House Oversight Committee Releases Report on the Biden-Harris Administration’s Efforts to Keep Federal Bureaucrats at Home

WASHINGTON—Today, House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) released a majority staff report detailing the committee’s assessment of federal employee telework during the Biden-Harris Administration, including its investigative findings. The report, “The Lights Are On, But Everyone Is at Home: Why the New Administration Will Enter Largely Vacant Federal Agency Offices,” highlights how prolonged telework has harmed agency missions’ accomplishment and services to the American people, while hiking taxpayer costs. Later this morning, the House Oversight Committee will hold its first hearing of the 119th Congress,  “The Stay-at-Home Federal Workforce: Another Biden-Harris Legacy.”

During the 118th Congress, the Committee investigated the extent of federal telework and remote work, the degree of oversight over its use, and its impact on mission outcomes. The investigation found that the Biden-Harris Administration maintained massive telework levels long after the pandemic ended, with limited oversight of its implementation or evaluation of its impact on government operations. American taxpayers are wasting billions to pay for owned and leased federal office space that remains largely vacant, and the Biden-Harris Administration did very little to reduce the federal footprint despite maintaining massive telework levels. Additionally, Biden-Harris Administration officials worked with federal labor union allies to maintain unsupportable high telework levels, undermining the ability of the incoming Trump Administration to reduce them in accordance with President Trump’s electoral mandate to efficiently administer the executive branch.

“The lights may be on in federal buildings, but too many federal bureaucrats continue to work from home,” said Chairman Comer. “The House Oversight Committee’s investigation into prolonged pandemic-era telework reveals the Biden-Harris Administration has ceded too much authority to the federal union bosses, allowing their preference to work from home to take precedence over fulfilling agencies’ missions and serving the American people. President Trump was elected in a landslide to bring accountability to Washington. Our report not only identifies the many problems with massive federal telework but also proposes solutions to get federal employees back to their offices, dispose of unused and vacant federal property, and prioritize the needs of the American people over the wants of federal bureaucrats. We look forward to working with President Trump and his administration to ensure the federal bureaucracy is fully accountable to the American people.”

The majority staff report details administrative and legislative solutions to ensure the federal workforce shows up for the American people it serves. These recommendations include: 

• Base telework and remote work policies on achievement of mission outcomes, not employee preferences or union demands.

• Establish automated systems for tracking the use of telework and remote work, and create clear, measurable metrics to evaluate its costs and benefits.

• Impose more frequent and timely reporting requirements on agency-level telework, to better inform Executive Branch leaders, Congress and the public.

• Use the White House and central management agencies to implement an enterprise-wide approach to telework and remote work that prioritizes the public interest. Do not permit a telework bidding war among agencies looking to attract federal workers that transfer between them based on which will let them stay home the most.

• Align the federal property footprint with the government’s office space needs. Dispose of unneeded property and terminate unnecessary leases, while optimizing use of the space that remains.  

• Introduce and enact a new version of the SHOW Up Act, restoring agency telework to no more than pre-pandemic levels.  Only permit higher levels at agencies that make a convincing, measurable case for doing so.

• Consider legislation disallowing collective bargaining over federal employee telework.

• Consider legislation that would open to renegotiation at the start of each new Presidential term all existing collective bargaining agreements with federal employees.

• Consider legislation to pay all remote federal employees at the Rest of United States locality pay rate, to encourage a broader geographic dispersion of the federal workforce, and to reduce cost to taxpayers.

Read the report here.