[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 171 (Wednesday, November 30, 2016)]
[House]
[Pages H7006-H7008]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           OVERTIME PAY FOR SECRET SERVICE AGENTS ACT OF 2016

  Mr. CHAFFETZ. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the 
bill (H.R. 6302) to provide an increase in premium pay for United 
States Secret Service agents performing protective services during 
2016, and for other purposes.
  The Clerk read the title of the bill.
  The text of the bill is as follows:

                               H.R. 6302

       Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
     the United States of America in Congress assembled,

     SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

       This Act may be cited as the ``Overtime Pay for Secret 
     Service Agents Act of 2016''.

     SEC. 2. PREMIUM PAY EXCEPTION IN 2016 FOR WORK AUTHORIZED 
                   UNDER SECTION 3056 OF TITLE 18.

       (a) In General.--Notwithstanding any other provision of 
     law, including section 5307 of title 5, United States Code, 
     and subject to subsection (b), during calendar year 2016--
       (1) section 5547(a) of such title shall not apply to an 
     employee who performs work authorized by section 3056(a) of 
     title 18, United States Code; and
       (2) such an employee may be paid premium pay to the extent 
     that the payment of such pay does not cause the total of 
     basic pay and such premium pay for any pay period for such 
     employee to exceed the annual rate of basic pay payable to 
     level II of the Executive Schedule under section 5313 of 
     title 5, United States Code.
       (b) Treatment of Additional Pay.--To the extent that 
     subsection (a) results in payment of additional premium pay 
     of a type that is normally creditable as basic pay for 
     retirement or any other purpose, such additional pay shall 
     not be considered to be basic pay for any purpose and shall 
     not be used in computing a lump-sum payment for accumulated 
     and accrued annual leave under section 5551 of title 5, 
     United States Code.

[[Page H7007]]

       (c) Definition.--In this section, the term ``employee'' 
     means any special agent of the United States Secret Service 
     that is a law enforcement officer, but does not include--
       (1) a member of the United States Secret Service Uniformed 
     Division; or
       (2) an officer, employee, agent, or law enforcement officer 
     of any other Federal agency.
       (d) Conforming Amendment.--Section 118 of the Treasury and 
     General Government Appropriations Act, 2001 (Public Law 106-
     554) is amended by inserting ``and except as provided in 
     section 2 of the Overtime Pay for Secret Service Agents Act 
     of 2016,'' after ``Hereafter,''.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from 
Utah (Mr. Chaffetz) and the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Lynch) 
each will control 20 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Utah.


                             General Leave

  Mr. CHAFFETZ. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members 
may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks 
and include extraneous material on the bill under consideration.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Utah?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. CHAFFETZ. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of my bill, H.R. 6302, the 
Overtime Pay for Secret Service Agents Act of 2016.
  The United States Secret Service has a zero-fail mission to protect 
the President and other protectees at all costs. The 2016 Presidential 
campaign year was an especially busy year for the Secret Service. They 
have done an exceptional job.
  I will give you some metrics of what this agency was dealing with. 
They staffed more than 2,500 candidate trips, 8,580 total protective 
travel stops, and 62 foreign travel trips with the President and the 
Vice President. The most recent Presidential election saw Secret 
Service agents working record hours to fulfill their mission. 
Incredibly, this was accomplished despite the Secret Service suffering 
from historic levels of attrition and low staffing levels.
  In our December 2015 bipartisan report, the Committee on Oversight 
and Government Reform found that the Secret Service was ``experiencing 
a staffing crisis that threatens to jeopardize its critical mission.''
  The Secret Service was at a peak staffing level of 7,024 employees in 
the year 2011. That number has declined every year until the beginning 
of this year when the agency had 6,289 employees.
  The staffing numbers are beginning to improve, now at 6,500. But the 
problem is the agency hopes to have between 8,000 and 9,000 employees 
by the next Presidential election in 2020. It is hard and difficult to 
hire a Secret Service agent, and once they are hired, you can't simply 
put them out in front of the White House or next to a candidate or one 
of the protectees and expect them to simply flip on the switch and do 
their job.
  As a result of the current manpower shortage and the lack of 
employees, Secret Service agents had to work significant overtime to 
ensure around-the-clock protection of Presidential candidates. No 
matter the number of hours worked, Secret Service agents are subject to 
a title 5 statutory cap on their biweekly pay. As a result, agents were 
not compensated for overtime hours worked that would have resulted in 
compensation beyond the cap during any pay period. Within the Secret 
Service, this became known as a max-out problem.
  These so-called max-outs contribute to the agency's low morale and 
exacerbate attrition. The excessive overtime also negatively impacts 
protective efforts. The agency needs fresh and energetic agents to 
fulfill a critical mission, one that they have to be in tune with at 
every moment while they are on the job. The bill, the Overtime Pay for 
Secret Service Agents Act of 2016, offers relief for agents who have 
not received pay due to the so-called max-out problem.
  Secret Service agents who worked on the 2016 Presidential campaign 
would be eligible to receive compensation above normal levels up to the 
basic pay currently given to members of the Executive Schedule Level II 
for the calendar year 2016.
  Every Secret Service agent with outstanding overtime would receive an 
additional compensation for 2016 under this bill. This is not a bonus. 
This is not extra pay. This is simply trying to compensate them for 
hours that they worked. We heard story after story about Secret Service 
agents who would literally go weeks on end with no pay and yet continue 
to do their job.
  At the same time, the limitation to the 2016 Presidential election in 
the bill presents a good balance and encourages Secret Service to fix 
its current staffing problems instead of relying on excessive and 
expensive overtime pay in the future.
  It is my expectation that the Secret Service meets its staffing goals 
by the next election cycle and does not have to rely on scheduling 
excessive overtime. It is also my expectation that the Secret Service 
will focus its staffing capital away from its increasing nonessential 
investigative and cyber-related missions which distract from the core 
mission of protecting the President and other protectees.
  There are currently three ongoing studies analyzing the Secret 
Service's nonessential mission of cyber investigations. By the way, 
this nonprotective mission usually takes more than half of their time, 
but certainly during a Presidential election cycle, you can see the 
demand that was there.
  I am very pleased with the bipartisan nature in which the committee 
came together to make sure that we are supporting the men and women who 
serve in the Secret Service. They have done so in a very admirable 
fashion. They have provided a great service to the Nation. But when you 
hear stories where people would go 43 days without a single day off, 
when they would work, literally, 100-plus hours in a week and they 
would go to work knowing that they weren't going to be compensated for 
that work, that is inexcusable. This bill would provide relief to them. 
Again, it is not a bonus; it is not extra pay; but it is some 
compensation for the work that they did protecting our Nation and 
protecting those protectees. By all accounts, they did an exceptional 
job without any major incident in this 2016 election cycle.
  I urge the passage of this bill. Again, I appreciate the bipartisan 
nature in which we are doing this.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. LYNCH. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 6302, the Overtime Pay for 
Secret Service Agents Act of 2016, which was approved by our committee 
unanimously by a voice vote. This legislation would authorize an 
increase in the current pay cap up to Level II of the Executive 
Schedule so that Secret Service agents are permitted to receive 
compensation for the hours of overtime they worked in 2016.
  As the chairman has indicated, the Presidential campaign of 2016 has 
been a year of extraordinary challenges and strain on the Secret 
Service. The Secret Service has provided information to the committee 
indicating that more than 1,000 Secret Service agents--one-third of the 
agents on board--have worked so many hours that they maxed out their 
annual overtime and salary. Some agents started working overtime for 
free as of early June and are exceeding the pay cap by as many as 
$50,000 to $60,000 per agent. Current law prohibits them from receiving 
any additional overtime pay, and that is what this bill is intended to 
fix for calendar year 2016.
  These spikes in overtime are a necessary factor in these election 
campaigns. As we know, there were 16 Republican candidates in the 
primary, and all received Secret Service protection, as well as several 
candidates on the Democratic side. There were countless stops across 
the country over the months of our campaigns, and I don't think there 
is any way to avoid the need for overtime.
  I am glad that this is a bipartisan bill, but every 4 years we have 
to have agents working without pay. There has got to be a way that we 
can estimate roughly what the overtime needs will be every 4 years and 
incorporate something that at least eliminates the need to have Secret 
Service agents working for free in a very dangerous job. I think we can 
figure that out.
  I had a proposal in committee to make this an every-4-year thing and 
incorporate that. It did not succeed. But

[[Page H7008]]

I am hoping that, in a bipartisan manner with the chairman and my 
Republican colleagues on the committee, we can solve this.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Without objection, the gentleman from 
Arizona will control the remainder of the time.
  There was no objection.
  Mr. GOSAR. Mr. Speaker, I urge adoption of the bill.
  I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Speaker, I support H.R. 6302, the Overtime Pay for 
Secret Service Agents Act of 2016. The bill would authorize an increase 
in the annual salary and overtime limit up to level II of the Executive 
Schedule so that Secret Service agents would be eligible to receive 
additional back pay for the considerable hours of overtime they worked 
in 2016.
  Last year, the Committee adopted a bipartisan report concluding that 
the Secret Service, and I quote, ``is experiencing a staffing crisis 
that threatens to jeopardize its critical mission'' due in large part 
to ``significant cuts imposed by the Budget Control Act of 2011.'' The 
unanimous report recommended that Congress, quote, ``ensure that Secret 
Service has sufficient funds to restore staffing to required levels.'' 
Providing this much-needed relief in the highly demanding 2016 
presidential campaign year is a first and essential step towards 
fulfilling the Committee's recommendation.
  I appreciate the efforts that Chairman Chaffetz and his staff have 
made to address this issue, and I believe we are in agreement that we 
must pay the dedicated men and the women of the Secret Service for the 
overtime they worked in 2016. However, addressing just this one year 
retroactively does not go far enough.
  The Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, which represents 
rank-and-file Secret Service agents, testified before our Committee 
that there should be a legislative fix to raise the overtime pay cap, 
and I quote, ``at a minimum, during a presidential campaign year.'' The 
witness added that although, quote, ``this last election season was 
unprecedented in many respects, we do not believe it will prove to be 
unique in the years ahead,'' and he stressed, quote, ``the importance 
of working together to find a permanent solution to the effect that the 
pay cap has on the USSS.''
  The demands on Secret Service agents are likely to remain extremely 
high with the substantial resources needed to provide around-the-clock 
protective details for all 18 Trump family members--including the First 
Lady, five children and three of their spouses, and eight 
grandchildren. The announced plan to split time between the White House 
and the Trump tower in Manhattan would also add significant challenges 
and strain the resources of the Secret Service.
  That is why all Committee Democrats joined together to introduce H.R. 
6318, the Fair Pay for Presidential Protection Act of 2016, to ensure 
that Secret Service agents are paid not just for the overtime they 
worked in 2016, but also for the overtime they will work in all future 
presidential years. Our legislation would also authorize a greater 
level of overtime compensation than H.R. 6302.
  I would also note that the Republican Leadership recently decided to 
change course and use a continuing resolution to fund the government at 
last year's spending levels through next March. Passing only this 
stopgap measure would mean Secret Service agents would not see an 
additional penny unless Congress includes additional funds in this 
spending bill. Otherwise, Secret Service agents may have to wait at 
least another four months without any additional compensation for their 
work in 2016.
  I urge my colleagues to support this bill, but I also hope the 
Committee will revisit this overtime pay issue next year so that the 
Secret Service will have a legislative solution in time for the 2020 
election season.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the 
gentleman from Utah (Mr. Chaffetz) that the House suspend the rules and 
pass the bill, H.R. 6302.
  The question was taken; and (two-thirds being in the affirmative) the 
rules were suspended and the bill was passed.
  A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.

                          ____________________