[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 21 (Wednesday, February 1, 2023)]
[House]
[Pages H599-H607]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




     STOPPING HOME OFFICE WORK'S UNPRODUCTIVE PROBLEMS ACT OF 2023

  Mr. COMER. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 75, I call up 
the bill (H.R. 139) to require Executive agencies to submit to Congress 
a study of the impacts of expanded telework and remote work by agency 
employees during the COVID-19 pandemic and a plan for the agency's 
future use of telework and remote work, and for other purposes, and ask 
for its immediate consideration.
  The Clerk read the title of the bill.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Kustoff). Pursuant to House Resolution 
75, the bill is considered read.
  The text of the bill is as follows:

                                H.R. 139

       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 ``Stopping Home Office Work's 
     Unproductive Problems Act of 2023'' or the ``SHOW UP Act of 
     2023''.

     SEC. 2. REINSTATEMENT OF PRE-PANDEMIC TELEWORK POLICIES, 
                   PRACTICES, AND LEVELS FOR EXECUTIVE AGENCIES.

       Not later than 30 days after the date of enactment of this 
     Act, each agency shall reinstate and apply the telework 
     policies, practices, and levels of the agency as in effect on 
     December 31, 2019, and may not expand any such policy, 
     practices, or levels until the date that an agency plan is 
     submitted to Congress with a certification by the Director of 
     the Office of Personnel Management under section 3.

     SEC. 3. STUDY, PLAN, AND CERTIFICATION REGARDING EXECUTIVE 
                   AGENCY TELEWORK POLICIES, PRACTICES, AND LEVELS 
                   FOR EXECUTIVE AGENCIES.

       (a) In General.--Not later than 6 months after the date of 
     enactment of this Act, the head of each agency, in 
     consultation with the Director, shall submit to Congress--
       (1) a study on the impacts on the agency and its mission of 
     expanding telework by its employees during the SARS-CoV-2 
     pandemic that commenced in 2019, including an analysis of--
       (A) any adverse impacts of that expansion on the agency's 
     performance of its mission, including the performance of 
     customer service by the agency;
       (B) any costs to the agency during that expansion 
     attributable to--
       (i) owning, leasing, or maintaining under-utilized real 
     property; or
       (ii) paying higher rates of locality pay to teleworking 
     employees as a result of incorrectly classifying such 
     employees as teleworkers rather than remote workers;
       (C) any degree to which the agency failed during that 
     expansion to provide teleworking employees with secure 
     network capacity, communications tools, necessary and secure 
     access to appropriate agency data assets and Federal records, 
     and equipment sufficient to enable each such employee to be 
     fully productive;
       (D) any degree to which that expansion facilitated 
     dispersal of the agency workforce around the Nation; and
       (E) any other impacts of that expansion that the agency or 
     the Director considers appropriate;
       (2) any agency plan to expand telework policies, practices, 
     or levels beyond those in place as a result of section 2; and
       (3) a certification by the Director that such plan will--
       (A) have a substantial positive effect on--
       (i) the performance of the agency's mission, including the 
     performance of customer service;
       (ii) increasing the level of dispersal of agency personnel 
     throughout the Nation; and
       (iii) the reversal of any adverse impact set forth pursuant 
     to paragraph (1)(D);
       (B) substantially lower the agency's costs of owning, 
     leasing, or maintaining real property;
       (C) substantially lower the agency's costs attributable to 
     paying locality pay to agency personnel working from 
     locations outside the pay locality of their position's 
     official worksite; and
       (D) ensure that teleworking employees will be provided with 
     secure network capacity, communications tools, necessary and 
     secure access to appropriate agency data assets and Federal 
     records, and equipment sufficient to enable each such 
     employee to be fully productive, without substantially 
     increasing the

[[Page H600]]

     agency's overall costs for secure network capacity, 
     communications tools, and equipment.
       (b) Limitation.--
       (1) In general.--An agency may not implement the plan 
     submitted under subsection (a)(2) unless a certification by 
     the Director was issued under subsection (a)(3).
       (2) Subsequent plans.--In the event an initial agency plan 
     submitted under subsection (a)(2) fails to receive such 
     certification, the agency may submit to the Director 
     subsequent plans until such certification is received, and 
     submit such plan and certification to Congress.
       (c) Definitions.--In this Act--
       (1) the term ``agency'' has the meaning given the term 
     ``Executive agency'' in section 105 of title 5, United States 
     Code;
       (2) the term ``Director'' means the Director of the Office 
     of Personnel Management;
       (3) the term ``locality pay'' means locality pay provided 
     for under section 5304 or 5304a of such title; and
       (4) the terms ``telework'' and ``teleworking'' have the 
     meaning given those terms in section 6501 of such title, and 
     include remote work.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The bill shall be debatable for 1 hour 
equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member 
of the Committee on Oversight and Accountability or their respective 
designees.
  The gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Comer) and the gentleman from 
Maryland (Mr. Raskin) each will control 30 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Comer).


                             General Leave

  Mr. COMER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 
5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include 
extraneous material on the measure under consideration.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Kentucky?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. COMER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 139, the Stopping Home 
Office Work's Unproductive Problems Act, or the SHOW UP Act.
  This legislation is urgent. The Federal workforce needs to get back 
to work. Federal agencies are falling short of their missions. They are 
not carrying out their duties. They are failing the American people.
  During the COVID-19 pandemic, most of the Federal workforce stayed 
home. They relied on telework because they could, but as the rest of 
America went back to work in person, many Federal workers did not.
  The American people have suffered as a result. They have waited for 
months for their tax refunds from the IRS. They have waited for months 
for the Social Security Administration to answer their questions and 
provide them benefits.
  Our veterans have even waited for months to get their medical records 
from the National Archives. The National Archives is responsible for 
maintaining medical records for our veterans, but our veterans could 
not get access to these records because the National Archives staff 
were at home.
  This is unacceptable, and it should be downright embarrassing to 
these agencies.
  The American people have struggled with high inflation, scarce goods, 
prolonged and disruptive lockdowns, and other hardships. Meanwhile, the 
Biden administration has showered Federal workers with perks and pay 
increases all while working from home, but Federal employees not being 
in the workplace hurt the Federal Government's ability to achieve its 
missions and deliver vital programs.
  House Republicans have fought hard to find out just how expanded 
telework has decreased agencies' ability to deliver services to our 
constituents. We have tried to get this information from the Biden 
administration, but to no avail.
  During the last Congress, as the House Oversight and Reform Committee 
ranking member, I wrote to the administration, requesting information 
on Federal workforce return-to-work policies. The Biden administration 
failed to provide adequate responses to our inquiries. Instead, it kept 
expanded telework policies in place long after the pandemic was over, 
and it used its expanded telework policies not to help our constituents 
but to help recruit new employees to the Federal Government.
  The Federal workforce already enjoys many perks not enjoyed by the 
private sector, including unparalleled job stability, healthy 
retirement benefits, and reliable pay-growth expectations. One would 
have thought that, as the pandemic wound down, Federal workers would 
have returned to their offices just as private-sector workers across 
the Nation did. That is not the case.
  According to the Office of Personnel Management's most recent report 
on telework, 47 percent of Federal workers teleworked routinely or 
situationally in fiscal year 2021. That was a 2 percent increase over 
fiscal year 2020, the year in which the pandemic struck.
  According to a Federal Times report this past October, just one in 
three Federal workers had returned to their office full time in 2022.
  Just last week, The Wall Street Journal reported that a new study by 
Cushman & Wakefield found only 5 percent of the prepandemic workforce 
returned to work in federally leased buildings in Washington, D.C., in 
October and November.

                              {time}  1415

  The Federal Government's abuse of telework has gotten so bad that 
Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser has called on President Biden to 
suspend the telework policies for Federal workers or turn over Federal 
buildings in D.C. for conversion to affordable housing.
  The current OPM Director has stated that Federal employees are 
actually getting transfers to agencies where they can telework more--
not so they can serve our constituents and the American citizenry the 
best.
  The SHOW UP Act offers a much-needed solution to the problem of 
Federal agencies and Federal employees putting their own comfort before 
our constituents' needs.
  It requires Federal agencies to immediately return to prepandemic 
levels of telework. This ensures that from the day of enactment, 
priority number one for the Federal workforce will be prompt and 
effective service to our constituents, not increasing the perks for an 
already privileged Federal bureaucracy.
  The SHOW UP Act also requires a governmentwide review of pandemic-era 
teleworking policies. This will help Congress see how much expanded 
telework either improved or harmed agency-by-agency effectiveness, 
costs, and network security across our vast Federal Government.
  The bill would prevent the Biden administration from locking in 
higher levels of telework until Congress receives detailed plans on how 
mission performance would be impacted.
  If the agencies' plans show increased telework would substantially 
improve agency performance, lower agency costs, ensure agency network 
security, and better disperse Federal employees across the Nation, then 
increased telework can then be considered as an option, but not until 
increased telework has been proven to better serve our constituents and 
the Nation.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge all my colleagues to support this vital 
legislation, and I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  We strongly oppose this bill, which is an assault on all the progress 
we have made over the last several years in telework policy. Telework 
has strengthened private and public workplaces across the land, 
enhanced productivity, increased efficiency, improved the morale and 
satisfaction of the workforce, reduced traffic congestion, and made 
positive environmental changes.
  When the chairman says it is time to return to work, I believe this 
is a misnomer because people who participate in telework are working. 
They are already working, and so they don't need to return to work.
  This bill would take a sledgehammer to Federal telework policy and 
law, which the sponsors seem completely oblivious to, and you can 
hardly blame them because the leadership brings this measure forward 
without the benefit of even a single hearing in the Oversight 
Committee, which means Congress has not heard from the Office of 
Personnel Management or any of the Federal agency chiefs, and it has 
not heard from any Federal workers or their collective bargaining 
representatives. It hasn't heard from any of the stakeholders other 
than secondhand, I guess,

[[Page H601]]

through hearsay the Mayor of Washington, D.C., who not surprisingly 
seems to be resistant, at least according to that report, to telework 
policy.
  This is an arbitrary effort to roll back all of the progress that has 
been made under legislation and administrative rules over the last 
decade without any participation at all of the key stakeholders.
  The bill falsely equates the development of telework as part of a 
balanced Federal workplace policy by OPM and the agencies with the 
sudden and near complete shift to virtual work in certain sectors 
because of the pandemic. Those are two completely different things.
  This conflation produces nothing but confusion, and the bill is a 
wrecking ball against telework policy, which has been a critical 
success in so many workplaces.
  Colleagues, the workplace is changing because of extraordinary new 
technology and a new focus on productivity and efficiency as opposed to 
industrial-age assembly-line seating and command-and-control work 
relations.
  Before the pandemic, hybrid and remote work were already growing far 
more prevalent across professions, particularly for jobs performed in 
an office setting. The pandemic accelerated these dynamics not only in 
the Federal workplace but even more dramatically in the private sector.
  From fiscal year 2019 to 2020, as we entered the pandemic, Federal 
telework doubled from roughly 500,000 people to more than a million. 
Practically overnight, traditional barriers to telework, such as 
technological obstacles and management resistance, began to disappear. 
Federal agencies implemented sweeping new guidelines as an essential 
tool for the continuity of government operations.
  The pandemic, of course, will not last forever. Indeed, the President 
announced that he plans to end the public health emergency on May 11. 
The Federal Government will not maintain a pandemic-level telework 
posture in perpetuity, but we cannot ignore the lessons that we have 
learned over the last several years.
  As OPM put it in its 2021 annual report on the status of telework, 
``there is no going back.'' Enhanced demand in the national workforce 
and among Federal employees will continue as workers and supervisors 
report greatly enhanced productivity and focus from flexible work 
practices that reduce time wasted in endless in-person meetings, 
watercooler gossip sessions, and the proverbial BS sessions that 
overcome so many people's offices.
  According to a survey by The Conference Board, 82 percent of 
companies are going to offer hybrid work options to employees going 
forward, and the number of private companies willing to let at least 
some portion of their workforce go fully remote has tripled to an 
astonishing 36 percent.
  In another survey, 63 percent of employees rated the value of 2 to 3 
days being able to work from home as equivalent to a pay raise.
  To remain competitive with the private sector with which we compete, 
the Federal Government must offer reasonable telework options. OPM says 
it will, observing that we must appreciate the sea change in the 
American labor market.
  Telework saves money, helps the government recruit top talent, 
reduces traffic gridlock, makes environmental sense, and ensures a 
continuity of operations at agencies that Americans rely on every 
single day. It is a lifeline for people who have disabilities or are 
immunocompromised, and it offers dramatically expanded opportunities 
for people living in more rural areas to enter and sustain a career in 
the Federal service.
  We cannot enter a time machine and simply wish away the utility of 
telework in recruiting and retaining new generations of Federal 
workers. We should embrace telework as part of a balanced workplace 
policy to promote employee satisfaction and overall mission outcome.
  OPM Director Kiran Ahuja offers a clear-eyed vision for the future in 
her annual report saying, ``Federal agencies must continue to embrace 
workplace flexibilities, such as telework, to remain competitive for 
top talent. Decisions about telework, however, must be driven by 
delivery of mission. We all work for the American public, and how we 
best serve them needs to be the paramount consideration.''
  That means telework does not make sense for every worker in every 
office or every activity. If you are guarding the Capitol, obviously 
you need to be present. If you are researching groups that were 
involved in the insurrection against the Capitol, you might be able to 
work part of that time virtually. Processing paper tax returns at the 
IRS may indeed require in-person work.
  I will note that although people are blaming the problems with IRS 
responsiveness on telework, that does not make sense to me. Telephone 
work is something that can be done from the office, home office, or 
somewhere else, which is why we have been, on our side of the aisle, 
invested in increasing staff at the IRS because our constituents are so 
frustrated with being left on the phone and not getting answers 
returned about when they will be getting their IRS refund.
  In the Inflation Reduction Act, we added 5,000 new positions for 
people on the phones to respond to our constituents. I know that some 
of our colleagues across the aisle have opposed additional funding for 
IRS positions, and that is surely a far more likely culprit than 
whatever telework policies are in place over at the IRS.
  The Biden administration's telework guidance seeks to strike a 
balance between getting people who need to be in person back in the 
office safely and helping agencies design their post-pandemic telework 
plans to build off the prior successes of this policy.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. COMER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from 
North Carolina (Ms. Foxx).
  Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, let me state a simple fact that has evidently 
been forgotten in Washington: The Federal workforce's primary 
imperative should always be to promptly serve the American people.
  Unfortunately, what the American people have experienced over the 
past 2 years is the exact opposite of what they deserve. Thanks to the 
Federal Government's pandemic-era telework policies which were 
instituted by bureaucrats in Washington, delay and disarray might as 
well have become hallmarks of Federal agencies and departments.
  According to a Federal Times report from October of last year, just 
one in three Federal workers has returned to his or her office in a 
full-time capacity. It is abundantly clear that something must change, 
and House Republicans have the solution.
  Mr. Speaker, I am particularly pleased to serve as a cosponsor of 
H.R. 139, the SHOW UP Act, that is sponsored by Oversight and 
Accountability Committee Chairman   James Comer. Under this 
legislation, the Biden administration would be prevented from cementing 
pandemic-era telework policies for the Federal workforce until it 
provides Congress with a viable plan to avoid the negative impacts of 
remote work.
  Yet again, House Republicans are acting on our commitment to the 
American people to ensure a government that is accountable.
  Mr. Speaker, it is time that the entire Federal workforce returns to 
its in-person capacity and fulfills its responsibilities to the 
American people. I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 139.
  Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  I will tell you a story about a couple that both work for the Federal 
Government. Earlier this month, the spouse of an Army servicemember, 
seeking approval to go work overseas for the State Department, 
contacted the Oversight Committee because she was being forced to 
decide between quitting her very successful Federal career for the 
State Department or returning to Washington, D.C., to continue her 
Federal service without her husband and her two children.
  Her agency was fighting desperately to maintain her expertise and was 
perfectly fine with her performing her duties from overseas with her 
husband, who is in the Army who was being relocated over there.
  Luckily, we were able to help make sure that her overseas telework 
request was approved.
  Now, is that someone who is not really working? Do we want to tell 
her to get back to work?

[[Page H602]]

  Her situation is common for thousands of families in the Federal 
workforce where you have one member who is in the military who is being 
relocated, the other who might be working at a site in Washington who 
is now able to work out the terms of service under the telework policy, 
but that is precisely an element of the policy that will be crushed by 
the legislation that has been brought forward without the benefit of a 
single hearing in the Oversight and Accountability Committee.
  Despite the fact that our colleagues have said that they will only 
bring legislation to the floor after there has been a hearing--and we 
are just a few weeks into the session--this legislation comes forward 
without hearing from anybody like this constituent who was being put in 
such a tough posture or the Directors of the agencies or the head of 
the Office of Personnel Management who is in charge of actually 
supervising and coordinating overall telework policy and making the 
annual report to Congress.

  Telework is a vital tool for the government to recruit and retain and 
grow the talented workforce we need to make the Federal Government 
work. It ensures that Federal workers can serve the Nation even during 
disasters. Again, it was the preexisting telework policy that 
established the infrastructure that made for such a relatively smooth 
transition when we got into the pandemic.
  I have to say that denials of telework for the spouses of military 
personnel are still common, and they are consequential, and they would 
be pervasive if the legislation passed. I hope that all our colleagues 
will reject this and at the very least send it back to the Oversight 
Committee for some real hearings so we can talk about what this really 
means.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. COMER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas 
(Mr. Fallon).

                              {time}  1430

  Mr. FALLON. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, this is about common sense. For 2 years, our 
constituents have been calling our office and wondering why the IRS, 
the Social Security Administration, and the VA aren't answering their 
phones, why can't they get in-person meetings with Federal workers, why 
they have to talk to a robot on the phone for hours, or wait for months 
on end just for an email update on their case.
  Well, today, Mr. Speaker, House Republicans are going to stop the 
lackadaisical policies of the Biden administration. The SHOW UP Act is 
a wonderful bill that I am proud to support. It is going to make an end 
to COVID an actual reality.
  Federal workers should do the same thing that the private sector 
industry has done, which is they have gotten back to work for over 18 
months, in large measure. It is time the Federal workers get back to 
work and start serving the American people to their full capacity.
  This bill requires Federal agencies to return to the 2019 pre-
pandemic telework levels within 30 days; reasonable, commonsense. The 
bill requires that Federal agencies show Congress how pandemic-era 
telework impacted their missions. Finally, the bill requires new 
oversight for agencies that seek to expand telework.
  This oversight will help save money and create jobs outside the D.C. 
beltway. It is important to stress that this bill is not some radical 
notion. We are not ending all telework. We are just snapping back to 
2019 pre-pandemic levels and ensuring a reasonable pathway for agencies 
to retain telework employees and, under the right conditions, allow for 
expansion of telework.
  The bottom line is the pandemic is over. The American people need 
Federal Government to function. And in order to do that, we need our 
workers back. The IRS has failed to give Americans their refunds in a 
timely manner for 3 years running, and as late as last year, still had 
12.4 million returns to process.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
  Mr. COMER. Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the 
gentleman from Texas.
  Mr. FALLON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding 
additional time.
  Mr. Speaker, the Veterans Affairs Administration has hundreds of 
thousands of backlogged claims. As for the Social Security 
Administration, The Washington Post states, ``More than 1 million 
disabled Americans, many of them poor and elderly, are waiting months 
or years to hear whether they will receive benefits. Processing times 
have doubled in some States and almost tripled in others.''
  So long as the American people are not getting the services this 
government is mandated to provide, we are not operating a government 
for, by, and of the people.
  Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to 
address two points. One, let's grab the bull by the horns with this IRS 
point. The President's budget included $80 billion to increase staffing 
and to update technology at the IRS so our constituents can get their 
calls returned. If you are waiting for your IRS tax refund, that is 
something that you have planned on. That is part of your family budget. 
If it is stuck somehow, it is extremely frustrating for people not to 
be able to get through.
  Now they, bizarrely to my mind, blame telework for this, and they 
oppose the $80 billion. I think they say that will create 75,000 or 
100,000 new IRS agents who will be chasing working-class people around 
the country.
  On the contrary, we have a report showing the $80 billion will 
produce $200 billion in new revenue and it is rich people who are the 
ones who are being protected by the refusal of my colleagues to invest 
in the IRS.
  Telework is a complete distraction. It is an absolute red herring. It 
has nothing to do with whether or not you want to invest in the IRS or 
not.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. 
Mfume), my colleague.
  Mr. MFUME. Mr. Speaker, I thank the ranking member of the Committee 
on Oversight and Reform, Mr. Raskin, for yielding this time.
  A couple quick things. H.R. 139 is an overly broad proposal that 
stretches across the entirety of the Federal Government workplace to 
say that each and every telework policy, practice, and procedure 
implemented in response to the global health crisis must end 
immediately in 30 days because a majority of the House of 
Representatives says so.
  Well, let's remember that in the word ``telework,'' the last four 
letters are w-o-r-k. People who telework are working. They are working 
day in and day out. And they have been working through the crisis, 
working to get us back to where we need to be.
  The bill says that the rest of America must then take time to study 
the majority of our edict today to see if it made sense in the first 
place.
  Now, if that is not a classic case of putting the cart before the 
horse or the tail wagging the dog, I don't know. I do know that this is 
not how a deliberative body, particularly this Chamber, should operate. 
We should at least have a hearing on this, bring in the proper 
agencies, review this in a real sort of way, and then figure out what 
we do. To act this way creates a real problem. The solution, I think, 
is looking for a problem, and this is not the place it ought to be.
  We have not talked with OPM. We have not talked with Federal 
agencies. We have really not talked with the IRS. We just condemn them. 
You have to remember, the 5,000 IRS agents we were trying to put in 
place on this side of the aisle were to augment what they were doing. 
The IRS has been slow in terms of responding. This was an effort to 
speed that up.
  Mr. Speaker, the distinguished gentleman from Kentucky's First 
District, Mr. Comer, and I, I think, want to get to one thing, and that 
is the idea of greater productivity, but I would ask that we think 
about another way to try to do this.
  Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record a Department of Defense 
Inspector General report dated March 30, 2021. The full report can be 
found at: https://www.dodig.mil/reports.html/Article/2557812/
evaluation-of-access-to-department-of-defense-information-technology-
and-commun/.

[[Page H603]]

  


                            [March 30, 2021]

    Results in Brief--Evaluation of Access to Department of Defense 
   Information Technology and Communications During the Coronavirus 
                         Disease-2019 Pandemic


                               Objective

       The objective of this evaluation was to determine the 
     extent to which DoD Components provided access to DoD 
     information technology and communications during the 
     coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) Pandemic.


                               Background

       In May 2006, the President issued the National Strategy for 
     Pandemic Influenza Implementation Plan that requires Federal 
     agencies to develop plans to maintain information technology 
     and communications systems to continue operations during a 
     pandemic. In response, the Assistant Secretary of Defense for 
     Homeland Defense and Global Security (ASD[HD&GS]) issued the 
     DoD Implementation Plan for Pandemic Influenza (DoD 
     Implementation Plan) in August 2006 to ensure the continuity 
     of essential functions in the event of a pandemic. The DoD 
     Implementation Plan states that during a pandemic, special 
     consideration must be given to social distancing in the 
     workplace through teleworking. DoD Components' pandemic plans 
     should include the use of laptops, high-speed 
     telecommunications links, and other systems that enable 
     personnel to perform essential functions while teleworking. 
     The plans should also include the requirement to test 
     telework procedures, the impact of Government-wide mandated 
     telework on internal networks, and backup plans for 
     communications infrastructure.
       Apart from DoD pandemic planning, the DoD Telework Policy 
     states that telework will be actively promoted and 
     implemented throughout the DoD in support of emergency 
     preparedness. The policy recognizes that during a pandemic, 
     essential and non-essential personnel and Service members may 
     be asked to telework; therefore, periodic telework exercises 
     are required to ensure its effectiveness in continuing 
     operations and an efficient transition to telework in the 
     event of a pandemic.
       In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, DoD Components began 
     transitioning to maximum telework in mid-March 2020. On March 
     18, 2020, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense issued a 
     memorandum stating that DoD Components could execute their 
     pandemic plans, or portions of their plans, at any time to 
     ensure the ability to perform their essential functions.
       To determine the extent to which DoD Components provided 
     access to DoD information technology and communications 
     during maximum telework in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, 
     we administered a 43-question survey to a sample of DoD 
     military and civilian personnel. In August 2020, we invited 
     269,282 DoD military and civilian personnel to respond to our 
     survey to share their teleworking experiences from March 15 
     through August 26, 2020. We received a total of 56,057 
     responses, comprising 7,323 military and 48,734 civilian 
     personnel, for a 20.8 percent overall response rate. We also 
     conducted interviews with officials from the DoD Office of 
     the Chief Information Officer, the DoD COVID-19 Telework 
     Readiness Task Force, and the Offices of the Chief 
     Information Officer for 10 DoD Components to obtain their 
     perspectives on the infrastructure established to support the 
     increased number of teleworking personnel.


                                Finding

       According to the 54,665 respondents who reported their 
     telework status, the DoD transitioned 88.2 percent of 
     respondents to full- or part-time telework from March 15, 
     2020 through August 26, 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic. 
     Of the 11.8 percent of respondents who continued to work on 
     site, the most common reasons provided by survey respondents 
     for not teleworking were that their work could not be 
     performed while teleworking, or they were not eligible to 
     telework. Of those who teleworked, survey 
     respondents reported problems accessing DoD Component 
     networks, voice and video teleconference applications, and 
     identified shortfalls in Government-furnished equipment 
     available to DoD personnel when their Components first 
     transitioned to maximum telework in mid-March 2020. 
     However, the problems cited in survey responses lessened 
     over time as the DoD increased its network availability 
     and capacity, added voice and video conferencing 
     applications, and purchased and distributed computer and 
     communications equipment.
       Based on the results of the survey and interviews with DoD 
     officials, the DoD's initial challenges occurred because some 
     DoD Components had not fully tested whether their information 
     systems could support Government-wide mandated telework and 
     had not conducted telework exercises with their personnel 
     before March 2020 as required by the DoD Implementation Plan 
     and the DoD Telework Policy. Therefore, some DoD Components 
     were unprepared for the network and communications 
     limitations, as well as equipment and application shortfalls, 
     uncovered by the transition to maximum telework. While the 
     Marine Corps, Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA), Defense 
     Information Systems Agency (DISA), and the Defense Logistics 
     Agency (DLA) were able to immediately transition to maximum 
     telework, the Army, Navy, Air Force, Defense Contract 
     Management Agency (DCMA), Defense Finance Accounting Service 
     (DFAS), and Defense Health Agency (DHA) faced challenges 
     during the transition.
       The ability of DoD personnel to perform essential and non-
     essential tasks while on maximum telework depends on DoD 
     Components' ability to provide enough network capacity, 
     communication tools, and equipment to enable the DoD's 
     essential and non-essential personnel to stay mission-ready 
     and productive while in a telework status. Some teleworking 
     personnel reported that they found their own alternative 
     solutions including the use of unauthorized video 
     conferencing applications and personal laptops, printers, and 
     cell phones to complete their work because some DoD 
     Components were unprepared for maximum telework. However, 
     using unauthorized applications or sharing DoD information 
     over improperly secured devices, even temporarily, increases 
     the risk of exposing sensitive departmental information that 
     could impact national security and DoD missions.
       Overall, DoD Components and the majority of survey 
     respondents expressed positive maximum telework experiences. 
     Specifically, 88.1 percent of survey respondents stated that 
     their productivity level remained the same or increased 
     during maximum telework, regardless of their Component's 
     initial telework challenges. Many survey respondents reported 
     a desire to telework regularly in the future (37,146 
     responses) and expressed appreciation for commuting less 
     often (27,711 responses), better work-life balance (25,508 
     responses), and more flexible work hours (22,461 responses).


                            recommendations

       We recommend that the ASD(HD&GS) revise the DoD 
     Implementation Plan for Pandemic Influenza to update planning 
     assumptions with the use of telework for essential and non-
     essential personnel, align the DoD Implementation Plan with 
     the DoD Telework Policy, and require DoD Components to update 
     their plans to include revised assumptions regarding telework 
     for personnel and the resources required to support the 
     teleworking workforce.
       We recommend that the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy 
     (USD[P]), in coordination with the Under Secretary of Defense 
     for Personnel and Readiness, establish management oversight 
     procedures to verify that DoD Components have performed the 
     testing, training, and exercise requirements of the DoD 
     Implementation Plan and the DoD Telework Policy. The 
     oversight procedures should assess the ability of DoD 
     Components to support Government-wide mandated telework, 
     including the results of tests of network and 
     communications systems and telework exercises with 
     personnel.


                  management comments and our response

       The Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy (DUSD[P]), 
     responding for the USD(P) and the ASD(HD&GS) did not respond 
     to the recommendation to require DoD Components to update 
     their Pandemic Plans to include revised assumptions regarding 
     telework for personnel and the resources required to support 
     the teleworking workforce. Therefore, the recommendation is 
     unresolved. We request that the ASD(HD&GS) provide comments 
     on the final report.
       The DUSD(P) did not agree or disagree with the other two 
     recommendations in the report. However, the DUSD(P) stated 
     that the ASD(HD&GS) would work with the Joint Staff and the 
     U.S. Northern Command to include the use of telework for 
     essential and non-essential personnel in the Functional 
     Campaign Plan--Pandemics and Infectious Diseases, which will 
     replace the DoD Implementation Plan for Pandemic Influenza, 
     and align the plan with the DoD Telework Policy. In addition, 
     the DUSD(P) stated that the ASD(HD&GS) would also work with 
     the Joint Staff to include the use of telework for essential 
     and non-essential personnel in the Global Integration 
     Framework--Pandemics and Infectious Diseases.
       Furthermore, the DUSD(P) stated that her office would 
     support and advocate for oversight procedures to verify that 
     DoD Components performed the testing, training, and exercise 
     requirements of the Global Integration Framework--Pandemics 
     and Infectious Diseases, the Functional Campaign Plan--
     Pandemics and Infectious Diseases, the DoD Telework Policy, 
     and the Pandemic Plans. Therefore, the recommendations are 
     resolved, but will remain open until the ASD(HD&GS) updates 
     the Functional Campaign Plan--Pandemics and Infectious 
     Diseases and the Global Integration Framework--Pandemics and 
     Infectious Diseases to include the use of telework for 
     essential and non-essential personnel and USD(P) provides 
     oversight procedures for verifying that DoD Components 
     performed the required testing, training, and exercises.

  Mr. MFUME. Mr. Speaker, based on 56,000 respondents to its survey, 88 
percent of the Department of Defense respondents found telework 
accommodations increased their overall productivity. This is not my 
imagination. This is how thousands and thousands of them responded in 
the survey.
  A similar 2021 survey conducted by the American Federation of 
Government Employees, which represents 700,000 Federal employees all 
across the country, found that 62 percent of them surveyed thought 
significantly that their productivity had been increased while 
teleworking based on what their previous levels were.

[[Page H604]]

  So Federal workers are performing for the American people and have 
been under the most difficult circumstances even before we got to 
COVID. I know that because I, like many of you, had a chance to speak 
to so many of them.
  As the chair of the Subcommittee on Government Operations, this 
particular issue is welcomed before the subcommittee. I will convene 
hearings next week so that we can figure out where we are in a 
bipartisan way and move forward.
  Mr. Speaker, I would make one point. Federal workers are not here in 
Washington, D.C., alone. That is the misnomer. Federal workers are in 
everybody's district in this entire Congress. They are looking to us to 
try to find a way to help them, not to punish them in 30 days. We are 
not going to save money on gas. We are not going to save money on 
energy. We are just going to go back to where we are.
  Mr. Speaker, I would strongly urge that this measure be defeated.
  Mr. COMER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Florida (Mr. Donalds).
  Mr. DONALDS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for yielding time.
  Mr. Speaker, in short, the pandemic is over. It is time for Federal 
employees to go back to the office.
  I find it interesting in this debate that one of the things that is 
occurring right now is that the President's budget is due next week. We 
are in the middle of this calamity around debt ceiling which the 
President, by the way, has led us to. His budget is due next week, and 
he is telling everybody he needs another month.
  I wonder if this is because some of his own budget staff aren't in 
the office. This is something that should have been done long ago. If 
the President was doing his job being the leader of the executive 
branch, those employees would have been back. Since Congress is the 
body responsible for appropriating funds to the executive branch and 
the President does not do his job of making sure it is working 
effectively, then Congress does have a responsibility to make sure that 
these employees come back and get back to work. Life has been happening 
here in the people's House.
  A couple of things: It has already been said about the IRS delays. It 
is shocking that right now it takes 2 to 4 months to get assigned an 
agent. If you call the IRS, you won't get a call back for 4 weeks.
  It is also important to understand that right now it takes 30 days 
for USCIS to respond to a Congressional inquiry. There are many 
backlogs at the VA; some of them almost 2 years, 197,000 backlogs. How 
is that affecting the men and women who have served our country with 
honor and with dignity?
  Mr. Speaker, this is simple stuff. Most of the American people have 
gone back to work. All we are saying is let's go back to pre-pandemic 
protocols which does have telework provisions throughout all of the 
Federal agencies. It is clear, looking at the backlogs that have 
occurred through COVID-19 and continuing, the extended telework 
situation in the Federal agencies is not working for the American 
people.
  Mr. Speaker, my colleagues should be supporting this legislation. 
This is good legislation. It will help all of the American people and, 
frankly, help the President probably pass his budget on time.
  Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, they complain about delays at the IRS and then they 
oppose funding to assist the overwhelmed workforce at the IRS, which is 
staggering under the weight of all of these obligations.
  This is the first time I have heard that telework was the source of 
the problem, but apparently, that is what it is this week. Of course, 
we haven't had a real hearing so we have had no witnesses on it; 
somebody has apparently just dreamed that up.
  It has just been linked to the debt ceiling. Interesting that my 
colleagues on the other side of the aisle has voted to lift the debt 
ceiling three different times under Donald Trump, who increased the 
debt of the United States single-handedly by more than 20 percent. All 
of the debt of the United States under one President. More than 20 
percent.
  Mr. Speaker, let's get back to the issue at hand.
  Members of Congress make very strange opponents of telework policy, 
not because we don't work hard, because I think we do work hard, but we 
use telework all the time.
  Members of Congress might be in their district office working. They 
might be at a town hall meeting working. They might be here on the 
floor. They might be in a committee meeting, a subcommittee meeting. 
They might be meeting with constituents somewhere else.
  And I dare say the vast majority, if not all of us, engage in 
telework. We wouldn't say to them, ``Get back to work and stop 
teleworking.'' We understand that that is part of an overall telework 
policy.
  If people have employees who they think are abusing telework, well, 
they have got a problem with that employee or they have a problem with 
their supervisor. But to my experience and knowledge, as someone who, I 
admit, may have been a little curmudgeonly, in the way we are hearing 
some of the Members are today, when the COVID-19 crisis started, the 
employees who are super productive at work will be super productive at 
home.
  In my case, that is almost all of them. In fact, I think it is all of 
them. If you have an employee who blows off their assignments at work 
and doesn't turn them in, they will do the same thing if they are 
working from home. That is a question of supervision. The real issue 
is, why all of a sudden they want to turn against a decade of progress 
on telework policy and start affixing to it all of these other 
problems.

  For that, I don't understand, other than people seem to want to blame 
the Federal workers for everything. Those workers belong to all of our 
districts. They are all across the country. Eighty percent of Federal 
workers are not in Washington, D.C., Maryland, or Virginia. They are 
all over the country, working everywhere from military bases to Indian 
reservations to public health service. You name it.
  These are our people. These are American citizens, and they deserve 
something a lot more than the implied contempt of suggesting that if 
they use telework, they are not really working.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. COMER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Wisconsin (Mr. Grothman).
  Mr. GROTHMAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, I have been waiting for this day for quite a while. 
Whenever I go back to my district, I talk to my staff back there. Again 
and again, we hear stories that they want something done with the VA; 
they want something done with the IRS. It can't get done. They are 
behind.
  It is time for people to get back to work. When I think of my 
district, I think the vast majority of people, their work schedule 
never changed even in the teeth of the epidemic.
  Obviously, in Wisconsin, there are a lot of cheese factories in my 
district. Man, I would go home every night and there would be people 
there at 11 p.m., 12 a.m., 2 a.m. All of a sudden, we hear how horrible 
it is for Federal employees to have to go in.
  In the current situation, what it tells you is--and this is true of 
many other programs, as well--the government works for the benefit of 
the government not the benefit of the people.

                              {time}  1445

  That is why people on that side of the aisle are trying so hard, so 
desperately hard today, not to have people come in.
  I talk to a lot of employers all over my district. There were times 
that any given number of their employees worked from home, but they 
know it is not the same thing. Why in the world the government should 
be operating on a separate schedule, I don't know.
  I will give you an example. The National Personnel Records Center is 
an egregious example. The NPRC is a large warehouse containing paper 
records of military members from before World War I to the 1990s. 
Veterans need access to these records in order to receive VA 
healthcare, disability pay, and home loans.
  Despite these records existing in paper form only, the NPRC still 
decided to have its employees work remotely, a perfect example of the 
employees' interests put ahead of the

[[Page H605]]

public's interest. This time, the public is veterans.
  You can't copy paper records from a warehouse if no one is there to 
pull the records to make copies to satisfy the request.
  These employees were paid, but since they were not at the NPRC, they 
were unable to fulfill their duties, and veterans were forced to wait 
to receive their benefits.
  The SHOW UP Act will require these Federal agencies to return to pre-
COVID levels of telework.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
  Mr. COMER. Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the 
gentleman from Wisconsin.
  Mr. GROTHMAN. By the way, I don't bring this up back home. We are 
talking about it today, but I think it is such an insult to all the 
people back home, many of which are whole factories that never took any 
time off, to be told that they have to wait for the Federal Government 
because their people are, I mean, my goodness, still at home almost 3 
years after this thing.
  Do you know any private businesses that are still having their people 
stay at home?
  Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from 
Virginia (Mr. Connolly).
  Mr. CONNOLLY. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this bill.
  We often hear Republicans want to roll back the clock--roll back the 
clock on abortion rights to 1973 before Roe v. Wade, roll back the 
clock on teaching the history of American slavery to, I don't know 
when, 1860, 1619?
  This bill actually rolls back the clock. It is right there in the 
text. The bill mandates ``each agency shall reinstate and apply the 
telework policies, practices, and levels of the agency as in effect on 
December 31, 2019.''
  Which begs the question: What was the state of Federal telework in 
2019? President Trump's administration had across-the-board limitations 
to telework at major Federal agencies that had made progress before, 
like the Department of Education and the Department of Agriculture.
  The overall telework participation rate had recorded its first drop 
since the enactment of the Telework Enhancement Act authored by myself 
and Mr. Sarbanes of Maryland.
  We had not yet experienced the onset of the global pandemic, which 
forced us overnight to move the Federal Government to a posture of 
substantially enhanced hybrid work. We deployed telework as the 
critical continuity of operations tool it should be. We procured the IT 
and IT security we needed. Supervisors figured out how to manage hybrid 
work.
  At the height of the pandemic, 75 percent of the Federal workforce 
was, in fact, working remotely.
  Not everybody is going to continue to telework full time, nor should 
they. Federal telework participation rates have already decreased 
substantially as more Federal employees move back in person.
  The most recent telework survey showed that 47 percent of Federal 
employees teleworked in the last fiscal year, but the fact remains that 
increased availability of telework is here to stay in the private as 
well as the public sectors.
  The Bureau of Labor Statistics found that 80 percent of U.S. 
businesses expect increased telework levels to continue after the 
pandemic. That is in the business community.
  That is the nature of the workforce of the future. We should be 
embracing the productivity and employee satisfaction gains realized 
through telework.
  I offered an amendment to this bill that would have done just that, 
but unfortunately, we are considering this bill under a closed rule.
  We should be using a measured approach to determine where hybrid or 
remote work might not be the best fit. I know I have done that in 
advocating for more in-person work at the IRS, processing paper tax 
returns; at the State Department, responding to passport applications; 
and at the National Archives, fulfilling veterans' document requests, 
all of which require in-person functioning. I have supported it, as 
have my colleagues.
  I have also offered a telework legislation bill, the Telework Metrics 
and Cost Savings Act.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
  Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the 
gentleman from Virginia.
  Mr. CONNOLLY. Mr. Speaker, this would help measure cost savings and 
focus on using telework effectively, but this bill is sort of a one 
size fits all, come back to work no matter what.
  Let me say to my friend from Wisconsin that I had a constituent die 
from COVID because there were no protocols in his Federal workplace.
  There ought not to be any more casualties to COVID. We ought to have 
systematic protocols in place. That is what I think has to precede this 
kind of legislation we are considering on the floor today.
  I thank my friend from Kentucky for introducing this bill.

  Mr. COMER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from 
Colorado (Mrs. Boebert).
  Mrs. BOEBERT. Mr. Speaker, the pandemic is over. Joe Biden has said 
so. I don't know why he is waiting until May to do something about it, 
but the pandemic is over.
  It is time for the Federal Government to get back to work. It is far 
past time for the policies of the Federal Government to reflect this 
reality and the policies of hardworking Americans and for Federal 
employees to show up and get the job done.
  In my district, the Bureau of Land Management headquarters was a hot 
topic of debate because this administration's--one of their first 
actions, they wanted to take that from my district and move it back to 
Washington, D.C. Why the haste? Why so fast to do this?
  No one is going to work. The building is empty. They didn't have 
anywhere to bring the employees to a new building here. In fact, the 
employees that they did relocate to Washington, D.C., still only show 
up to work 1 day a week.
  According to one disturbing report by the Federal Times, just one in 
three Federal workers has returned to their full-time job.
  Equally disturbing, a leaked memo from January 2021 to the then-chief 
of staff of the Department of Health and Human Services showed that 
between 20 and 30 percent of the Department's employees did not log in 
to work on any given day between March and December 2020.
  This negatively impacts all of our constituents.
  The VA has been incredibly slow to fulfill records requests so that 
our veterans can get the care that they need, the care that they 
deserve.
  The Social Security Administration faces a massive backlog of 
appeals.
  As of last month, the IRS had a backlog of 2.5 million returns from 
2022 that are still unprocessed.
  This Republican-led Congress is moving to end Biden's emergency 
powers. He won't do it at the executive level.
  We have created these agencies. We fund these agencies. Now, we are 
demanding that these Federal employees get back to work.
  Mr. Speaker, I am proud to be a cosponsor of this legislation, and I 
strongly support it. I urge adoption.
  Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  The gentlewoman makes an interesting argument. Of course, if physical 
presence in Washington is necessary, then that agency never should have 
been stripped from Washington and relocated in Colorado in the first 
place.
  One could say that entire workforce is calling in or not really 
working because the entire office has a telework policy.
  Obviously, she has carved out an exception for that. She thinks they 
can be effective, even though they are not in Washington, D.C.
  Look, Mr. Speaker, this has been not just a closed rule but a closed 
process. There was no hearing in the Oversight and Accountability 
Committee. Despite the fact that those hearings have been promised, 
there has been no hearing about it.
  Let me tell you one of the things we would learn if we actually had a 
hearing about it. The bill contemplates rolling the clock back to 2019 
for every Federal agency. Well, what would that mean for one small 
agency, the Federal Communications Commission, which has decided upon a 
plan to reduce its leased office space with a savings of

[[Page H606]]

$119 million precisely because of the existence of telework, saying we 
don't need all that space?
  Now, since we rolled the clock back and presumptively say you can't 
do that, we are going to be costing the taxpayers $119 million a year 
because they have to go back to their prepandemic plan simply because 
we have this one-size-fits-all, categorical, cookie-cutter approach 
undertaken without any hearings.
  The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office similarly would be forced to 
abandon its $12.5 million a year in savings in leasing costs made 
possible because of reduced consumption of office space by telework.
  Do we really want to say that we hate telework so much, that we 
distrust our own workers so much, even though the studies show that it 
is yielding benefits in office productivity, that we are going to force 
the taxpayers to pay more money for more expensive office space in 
downtown Washington, D.C.?
  We haven't even looked at the question because there was no hearing 
because there was just a rush to get this to the floor so we could tell 
workers who are already at work to get back to work.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. COMER. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time is 
remaining.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Kentucky has 14 minutes 
remaining.
  Mr. COMER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Texas 
(Mr. Arrington).
  Mr. ARRINGTON. Mr. Speaker, to my colleague across the aisle, they 
need to get back to work. Only in Washington, D.C., and only with this 
President are we operating with COVID as a national emergency.
  The only national emergency coming out of Washington is the economic 
disaster from the failed economic policies and the reckless spending of 
my colleagues.
  It has created an inflationary firestorm, and people can't sustain 
it. Soaring interest rates, an economy teetering on recession, and $5 
trillion of debt that have us dangerously close to the precipice of a 
debt crisis is an emergency.
  Our constituents across America have to go back to work. They have to 
take their kids to school. Somebody has to teach them. Somebody has to 
save a patient or serve a customer. They don't live in this fantasy 
world of Washington.
  My colleagues, unfortunately, have used the public health emergency 
in large part not to protect the public from COVID but to promote the 
big spending, Big Government bailout agenda.
  What I am talking about is this, in the name of COVID, bailing out 
student loans that cost taxpayers a trillion dollars, bailing out 
schools that don't open their doors to their students. Bailout after 
bailout, that is what this is about.
  While Democrats are jamming us with all these bailouts in the name of 
COVID, taxpayers can't get their Social Security benefits and their tax 
returns or their passports. You heard the stories.
  Here is my question. It is a simple one. How can the people's 
government serve the people if the people in the government don't come 
to work? That is the question from my constituents in west Texas. Here 
is the answer. It can't. It doesn't.
  If hardworking Americans don't have the luxury of not coming to work 
and teleworking for the rest of their lives, then the Biden 
administration and our government employees should do the same. Get 
back to work. Do your job. Serve the customer because that is what you 
signed up to do.
  We are here to hold them accountable, with all due respect.
  Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, some of my colleagues seem to betray no understanding at 
all of what Federal telework policy is.
  To say that the workforce is not going to the office and it is time 
to get back to work simply suggests they don't know that every agency, 
every commission, every department makes its own decisions about this 
as part of the complete workplace policy, going job classification by 
job classification, defining when it makes sense and when it doesn't 
make sense.
  That is the way that it works, but they want to have a broad-brush, 
one-size-fits-all, straitjacket policy where they just decapitate a 
decade of progress, using the pandemic or the end of the pandemic as 
the excuse for doing that.
  To repeat: This is not a Washington problem. The vast majority of the 
Federal workforce is spread out across the country.
  The hardworking people we see in front of us today who work for the 
Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives and for the House are just a 
small example of the workforce located in Washington, which is a tiny 
minority of the Federal workforce which is all over America.
  That flexibility has been given to Federal workforce supervisors all 
over the country to deal with. They would clearly try to elevate what I 
think is a frivolous talking point over the cost savings that have been 
created because of telework policies. They would elevate it over the 
increased job performance and job satisfaction that is being 
demonstrated in studies around the country. They would elevate it over 
the clear success of telework within the private sector.

                              {time}  1500

  Oftentimes, my colleagues will say we have to be more like the 
private sector. It is the private sector that has been leading the way 
here. The Federal workforce has been very much in the rear guard doing 
it.
  In any event, remember that they are conflating two completely 
different things. One is the Federal telework policy that has evolved 
over the last decade, and the other is the pandemic.
  It is true that the pandemic response was made far more efficient 
because there was an infrastructure in place in order to make telework 
possible. Those pandemic policies can be reversed without destroying 
all the policies that have developed over the last decade.
  There are an incredible number of unintended consequences that are 
exacerbated by the fact we have not had a single hearing on this 
question, which is of fundamental importance to hundreds of thousands 
and millions of people across the country.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. COMER. Mr. Speaker, I have no further Members to debate. I am 
prepared to close whenever the gentleman is prepared. I reserve the 
balance of my time.
  Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
  The title of this bill, the SHOW UP Act, consists of the Stopping 
Home Office Work's Unproductive Problems Act. I understand that in 
Washington--this really is a Washington problem--there is always a 
search for the perfect acronym over the actual meaning of the language, 
but this title does some real violence to the English language.
  I don't know what an ``unproductive problem'' is. I certainly don't 
know what a ``productive problem'' is. I wonder whether the person who 
wrote that was working on telework or wrote it at the office. To me, it 
makes no difference. Somebody should have said that doesn't really make 
any sense for a title for Federal legislation.
  In any event, the point is that Members of Congress, as everyone 
should know, are able to be very effective, often being in two places 
at the same time. You might be at your district office, or you might be 
at a townhall meeting in your district, but you call into a meeting 
with your chief of staff and your legislative staff, or you call in to 
have a meeting with subcommittee staff or what have you. I don't 
understand the sudden effort to demonize technology and all the 
advances that we have made.
  I don't take this to be serious legislation. There was no hearing on 
it. There seems to be no effort to convince anyone that it is serious. 
I hope we can do better in the days ahead.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. COMER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
Louisiana (Mr. Scalise), the majority leader.
  Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Kentucky for 
yielding and for bringing this important legislation to the floor.

[[Page H607]]

  When you look across the country, people have worked hard to get 
their lives back in order, to get their small businesses back up and 
running. States pushed to open up again because they knew that the 
health of their people, the mental health, the ability for kids to get 
back in school, was so critical.
  Of course, data is out there all around but especially amongst our 
young kids. Many millions of young kids in America lost a year-plus of 
learning because of virtual learning. Not being in the classroom just 
wasn't the same. Those communities that made the effort to open back up 
again were able to provide a much higher level of education than those 
schools that went out of their way to shut down. Damage was caused to 
so many.
  As you see most of the country now back at work, they look at 
Congress and say: Why isn't Washington back at work?
  When you look at Federal agencies that are there to provide a service 
for the 330-plus million people all across this great Nation, Mr. 
Speaker, those people expect that when they pick up the phone and call 
those agencies--if you are a military veteran who served this Nation, 
you surely showed up for work. You showed up, in fact, overseas, in 
some cases, risking your life, receiving injuries. You want to get your 
military record so you can be eligible to go get the healthcare you 
deserve. When you call the VA and they can't get your healthcare 
records because there are still people not at the office--those are 
things you can't do remotely--those veterans wait for help. That hurts 
people.
  You have millions of people who are trying to get basic services like 
a passport. Maybe they are trying to go on their honeymoon; or they are 
waiting for a loved one to come back home that they haven't seen who 
lives overseas, and they have been waiting for years; or they want to 
go visit a relative and have waited 6 months in some cases. We get 
calls to our offices on these problems, people who have been waiting 
over 6 months to get a passport renewed.
  That is something you cannot do remotely. If you call that office and 
somebody is at home, they are not able to process your passport from 
their home, so you have to wait and wait and miss dates and deadlines.
  When you see what is happening with so many other people who are 
counting on the Federal Government to take care of their needs, they 
wonder why they haven't gone back to work when they have had to go back 
to work.
  You saw the President wanting to hire 87,000 more IRS agents. There 
are many IRS agents that aren't showing up for work. We still get calls 
to this day from constituents, hardworking people who live paycheck to 
paycheck who filed their tax returns in 2021 who still haven't gotten 
their checks back. They are wondering why somebody is sitting at home 
not able to process that payment. Why do they have to wait over a year 
to get their money back from their government?
  The answer is not to double the agency and hire another 87,000 
people. It is to let people go back to work.
  This bill just says to show up to work to do your job, to serve those 
millions of people who are paying your salaries and counting on you to 
get the job done.
  This should have been done a long time ago. I am glad we finally are 
getting this bill brought to the floor. I thank the gentleman for 
bringing it.
  Mr. COMER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
  This legislation asks every Member to answer a simple question: Do 
you put the needs of your constituents first, or do you put the 
preferences of Federal bureaucrats first?
  We know that expanded telework during the COVID-19 pandemic harmed 
agency service to our constituents across multiple vital agencies. 
Instead of fixing those problems and making sure they never happen 
again if increased telework needs to continue in certain cases, the 
Biden administration is just blindly doubling down on Federal telework 
across the board--not to improve service to our constituents, but to 
dangle a shiny perk in front of existing Federal workers and 
prospective new Federal hires.
  My bill ensures that a new expectation is set for our Federal 
Government's workforce: that you need to return to your agencies and 
get the job done for the American people.
  Federal telework should only be utilized when it has been proven to 
improve agency performance, lower agency costs, ensure agency network 
security, and better disperse the Federal workforce across the Nation.
  In the meantime, it requires Federal agencies to reimplement pre-
pandemic policies, which were working just fine.
  Under this bill, we will know that, whether we have increased Federal 
telework or not, it will only be to ensure that Federal agencies and 
their employees provide the best quality of service to our constituents 
and our Nation.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this much-needed bill, 
and I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. ROSE. Mr. Speaker, today I rise in support of H.R. 139, the SHOW 
UP Act, which was introduced by my good friend from Kentucky, the 
Chairman of the Oversight and Accountability Committee, Mr. Comer.
  Millions of Tennesseans show up to work every day. However, more than 
half of federal government workers, who are expected to serve the 
American people, still aren't showing up for work. This has led to 
extremely long wait times and delays in services.
  Veterans who showed up to work and served our country can't get their 
proper VA benefits. Families are waiting months for their passports. 
And in my district, a father waited for more than 8 months to receive 
his tax return. The entire time, he was left in the dark by the IRS.
  Tennesseans deserve better, Mr. Speaker. The pandemic is over, and 
it's time to get back to work. I urge my colleagues to vote yes on the 
SHOW UP Act.
  Mr. SANTOS. Resolving casework is one of the most important services 
provided by our offices.
  I was shocked to learn that my predecessor left behind numerous 
unresolved cases--but, in retrospect, perhaps I shouldn't be so 
critical. Maybe the simple reason is they were unable to solve 
constituent issues because he and his staff were hampered by the fact 
that agency personnel, were either unavailable, or, those who were, 
simply didn't have the resources available for them to process 
requests. Why? Because they are working from home.
  Our functional system of government, how we get things done, was 
built to support a government workforce where our people come into an 
office, work together, in one place, face to face.
  Around that infrastructure, we have businesses (or perhaps I should 
say we had businesses) that were built to support that workforce--small 
businesses, such as coffee shops, restaurants, dry cleaners, etc.
  Most industries, who instituted telework policies during the pandemic 
have returned or have begun to return to their respective workplaces. 
And like the government, those businesses were designed around an in-
office workforce.
  This bill does not eliminate telework; it simply returns the 
workforce to the policies that were in place in 2019.
  And perhaps, with the report, that this bill requests from the OPM, 
there is a good chance some agencies will show that telework or other 
arrangements make sense.
  Fine.
  But as of today; we the oversight body, do not have that data.
  Let's reset--analyze where we've been and then move forward.
  Mr. Speaker, I support H.R.139.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to House Resolution 75, the 
previous question is ordered on the bill.
  The question is on the engrossment and third reading of the bill.
  The bill was ordered to be engrossed and read a third time, and was 
read the third time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on passage of the bill.
  The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that 
the ayes appeared to have it.
  Mr. COMER. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, further 
proceedings on this question will be postponed.

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