to worry 
that they might be fired if their findings upset powerful 
energy executives who contribute to Donald Trump's political 
campaign, and that scenario could happen under Trump's plan for 
the Federal workforce. Schedule F may seem obscure or abstract, 
but I assure you it is a critical step in his mission to put 
our government up for sale, so we cannot allow that to happen. 
I thank you so much for your time and your testimony today, and 
I yield the remainder of my time to the Ranking Member.
    Mr. Raskin. Thank you kindly. I actually will use the 
opportunity to seek unanimous consent, Mr. Chairman, for 
submission of several statements. One is from Doreen Greenwald, 
the National President of NTEU. The other is from the National 
Association of Retired Federal Employees, NARFE. And the final 
is an interesting statement from the Congressional Budget 
Office comparing the compensation of private sector and Federal 
employees.
    Chairman Comer. Without objection, so ordered.
    Mr. Raskin. Thank you.
    Chairman Comer. The Chair now recognizes Mr. Timmons from 
South Carolina.
    Mr. Timmons. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to the 
witness, Dr. Shriver, for being here today. To start off, OPM 
has requested $508 million in discretionary funding for Fiscal 
Year 2025, which is an increase of $60.4 million from Fiscal 
Year 2024 when the congressional appropriations already stood 
at a whopping $448 million. And just to remind you, the United 
States of America is currently $35 trillion in debt. We add a 
trillion dollars of debt every 100 days. Simply put, government 
spending is out of control, and we have to find ways to do more 
with less. And with this insane amount of funding, OPM claims 
that it will work to improve its customer service to agencies 
and Federal employees and it will also continue stabilizing the 
Agency. And I am aware that OPM has made some progress in areas 
such as retirement processing, but that has to be juxtaposed 
with fraud at FEHB and, as was reported just yesterday, fraud 
in Federal employees' pre-tax savings accounts.
    As has been mentioned already, President Trump did propose 
breaking apart OPM, and that proposal occurred because over the 
decades since it was created, OPM had not established a track 
record of competence and value. Equally concerning is the issue 
of telework, which started with COVID-19 pandemic and is still 
continuing today. A great deal has been said about telework in 
Federal agencies, but most concerning to me is that we have yet 
to see any data regarding the supposed benefits of telework, 
and at this point, it has been years since the Biden 
Administration announced expanded telework was going to be the 
new norm. So, with this in mind, Dr. Shriver, what evidence do 
you have regarding the value of telework? What data do you have 
regarding the impact on agency missions and the impact on 
Federal units? In sum, what evidence do you have that 
widespread Federal telework is as effective and good for the 
taxpayer as in-person work?
    Mr. Shriver. Thank you for the question, Congressman, and 
that is always the key question, right, is making sure that the 
work arrangements that we have in place for our workforces are 
driving us toward successful mission delivery. I am proud of 
the accomplishments that OPM has achieved with a workforce that 
does telework, whether you are talking about policy 
accomplishments--I have been detailing several of those--
whether you talk about the progress that we have made on our 
major operations, and we are not there yet.
    We need a partnership with Congress in order to really get 
to where we need to be in providing the level of customer 
service we expect to provide to Federal employees and retirees. 
But when I see inventories reduce from 35,000 2 years ago to 
16,000 on retirement claims, when the average processing time 
goes from 87 days to 61 days, and when average wait times at 
the call center have dropped by almost 50 percent, those are 
metrics that are headed in the right direction. I would 
appreciate Congress' help to help us modernize, and that is 
what our budget is about, continuing to modernize our 
retirement system that is a paper-based process and deliver on 
the implementation of the postal services system.
    Mr. Timmons. So the metrics that you are pointing to, you 
are claiming that continued telework is actually moving us in 
the right direction. Is that a fair classification of what you 
just said?
    Mr. Shriver. What I am saying is that the work arrangements 
that we have at OPM, which include telework, that is consistent 
with the performance improvement that we are seeing from our 
Agency.
    Mr. Timmons. OK. So, I mean, in the 2022 State of the 
Union, President Biden called for Americans to get back to 
work, and OMB even issued a guidance in response, calling for 
meaningful in-person work. So, if President Biden and OMB are 
calling to end telework, what are your thoughts there? I mean, 
is he not the head of the executive branch?
    Mr. Shriver. So, Congressman, let me be clear. President 
Biden did not call to end telework. We have been following, as 
well as all agencies have been following, guidance from the 
Office of Management and Budget to increase meaningful in-
person work. Agencies made their plans public last fall in how 
to do that and have been executing that. And under a recent CBO 
report, we see that the Federal Government has returned to the 
office at a faster pace than the private sector.
    Mr. Timmons. But the private sector also uses technology to 
create metrics that are available in real time to assess 
employees' work product, and you are using outcomes as opposed 
to actual metrics. You are not able to track employees' data to 
see what they are actually accomplishing, or can you do that 
just like the private sector?
    Mr. Shriver. We do, Congressman, and it really depends on 
the work unit, but let me just talk this through as an example. 
Those organizational metrics that I mentioned, they drive down 
into individual performance measures. So, for example, our 
legal administration specialists, that they process the 
retirement claims that come in, they have performance standards 
that they are measured against about their productivity. Their 
improved productivity leads to shorter processing times and a 
lower inventory backlog.
    Mr. Timmons. Are you reducing your costs for physical 
space? Since you have a substantial number of employees that 
are teleworking, have you saved money there?
    Mr. Shriver. We have let go of some leased space around the 
country, and we have more work to do there to get to a steady 
state.
    Mr. Timmons. Thank you. I am out of time. I yield back.
    Chairman Comer. The Chair now recognizes Mr. Casar from 
Texas.
    Mr. Casar. Thank you, Chair. When people hear 
``government,'' they usually think of people like us in this 
room, politicians who run in elections and work on policy, but 
virtually everybody else are government workers. They are not 
Members of Congress. They are not political appointees in 
Washington, DC. They are members of the civil service, 
scientists, researchers, nurses, diplomats, everything in 
between. They are in every state, every city, people who check 
their political opinions at the door and move our government 
forward by providing objective expertise. And they are held 
accountable to the public through political appointees who lead 
those government agencies, who, ultimately, are accountable to 
the voters. But at the core of these civil service jobs are 
normal jobs staffed by normal people, the folks you see at the 
grocery store, not the politicians that you see on TV. Yet we 
see that the Trump and MAGA agenda is to fire thousands, if not 
tens of thousands, of these folks just because that agenda and 
objective analysis often do not mix.
    Federal workers make sure that the government works for the 
people, not for any given President because the responsibility 
of being a civil servant is telling political leaders when 
their ideas violate the law or even violate the Constitution, 
or when science and evidence do not line up with certain 
political opinions. There are over 2 million Federal workers, 
and there is no telling how many of them Donald Trump or 
Republican officials with their Schedule F would want to get 
rid of. These right-wing officials have said that applying 
Schedule F to civil service would be good for accountability, 
but, in my view, replacing experts with ``yes'' men is not 
accountability. We need experienced professionals in 
government, not professional bootlickers.
    And so, Mr. Shriver, can you tell us a little bit more 
about how this Administration holds Federal employees 
accountable who fail to meet their responsibilities under the 
current system?
    Mr. Shriver. Thank you for the question, Congressman. There 
are processes that are available to all agencies to hold their 
employees accountable, both for performance and for misconduct. 
With respect to performance, the process starts with a 
conversation between the supervisor and the employee at the 
beginning of the year where they lay out what the expectations 
are for that employee, including the measurable results that 
that employee will contribute to. There are reviews that happen 
during the course of the year. If the employee is not 
performing well, the manager advises them of that, and they can 
put them on a performance improvement plan. And if the 
performance fails to improve, then that employee can be 
terminated, and that does happen every year in the Federal 
Government.
    Mr. Casar. Thank you. And as we have heard, under the 
Schedule F plan of removing potentially thousands of employees 
and then replacing them with those folks determined by 
politics, if, say, any administration had to fill thousands 
more jobs that we are already having to fill through the normal 
process, would that, in your view, slow down an agency's 
ability to accomplish their goals?
    Mr. Shriver. Depending on the agency, many agency 
operations could grind to a halt.
    Mr. Casar. And to me, this is a really important point for 
us to think about and make here that we see and hear all the 
time. Agency heads come through this Committee room and for us 
to try to hold them accountable to meeting their goals for the 
American people. Oftentimes, we see backlogs in all sorts of 
agencies from everything from passports to making sure people 
get their healthcare at the VA. But if this Schedule F plan 
goes into effect and thousands of people have to be replaced 
every administration, then we will continue to see and hear 
from officials complaining about why it is that agencies cannot 
accomplish their goals, and then they will advocate to defund 
those agencies, and then we see the problem get worse and worse 
and worse.
    And that is how we see our government being degraded. And 
as those civil servants lose their jobs, as we deliver fewer 
services, as people then feel less invested in the Federal 
Government, that is ultimately how you see, as we have heard 
from prior Republican officials, the government try to get 
shrunk down to a size that it can be drowned in a bathtub. That 
is, in my view, the sort of dangerous corporate agenda of those 
folks that want to see big corporations get their taxes cut as 
much as possible while we do the Kabuki theater over here in 
Congress. We just cannot allow it. And that is why I think it 
is really important for the American people to know why we need 
to defend the professionals and the civil servants and the 
people who do this work every single day and keep them out of 
politics so they can just deliver for everyday people and----
    Mr. Raskin. Will the gentleman yield?
    Mr. Casar. Yes, and I am happy to yield back to the Ranking 
Member.
    Mr. Raskin. A question for you. I have had a lot of 
constituents, and I wonder if you have, too, who have tried to 
seek Federal employment, and it takes a really long time in the 
Biden Administration and the Trump Administration and so on. 
You are making an excellent point. If we have thousands of more 
political appointments, that is thousands of more positions 
that will take a year or two or even more to fill, right?
    Mr. Casar. Yes. We already hear of backlogs, of trouble 
hiring up, and why would we, when we already have vacancies in 
these key agencies, purposefully create thousands of more 
vacancies? It sounds like people trying to wreck a system and 
then complain about it, so thank you for the question, Ranking 
Member. I yield back.
    Chairman Comer. The Chair now recognizes Mr. Grothman from 
Wisconsin.
    Mr. Grothman. Thank you much. First of all, I want to ask a 
question about something you just said. Did you say that 
Federal employees got back to work quicker than the private 
sector?
    Mr. Shriver. There is a recent CBO study that came out a 
few weeks ago that shows that Federal employees are back 
spending more time in the office than the private sector, yes.
    Mr. Grothman. Getting to work. I mean, almost everybody 
that I know never left work, maybe it is just the people I 
know, during the COVID. But you believe that when I go home at 
night and see all the cheese factories filled with people, you 
know, I see just about everybody, but the bars and restaurants 
and even there their cooks were going because they were ordered 
out. You really believe that Federal employees were working at 
a higher rate than the private sector?
    Mr. Shriver. It is not what I believe, Congressman, it is 
what I saw on the CBO report, and we are happy to share with 
you, and what our telework data shows is that 54 percent of 
Federal employees do not telework at all.
    Mr. Grothman. OK. Oh, do you mean back to work or are 
stopping telework when you said that they are----
    Mr. Shriver. So, I think it is important to note that 
people who are teleworking are working, but 54 percent of 
Federal employees work exclusively on the worksite and do not 
have a hybrid arrangement where they are----
    Mr. Grothman. OK. So, you are saying, like, 2 weeks, 2 
months, yet, 2 years after the end of COVID, a higher 
percentage of Federal employees were working than non-Federal 
employees.
    Mr. Shriver. I am sorry. I could not----
    Mr. Grothman. Two years after the end of the COVID, 
whenever we pick that, let us say the end of 2022, a higher 
percentage of Federal employees were working than non-Federal 
employees.
    Mr. Shriver. You mean in the office?
    Mr. Grothman. I mean, total.
    Mr. Shriver. Well, I am not quite following your question, 
Congressman. Could you rephrase it for me?
    Mr. Grothman. OK. Let us say COVID ended December 31, 2022. 
On December 31, 2022, I will guess you asked both questions, 
who had a higher percentage of people at the worksite and who 
had a higher percentage of people working, period?
    Mr. Shriver. So, Federal employees were working during the 
pandemic. They were working on a maximum telework footing, 
except for the 50-plus percent that had to continue showing up 
in the workforce day in and day out. What I am referencing is a 
recent CBO study that compared in office work rates.
    Mr. Grothman. I mean, I do not personally know anybody who 
is still not working in December 2022. I know nobody like that.
    Mr. Shriver. I am still not following your question about 
not working. Who?
    Mr. Grothman. Well, I mean, your testimony is that the non-
Federal employees were not working or not showing up or 
whatever at a greater rate, and I am just saying, 2 years in, I 
know of nobody. I am not saying it did not exist somewhere, but 
I know of nobody who is still not working then.
    Mr. Shriver. I am not talking about them not working, 
Congressman. In fact, my point is that they are working while 
teleworking. They are working from home, and what we saw in the 
recent CBO study is that private sector workers are spending 
more time working at home than their Federal employee 
counterparts.
    Mr. Grothman. I will give you a question now. It is a 
difficult thing in any business when you have to let somebody 
go, but can you tell us every year what percent of people 
working for the Federal Government are let go?
    Mr. Shriver. So, the numbers that I have, Congressman, and 
there has been some BLS analysis on this, is that it can range 
from 10,000 to 15,000 people and that, when you control for 
layoffs in the private sector, the numbers start to look 
similar. I think we need to continue to work on our performance 
management system in the Federal Government. We have a duty to 
provide the best value to American taxpayers, and so Federal 
employees need to be held accountable to do that.
    Mr. Grothman. OK. Former President Trump sought to bring 
some degree of accountability into the civil service by 
simplifying the process for determining certain employees, make 
it more like the private sector. President Biden roll backed 
that attempt by resetting President Trump's Schedule F 
executive order. Without something like Schedule F, how would 
OPM recommend that Federal Government improve accountability 
within civil service?
    Mr. Shriver. So, Congressman, thank you for the question. 
The tools exist for Federal Government and Federal agencies to 
hold employees accountable. I can walk through a little bit of 
the process where it is important to discuss upfront with the 
employee what the expectations are for that year, to document 
those expectations, and to communicate with the employee 
throughout the year, including when the employee is not living 
up to what those standards are, and then hold the employee 
accountable if they do not meet them.
    Mr. Grothman. One more time, percentage wise, what percent 
of the Federal workforce is let go every year? Say, if I got a 
100 Federal employees, what percent is let go?
    Mr. Shriver. So, I will not embarrass myself and do the 
math in my head, Congressman, but it is 10,000 to 15,000 out of 
the 2.2 million.
    Mr. Grothman. OK. I have used up all my time. Thank you.
    Chairman Comer. The gentleman's time has expired. The Chair 
now recognizes Ms. Crockett.
    Ms. Crockett. I did not realize that Mr. Moskowitz had 
left. All right. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you 
for your patience. Thank you for what you do for the American 
people. I just want to go over a few things that are concerning 
and alarming to me. I do not know if you are familiar, but have 
you ever heard of Project 2025?
    Mr. Shriver. I have read about that, Congresswoman.
    Ms. Crockett. OK. And there are some things indicated in 
Project 2025 that are quite concerning to me, and I want to 
talk about a few of those topics because this hearing almost 
feels like a Project 2025. One of those topics is diversity in 
the workplace. The agenda includes making sure that the next 
conservative administration dismantles the DEI apparatus by 
eliminating various chief diversity officer positions, et 
cetera. And you engaged in an exchange earlier with one of my 
colleagues, and I do not know if you recall, but it was hitting 
me a little differently as a Black woman sitting here because 
it almost seemed as if you either get diversity or you get 
qualifications. It did not seem as if my colleague understood 
that someone can be diverse and qualified.
    And it is why you have people like me, that get very 
frustrated, not just in the halls of Congress, but in general 
in this country because as I am sitting here, and there seem to 
be this question of you are either diverse or you are 
qualified. All I could think about was the fact that I 
currently hold an honorary doctorate. I also hold a juris 
doctorate. I also hold a bachelor's. I also technically hold 
the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in the Civil Air Patrol, and I 
actually practiced law for almost 2 decades, in addition to 
serving on various boards, in addition to being a prior state 
lawmaker. And there are those that would make some people 
believe that because I happen to be Black and/or a woman, that 
somehow even though I can rattle off all the qualifications in 
the world, my blackness makes me unqualified. My question to 
you is, is that the attitude that you subscribe to?
    Mr. Shriver. Absolutely not, Congresswoman. And in fact, 
what we do at OPM every day, is look to knock down barriers 
that are keeping qualified people, like yourself, qualified 
people from all across America from pursuing Federal jobs. Some 
of the things that we have done, for example, are eliminate 
unnecessary degree requirements and assess people based on the 
skills that they have and not just where they learned them. We 
have opened the doors to recruiting from HBCUs, HSIs, minority 
serving institutions, populations that may not have thought of 
the Federal Government as an employer before, and we have a 
broad definition of ``diversity.'' There are rural populations 
that have in the past never considered the Federal Government 
as a potential employer because the offices were too far away, 
and they would have to get up and leave from their hometown.
    Now, there are some opportunities that they can stay right 
in that rural hometown and work for the Federal Government, let 
alone the amazing military spouses around this country who have 
to pick up and move and their jobs when their spouses redeploy. 
Trying to tap in and keep that talent in government has been a 
big priority of ours.
    Ms. Crockett. Thank you so much for giving a plug to the 
Readiness Act that this Committee did just pass out last week 
in a bipartisan way, but, you know, it is interesting because 
we have had so many conversations about telework and the evils 
of telework. And it seems to be this other false equivalency, 
that if you telework, that means you are not working, instead 
of this idea that people are actually just working and they are 
not working in the building that is being paid for by the 
Federal Government. In fact, my mom is on telework, and my mom 
is absolutely one of the smartest people that I know, and so it 
always hits me a little differently every time we dump on those 
that are teleworking for the Federal Government. But, 
interestingly enough, we are not allowed to telework here. We 
have to show up. There is no remote voting anymore, but even 
though we show up, are you aware of the fact that this has been 
the most unproductive Congress in the history of the Congress?
    Mr. Shriver. Congresswoman, I will leave that judgment to 
the Members of Congress and the media.
    Ms. Crockett. OK. I will tell you, it is, and I have got 
some numbers for you. So, to me, you can show up and still not 
do a doggone thing. And so, it is rich that we have so many 
opinions to give you and to tell you how to do your job, but 
seemingly, we are not doing ours. Thus far, only 1 percent of 
legislation that has been introduced has been passed in this 
Congress versus the last Congress, where it was six points 
higher; and the Congress before that, six points higher; and 
the Congress before that, seven points higher. There is no 
other Congress that has been least productive. And guess what? 
The last Congress, they could vote remotely, and somehow they 
figured out how to get it done. So, I would just say that we 
need to be very mindful of when we decide to throw stones 
because we may reside in a glass house. Thank you so much for 
your work.
    Chairman Comer. The Chair recognizes Mr. Burlison from 
Missouri. Do you want me to go to Mr. Higgins? Mr. Higgins from 
Louisiana.
    Mr. Higgins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am happy to assist 
my colleague. Mr. Shriver, you have about 2.5 million civilian 
employees we are talking about. What is it, is it 2.7 million? 
What is the number?
    Mr. Shriver. I believe the current estimate is 2.3 million, 
Congressman.
    Mr. Higgins. Two-point-three?
    Mr. Shriver. Yes.
    Mr. Higgins. I am seeing a variance in those numbers, but 
you stated a moment ago a shocking figure to my colleague, Mr. 
Grothman. You said about 15,000 a year get fired.
    Mr. Shriver. Terminated for cause. That would not include 
other types of----
    Mr. Higgins. You said ``fired,'' like in the real world? 
OK. So, 15,000 out of 2.5 million. You are talking about job 
security of 99.95 percent, appears to be locked in if you 
become a Federal bureaucrat. That is just the math, man. Is 
that business owners across the country? I mean, maintaining 
your team, time on a job is an important indicator of 
performance and efficiency. The best teams across the country 
in every aspect of business, you strive to keep your team 
together. Nobody has 99.95 percent, nobody, but apparently the 
Federal Government does. So, if you get a job in the Federal 
Government, that is a lot, man.
    And now you have serious civil service protections to that 
job, whether you are performing or not. You stated in the 
report, I believe, in a release regarding OPM's final rule to 
reinforce and clarify protections for nonpartisan career civil 
service, you said nonpartisan civil servants make sure our food 
is safe, our water is clean, they protect us from national 
security threats, they care for our veterans, and support our 
seniors. I believe that was your quote, sir?
    Mr. Shriver. Yes, Congressman.
    Mr. Higgins. OK. That is a pretty broad statement. Let me 
say that, I do not know if you equate safety with healthy, but 
do you believe that the ultra-processed food being consumed and 
delivered and supported by this government across the across 
the country, you believe that that food is healthy?
    Mr. Shriver. Congressman, I am not an expert on food safety 
standards.
    Mr. Higgins. You are a human being. You have the powers to 
observe. Let us move on. You protect us from national security 
threats. Let me say to American people watching what is 
happening at our Southern border were certainly suffering from 
national security threat. Veterans, care for our veterans, we 
have serious issues through our constituent services across the 
country as Congressman, I believe, on both sides of the aisle. 
If you are trying to help your veterans, you know what the No. 
1 complaint is, Mr. Shriver? The bureaucracy. The bureaucracy 
within the VA, No. 1 complaint. Support for our seniors, same 
thing. No. 1 complaint that we address again and again and 
again and again and again by seniors across the country is 
problems with the bureaucracy. Cannot get answers, long, long 
waiting times to maybe get an answer. And then that person, you 
know, is not available, shifted to another person got your 
case. It is a bureaucracy at its worst.
    So, you stated, you quoted, you said that if there were 
changes in your established bureaucratic system, it will 
undermine the trust in government by the American people. I 
wrote that down because you stated it. Do you believe, Mr. 
Shriver, that the American people have trust in the government 
right now? Is that your testimony? Because if you believe that 
if we took action to address this 99.95 percent locked in 
bureaucracy that, in our opinion, does not perform very well, 
if we took effort to address that, you think that will 
undermine the trust in government by the American people? Then 
you must be stating that the American people generally trust 
the bureaucracies that you run.
    Mr. Shriver. I believe the American people trust the career 
civil servants who bring in their expertise to work on their 
behalf every day, and the statistics that I mentioned are just 
one piece of a larger puzzle. There are people who have term 
appointments that expire. There are people who choose to leave 
the government--there is a lot more turnover.
    Mr. Higgins. It is indeed a larger puzzle, Mr. Shriver, 
that we intend to address. I thank you for appearing before us 
today. It is hard to be the only guy sitting down there, so I 
commend you for sitting upright and answering these questions. 
But I have to say that, Mr. Chairman, I believe we should have 
across-aisle discussions about how to address these locked-in 
civil servants. I yield.
    Chairman Comer. Agree. The Chair now recognizes Ms. 
Pressley from Massachusetts.
    Ms. Pressley. Thank you for being here, Mr. Shriver. The 
Federal Government has the largest and most diverse workforce 
in the country, and Schedule F, an executive order that would 
replace tens of thousands of civil servants with partisan 
sycophants, would destroy our government infrastructure. 
Destroy it. It is critical that we understand that the far-
right extremists who are advocating for Schedule F see it as a 
means to an end and it is their pathway to enact widespread 
wholesale policy violence. One thing I know for sure about 
Trump and his sycophants is that they telegraph their harm. Mr. 
Shriver, are you familiar with Project 2025?
    Mr. Shriver. Congresswoman, I have read about that.
    Ms. Pressley. For many people, this is their first-time 
hearing about it, and we must sound the alarm. Project 2025 is 
a far-right manifesto. It is a 1,000-page bucket list of 
extremist policies that would uproot every government agency 
and disrupt the lives of every person who calls this country 
home. I will not detail every aspect, but I will share some 
highlights. The Department of Education would be eliminated, 
cutting students off from civil rights protections and ending 
essential Title I funding for K-12 schools. The Department of 
Justice would go on a murdering spree. It would rush to use the 
death penalty and expand its use to even more people while 
circumventing due process protections. Project 2025 not only 
calls for national book bans in schools, but also creates a 
list of banned words for the Federal Government that would be 
deleted from ``every Federal rule, agency regulation, contract 
grant, and piece of legislation that exists.'' Here are just a 
few of the words on the list: ``diversity,'' ``gender,'' 
``reproductive health,'' and, of course, conservatives want to 
ban the word ``abortion.''
    On that note, abortion care would be inaccessible and 
illegal, no matter where you live. Take it from them. On page 6 
of its playbook, Project 2025 states, ``The Dobbs decision is 
just the beginning.'' People even in my district, the 
Massachusetts 7, the leader in repro justice, would be 
criminalized for pursuing essential healthcare. Now, we could 
have an entire hearing on how these policies would quite 
literally ruin and end lives, and I did not even touch upon 
proposals for housing, climate change, worker protections, and 
more. If enacted, Project 2025 would destroy the Federal 
Government as we know it.
    I ask unanimous consent to enter into the record an 
Associated Press article titled, ``Conservative Groups Draw a 
Plan to Dismantle the U.S. Government and to Replace it With 
Trump's vision.''
    Chairman Comer. Without objection, so ordered.
    Ms. Pressley. Now, some may be wondering why this is 
germane to today's hearing with the Office of Personnel 
Management. Mr. Shriver, do you know who the Director of 
Project 2025 is?
    Mr. Shriver. No, Congresswoman, I do not.
    Ms. Pressley. The director is Paul Dans, former Chief of 
Staff of OPM under the Trump Administration, and I am concerned 
about the ethics of Mr. Dans leveraging nonpublic information 
or relationships forged during his government service to lead 
and advance this far-right extremist agenda. We need oversight 
and accountability of Project 2025. Thank you, and I yield 
back.
    Chairman Comer. The gentlelady yields back. The Chair now 
recognizes Mr. Burlison from Missouri.
    Mr. Shriver. Mr. Chairman, might it be possible for a quick 
break? Mr. Chairman, I am sorry.
    Chairman Comer. Yes. We will recess for 5 or 10 minutes to 
give the witness a bathroom break.
    Mr. Shriver. Thank you.
    Chairman Comer. At this time, the Committee stands in 
recess.
    Mr. Shriver. Thank you.
    [Recess.]
    Chairman Comer. The Committee will reconvene.
    The Chair now recognizes Mr. Burlison from Missouri for 5 
minutes.
    Mr. Burlison. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Shriver, it 
appears President Biden has not missed any opportunity to show 
his loyalty to organized labor. Since his first day in office, 
he rescinded executive orders that were issued by Trump to 
curtail some of the various abuses by Federal employee unions. 
In fact, further, he said that according to his Public 
President's Management Agenda, that ``the public sector unions 
will have a front row seat in agency affairs'' and which OPM 
will help support. This is remarkable to me, the turnabout. 
Historically, there has been a different philosophy toward 
public sector unions than today. George Meany, who was once the 
President of the AFL-CIO, said that it is impossible to bargain 
collectively with the government.
    Our President FDR, who was famously supportive of unions, 
actually thought it was unconscionable to have public sector 
unions. In his letter to the Federation for Federal Employees 
in 1937, he wrote that, ``Meticulous attention should be paid 
to special relationships and obligations of public servants to 
the public itself and to the government. All government 
employees should realize that the process of collective 
bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into 
the public service. It has its distinct and insurmountable 
limitations when applied to public personnel management. The 
very nature of purposes of government make it impossible for 
administrative officials to represent fully or to bind the 
employer in mutual discussions with government employee 
organizations. The employer is the whole people who speak by 
means of laws enacted by their representatives in Congress. 
Accordingly, administrative officials and employees alike are 
governed and guided, in many instances restricted, by laws 
which establish policies, procedures, or rules in personnel 
matters.
    Particularly, I want to emphasize my conviction that''--
this is President FDR's conviction--``that militant tactics 
have no place in the functions of any organization of 
government employees. Upon employees, the Federal service rests 
the obligations to serve the whole people whose interests and 
welfare require orderliness and continuity in the conduct of 
government activities. This obligation is paramount since their 
own services have to do with the functioning of the government. 
A strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an 
intent on their part to prevent or obstruct the operations of 
government until their demands are satisfied, such action, 
looking toward the paralysis of government by those who have 
sworn to support it is unthinkable and intolerable.'' Your 
thoughts?
    Mr. Shriver. Congressman, my approach to labor relations is 
governed by the law and by the executive orders of the 
President. The bipartisan Congress that enacted the Civil 
Service Reform Act in 1978 envisioned a role for Federal 
employee unions. The law reflects Congress' findings that 
collective bargaining is in the public interest, and there is a 
balance there about what unions can bargain over and what they 
cannot bargain over. We have consulted with unions under the 
national consultation law rules that apply under the Civil 
Service Reform Act, and I have done my best to work with unions 
and consistent with the President's executive orders. I think 
that, as a representative of the employees that served the 
country, they are an important voice.
    Mr. Burlison. But you clearly recognize that there is a 
conflict of interest. What is in the interest of the public 
sector union may not be in the interest of the taxpayer or the 
public they serve.
    Mr. Shriver. I think Congress wrestled with those issues 
and settled on the system that we have now for labor relations 
in the government, and that there is a long history over many 
decades of a policy view in this country that resolving 
disputes at the bargaining table is the more efficient way to 
do it.
    Mr. Burlison. Would you say that Federal employees not 
coming into work, not showing up onsite for work, that that is 
in the best interest of the public or the taxpayers they serve?
    Mr. Shriver. I think that Federal employees need to be 
aligning their work arrangements to delivering the services 
they need to deliver for the American people, whether that is 
onsite or teleworking. That is an arrangement that has been 
around for many, many years, and, in fact, the Telework 
Enhancement Act, that sort of launched telework in the Federal 
Government, had bipartisan support.
    Mr. Burlison. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Chairman Comer. The Chair now recognizes Ms. Tlaib.
    Ms. Tlaib. Thank you so much, Chairman. Thank you so much, 
Mr. Shriver, for being here. I would like to set a little bit 
of just background about my district and why Federal employees, 
and especially those in the EPA, are so critically important.
    So, I have two schools, they are K through 8th, 8 schools 
separated, there is a park, and literally behind them is one of 
the largest polluters in the state of Michigan. The air monitor 
that there is, has got some of the highest results in 
contaminants. We have high rates of different kinds of 
respiratory issues, even talking to a father who has to put his 
6-year-old twins on respiratory-like machines before bed. And 
so, it is so critically important that we protect those that 
are scientists and experts that come from the Environmental 
Protection Agency and so those environmental laws that we all 
fight so hard, and the only way it really works is 
implementation, is enforcement, and so it is so important.
    So, it is disturbing that our Federal workforce, though, is 
being used in the face of, like, politically motivated 
interference. I even seen it on the state level, both under a 
Democratic Governor as well as a Republican Governor, where 
they really prevent some of the employees doing their job, 
literally dictated by law to oversee pollution. I mean, they 
have to test our waters, our air, everything. So, no matter who 
is in the White House, which should never ever, ever, no matter 
anybody in this room, should never ever be allowed to just fire 
any Federal employee. And I know everybody has brought up 
Schedule F to you, to just fire any Federal employees. As we 
know, one of the first agencies he targeted was the EPA. Is 
that correct, Mr. Shriver?
    Mr. Shriver. Congresswoman, I was not part of the 
Administration, and I could not comment on that.
    Ms. Tlaib. Well, so it was--he targeted the scientists, the 
experts with partisan kind of hacks and, like, listening to 
campaign donors to shield corporate polluters from laws 
intended to keep our community safe, and we know he has already 
done it.
    I mean, I would like, Mr. Chair, to submit for the record, 
this report from the Union of Concerned Scientists, which shows 
that under the Trump Administration, EPA officials ignore their 
own scientists calling for more stringent standard for soot and 
other contaminants, which cause more than 100,000 deaths per 
year.
    Chairman Comer. Without objection, so ordered.
    Ms. Tlaib. I mean, so for many of my residents at home, 
this is a life-and-death situation. I mean, for us, we cannot 
allow, no matter who is the President of United States, to use 
that office for political motivation to attack many of the 
Federal employees that act in a very nonpartisan way. They are 
dictated by law what they are supposed to be out there 
enforcing. Mr. Shriver, can you talk about that? I mean, one of 
the things that I think my colleagues do not understand is 
these are not political opinions. This is the law that they are 
enforcing.
    Mr. Shriver. Thank you for the question, Congresswoman. And 
that is right, Federal employees, they carry out their duties 
day-to-day consistent with the law that governs their agencies, 
and that governs their activities. They carry out their 
priorities as determined by the leadership in their agencies 
and are accountable for doing that. And as we have discussed, 
that there is a mechanism for holding them accountable.
    Mr. Chairman, if I could just take a second to correct that 
the more accurate number of the number of Federal employees who 
are either terminated or suspended for cause, there is a GAO 
report that says it is 16,000 to 17,000. We are happy to 
provide that, but I wanted to correct the number there.
    Chairman Comer. We would like any information you have 
regarding that.
    Mr. Shriver. Thank you.
    Chairman Comer. Go ahead, Ms. Tlaib.
    Ms. Tlaib. What do you think would happen if Schedule F was 
gone, like right now? Would that impact the inspectors who come 
out to look at some of these larger corporate polluters?
    Mr. Shriver. The two main concerns that I would have with 
Schedule F are, No. 1, a chilling effect on current Federal 
employees. They need to have the protections in place that 
allow them to bring their expertise and their opinions to 
leadership without fear of reprisal based on partisanship. And 
then No. 2, I would be concerned about our ability to continue 
to recruit the kind of workforce that we need to perform these 
critical jobs.
    Ms. Tlaib. Yes. And, Mr. Chair, if I may, I mean, even when 
we submit these into the record, it is something incredibly, 
like, daunting and scary to think that a President of the 
United States can fire an EPA Federal employee that is out 
there literally trying to provide clean air and clean water for 
our communities. So, again, I would emphasize the importance of 
making sure that we are doing this in a bipartisan way. No 
matter, again, who is the President of United States, we must, 
must make sure that we are prepared. And I am really, for the 
record, so happy that a lot of Federal employees have unions to 
protect them. Thank you.
    Chairman Comer. The gentlelady's time has expired. Who is 
next? Mr. Moskowitz.
    Mr. Moskowitz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for 
coming today, Mr. Shriver. I appreciate you coming.
    We have been talking about productivity, and it is a little 
awkward when you want to disagree with someone on your side of 
the aisle, but I have to dramatically disagree with my 
colleague, Ms. Crockett, who used data and statistics and facts 
to claim that this is the least productive Congress in modern 
history. First of all, this Congress removed the Speaker, OK, 
which has never happened in the history of the Republic. That 
is a big accomplishment in the 118th. This Congress took 15 
rounds to even elect that Speaker that they then removed, 
right, which was historic in its own right, and then they 
removed a Member of their own party. That had not happened in 
20 years, so kudos to them. They have had a failed impeachment 
of a President. I do not think we have seen that happen in a 
really long time. This Congress did impeach a Cabinet 
Secretary, though, without meeting any constitutional 
threshold. We have not seen that happen in 150 years. This 
Congress wants to hold Merrick Garland in contempt and then 
possibly arrest him. I do not think we have ever seen that in 
the history of the Republic.
    We have seen a failed motion to vacate, to remove a second 
Speaker, again, history in the 118th. And who could forget that 
this Congress, on behalf of the American people, saved gas 
stoves and ovens and toasters and blenders and dishwashers from 
the communist grip of energy standards? So, I think Ms. 
Crockett was pointing out that this is least productive, these 
seem to be accomplishments on behalf of the American people 
that are clearly historic and may never be repeated in another 
Congress.
    You know, with that, there was a lot of discussion about 
the CBO report. Who is the CBO, Mr. Shriver?
    Mr. Shriver. The Congressional Budget Office.
    Mr. Moskowitz. OK. So, those are our folks?
    Mr. Shriver. Correct, Congressman.
    Mr. Moskowitz. OK. And it is nonpartisan.
    Mr. Shriver. Correct.
    Mr. Moskowitz. OK. And you mentioned a report that they 
issued, right? That report, which I have here, came out in 
April 2024.
    Mr. Shriver. Yes, Congressman. That is the report I was 
referring to.
    Mr. Moskowitz. OK. And even though it is nonpartisan, who 
controls the House in 2024?
    Mr. Shriver. I believe the Republican Party.
    Mr. Moskowitz. OK. I believe you are correct. So, on page 
21 of that report, which is the congressional report from the 
CBO, it specifically shows the difference between the private 
sector and the Federal Government when it comes to teleworking. 
There is a chart which I have behind me and, you know, I am not 
going to do what Trump did and just circle Alabama.
    [Chart]
    But I am going to circle that area right there, right? So, 
we always constantly hear that we should run government like a 
business. This seems to show, according to the congressional 
report, our report, from April, just a month ago, that the 
private sector is teleworking more than Federal employees. Is 
that what this chart shows?
    Mr. Shriver. Congressman, that is how I read that chart, 
yes.
    Mr. Moskowitz. Oh my God. So, the Federal Government is 
actually outpacing the private sector--I am sorry--the private 
sector is actually outpacing us in teleworking. I mean, do you 
think, like, my colleagues should file, like, a resolution of 
disapproval of the private sector because of all of this 
teleworking that the private sector is doing?
    Mr. Shriver. Well, Congressman, I always think that the 
work arrangement should be aligned to what best advances the 
mission of the agency, and this is the data I was referring to 
that shows that Federal workers are spending more time in the 
office than private sector right now.
    Mr. Moskowitz. OK. So, that attack about all of this 
teleworking that Federal employees, right, is really 
misinformation because, it is really, we are below the private 
sector. We are really keeping pace, right? Would that be fair?
    Mr. Shriver. I think we are keeping pace, and I think 
consistent with what I have been testifying to today, we have 
to keep evaluating it, right? Like, our North Star is providing 
the best service to the American people, and we need to make 
sure that work arrangements like telework are advancing that 
and I think that they are.
    Mr. Moskowitz. Thank you. I yield the balance of my time. 
Thank you.
    Chairman Comer. I will now recognize myself for questions, 
and I know this question has been asked, but I want to ask it 
again, for the record. How many Federal employees are currently 
teleworking?
    Mr. Shriver. So, Congressman, we have 46 percent, under 
OPM's most recent telework data, 46 percent.
    Chairman Comer. Forty-six percent of the Federal workforce. 
What was that number before COVID?
    Mr. Shriver. I would have to go back and look at the 
specific reports, Congressman. I think the thing that changed 
is that a higher percentage of the people who are eligible to 
telework are now teleworking than were before COVID.
    Chairman Comer. Would it be somewhere around 17 percent 
before COVID or 20 percent before COVID? Roughly? Ballpark?
    Mr. Shriver. Congressman, I would have to go back, but, Mr. 
Chairman, for sure the telework participation is at a higher 
level now than it was prior to the pandemic.
    Chairman Comer. How current is that data where you say 46 
percent?
    Mr. Shriver. So, that data is based on the OPM Telework 
Report, the annual telework report that we produced in December 
2023, which is based on 2022 data.
    Chairman Comer. OK. So, well more than double of the number 
of Federal employees are teleworking since COVID currently. How 
many days a week are Federal employees teleworking?
    Mr. Shriver. It is a range, Congressman. It can go anywhere 
from occasionally and situationally, where you do not have any 
specific scheduled telework day to sometimes people have a 
certain number of telework days. The maximum would be 4 a week.
    Chairman Comer. What specific benefits has OPM observed 
related to increased union membership in Federal agencies?
    Mr. Shriver. So, my understanding is that the membership of 
Federal unions has gone up over the last several years.
    Chairman Comer. Since COVID.
    Mr. Shriver. Has union membership has gone up since COVID? 
I have not drawn that causal connection, but I think probably, 
given where the data has been that it has increased.
    Chairman Comer. So, I would like to read a quote to you: 
``Complex rules and procedures have undermined confidence in 
the merit system. Many managers and personnel officers complain 
that the existing procedures, intended to ensure merit and 
protect against arbitrary actions, have too often become the 
refuge of the incompetent employee. It is the dedicated and 
competent employee who must increase his workload. The morale 
of even the best-motivated employee is bound to suffer under 
such a system.'' That is from the Senate report to the Civil 
Service Reform Act of 1978. That is 6 years after I was born--I 
am 51 now--but that could easily have been written in the 
present day.
    In the 2023 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey, 41 percent 
of respondents said poor performers remained in the work unit 
and continued to underperform. In previous years, as few as 28 
percent of respondents said that steps were taken to deal with 
the poor performer who cannot or will not improve. A GAO 
recommendation from 2018 saying OPM needed to ensure agencies 
have tools to effectively address misconduct remains open. So, 
what is OPM doing to know exactly how well the system is or is 
not working, and what is it doing to ensure that the civil 
service is working diligently and impartially, regardless of 
who is in the Oval Office?
    Mr. Shriver. Thank you for the question, Mr. Chairman, and 
every civil servant has an obligation to put the mission first 
and work on behalf of the American people.
    Chairman Comer. What specifically are you doing?
    Mr. Shriver. So, these are the things that we have done. 
No. 1, we issued guidance to agencies to remind them about how 
they can make effective use of probationary periods. That is 
the period at the beginning of a person's career when----
    Chairman Comer. And what is the length of that probation?
    Mr. Shriver. It can be 1 year. It can be 2 years. It 
depends on different jobs. That is why we offered free----
    Chairman Comer. You know, with a teacher, it is 5 years, 
but with a Federal employee, it is little as 1 year, maybe even 
6 months, perhaps. I just wanted to point that out.
    Mr. Shriver. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My parents are both 
schoolteachers.
    Chairman Comer. My mom was a schoolteacher.
    Mr. Shriver. Yes. So, other things that we have done is 
provided free training to managers and supervisors across 
government on thriving in a hybrid work environment. This 
included a focus on performance management for teleworkers. We 
offer robust training to our executives and supervisors through 
our Federal Executive Institute Training Program.
    Chairman Comer. So, here is the frustration from our side 
of the aisle. We do not think you know an exact number of 
people who are teleworking. You say it is 46 percent, but you 
knew that it was going to be a major topic of this Committee 
hearing. And we get complaints from Federal employees, we 
communicate with Federal employees, we represent Federal 
employees, and the Federal employees who have to go to work 
every day and do the work have this sneaky suspicion that a lot 
of these teleworkers are not working as hard as they are. So, 
the morale in the Federal workforce among the hardworking 
employees who are going to work every day is pretty high. And 
we have the legislation in this Committee that I sponsored, and 
I believe that Mayor Bowser has even publicly supported, called 
the SHOW UP Act, to try to get the teleworking numbers back to 
pre-pandemic levels.
    Now, if you can provide some data that will prove that this 
is more efficient, like my friends on the other side of the 
aisle keep claiming, then we would support that, if you can 
prove to us it is more efficient. But the problem is we all 
have caseworkers, and our caseworkers say it has gotten 
significantly harder to get people on the phone at every 
government agency since COVID, and we believe one of the 
reasons is because of excessive telework. If telework can save 
the taxpayers' money and if teleworkers are as efficient as 
people who have to go to work every day and work hard in the 
office every day, then I would support that, and I think most 
of my colleagues would support that. We would start liquidating 
some office buildings in Washington, DC. where you can maybe 
have affordable housing or private development or things like 
that.
    But you do not have the data, and we have been begging for 
data. How many employees are teleworking, and is this a better 
deal for the taxpayers? Not is it a better deal for the 
teleworkers. We know the answer to that. It is a lot better 
deal for the teleworkers. We want to know about the taxpayers. 
That is who we are concerned about on this side of the aisle, 
so we will keep hounding you until we get that answer.
    The Chair now recognizes Mr. Garcia.
    Mr. Garcia. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I have to 
respectfully disagree with some of our Chairman's comments. I 
mean, if we do not like the data, it does not mean it doesn't 
exist or it is not being collected. There is data both 
presented by yourself and the Agency, but also by the CBO and 
the Congressional Budget Office. The data is pretty clear. So, 
I just want to repeat what has been said earlier today, and 
that is that right now our Federal workforce is teleworking 
less than their private counterparts in the private sector. And 
so, I think it is really important to note that the attacks 
that often happen to our Federal workforce, I think, are 
unmerited. And we should be proud that union membership is up 
in our Federal workforce, and perhaps if we can continue 
providing those same opportunities to our private sector 
employees, we would have this level of results. And so, I 
appreciate our Federal workforce is actually going to work, 
into the office, at a higher rate than the private sector.
    We know what is happening in cities across America, which 
is we are seeing downtown suffering, towns having a hard time, 
small businesses having a hard time surviving because, of 
course, we know that so much of the workforce has shifted to 
working from home. And in some cases, we have to recognize that 
that has been a positive development. We are never going to go 
back to pre-pandemic numbers. That is not going to happen. The 
nature of work has changed, technology like Zoom, like the 
different technology that connects people has changed, and so 
those numbers have shifted permanently. But I want to thank you 
and our Federal workforce for actually outpacing what the 
private sector has done. I think that is important to recognize 
and to look at the facts.
    I also just want to note, I served as Mayor of Long Beach 2 
years ago before I got to Congress. We had 6,000 employees that 
I was proud to help lead, most of them civil servants, doing 
hard work, firefighters, public works officers, folks that are 
filling out potholes in our health department. My concern is 
this constant attack on Federal workers and civil servants. 
Where are the hearings on the private sector? Where are the 
hearings on these massive, large corporations that are not 
providing protections for workers?
    And I am especially concerned with my colleagues, and there 
were mentions earlier of what Donald Trump's plans are for the 
civil service, for his plans and essentially creating a mini 
army within the Federal bureaucracy to lay out what he wants to 
see and his view of the government. We already know that he 
said he wants to be a dictator on day one. We know he wants to 
wipe out civil servants' legal protections. He talks about 
draining the swamp, yet he is the swamp. He wants to create 
this entirely different version of the Federal workforce, which 
we strongly oppose. And this is the same person who we all know 
has stolen, in our opinion, millions of dollars from foreign 
governments, is trading favors to Big Oil for what he is going 
to do when he is back in the White House. So, he has no 
interest in the law and the Constitution, and, importantly, in 
protecting the civil servants that make our government work 
every single day.
    I also want to note that Schedule F, which has been brought 
up by many of our colleagues, is very concerning, this idea of 
firing 50,000 civil servants and replacing them with his own 
little army of extreme conservatives who essentially damage the 
Federal bureaucracy, should be something that concerns all of 
us. And whether it is issues around Homeland Security, whether 
it is issues around immigration, the ability to put in 
appointees to stop giving out visas, enacting damage on folks, 
like our Dreamers and DACA recipients, is very concerning to us 
and those of us on this side of the aisle. So, we are going to 
continue to stand up for our Federal employees.
    And last, I just wanted to ask, I think the Biden 
Administration has actually strengthened the civil service 
department, has actually tried to isolate interference with 
civil servants. And can you briefly mention in my time that is 
remaining a few of the steps that the Biden Administration has 
taken to strengthen the Federal workforce?
    Mr. Shriver. Thank you, Congressman. In our regulation on 
strengthening the civil service, we focused on three areas. 
First, is you made it clear that Federal employees who obtained 
due process protections do not lose them through a technical 
H.R. process like Schedule F. Second, we made clear that the 
exception in the law, that has existed going back to 1978 and 
earlier, for confidential policymaking, policy advocating 
positions applies to political appointees, the 4,000 or so 
political appointees that we have talked about before. And 
third, we put forth transparent processes for agencies who are 
attempting to move employees from one status to another and 
allow them to file an appeal if their rights are taken away.
    Mr. Garcia. Thank you.
    Chairman Comer. Thank you, and that concludes our 
questions. So, in closing, I want to thank you, Mr. Shriver, 
for testifying today. We look forward to continued 
communication, continued working relationship.
    And with that, without objection, all Members will have 5 
legislative days within which to submit materials and to submit 
additional written questions for the witnesses, which will be 
forwarded to the witnesses for their response.
    If there is no further business, without objection, the 
Committee stands adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 12:54 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]

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