Four years after the Covid-19 pandemic sent employees across the country home, President Joe Biden is letting federal offices sit empty and unstructured for post-pandemic work schedules, according to Oversight Chairman James Comer.
Comer’s committee has been trying to get clarity from the Biden administration on how many federal employees are working from home as Americans struggle to get through by phone to agencies like the Social Security Administration, Veterans Affairs and the like.
“Biden’s main goal with the federal workforce, in my view, is to keep them happy at all costs so they vote for him,” Comer told DailyMail.com in an exclusive interview.
He said the Biden administration is refusing to provide figures on what percentage of the federal workforce is teleworking and how many days a week employees are coming into the office.
“This is all nonsense. Every social worker that works here, whether they’re Democrats or Republicans, in every office where we have social workers, they’ll all tell you that it’s impossible to get on the phone with anybody in any government, whether they’re against Social Security, whether they’re against the Veterans Administration, whether they’re trying to get a passport, it doesn’t matter,” Comer continued.
Comer’s committee has been trying to get clarity from the Biden administration on how many federal employees are working from home as Americans struggle to get through by phone to agencies like the Social Security Administration, Veterans Affairs and the like.
The president said he is not against remote work in principle. If the Biden administration showed him data showing it is more efficient for taxpayers for federal workers to work from home, he would support it, he says.
“They don’t have data to say whether it’s more efficient or not, and I can tell you it’s not,” Comer said. “But if it is more efficient, then I think we should liquidate a lot of these federal buildings. D.C. could turn them into affordable housing or whatever.”
“In our research we found that some buildings are 8% occupied, but if we can, we can group workers into buildings and liquidate them and save on utility bills, that’s greener, save on repairs and maintenance and things like that. But this administration doesn’t want to do anything. All they want to do is spend more money and attack Donald Trump.”
In the spring, Comer called on Office of Management and Budget Deputy Director Jason Miller to testify about remote work policies.
Miller said federal workers who are “telework eligible,” meaning they have jobs that can be performed remotely in some capacity, are currently working at least half their hours in the office.
The federal government employs about two million people in Washington, D.C. The government spends about $2 billion a year to operate federal office buildings and another $5 billion on rent.
“OMB will continue to press agencies to complete implementation,” Miller said. The agency “has issued guidance for agencies to substantially increase meaningful in-person work at federal offices, particularly headquarters.”
Late last year, Biden’s chief of staff, Jeffrey Zients, ordered staff chiefs to ensure their workforces returned to the office this year.
According to a memo obtained by DailyMail.com, he wrote that federal employees should be in the office at least 50 percent of their working time to achieve the administration’s goals.
Zients highlighted the State Department’s “expectation” that all employees be in the office at least three to four times a week because “there is no substitute” for “face-to-face contact” when it comes to diplomacy.
But he also acknowledged that “some of his agencies are not where they should be.”
Comer said the Biden administration is refusing to provide figures on what percentage of the federal workforce is teleworking and how many days a week employees are coming into the office.
“This is all nonsense. Every social worker here, whether they’re Democrats or Republicans, in every office where we have social workers, they’ll all tell you that it’s impossible to get on the phone with anybody in any government, whether it’s dealing with Social Security, whether it’s the Department of Veterans Affairs, whether it’s trying to get a passport, it doesn’t matter,” Comer continued.
In February, a USDA whistleblower wrote to Congress warning of the “impersonal and inefficient” work environment that remote work was creating.
The employee, who describes himself as a supervisor at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, says full-time remote work and telecommuting are “negatively impacting productivity, efficiency and cooperation.”
They said the “vast majority” of USDA employees are working remotely and that the unused federal office headquarters resembles a “ghost town” with empty hallways and vacant offices.
The USDA was found to be only 11 percent occupied between January and March 2023 and more than 75 percent of available office space at 17 different federal agencies is still vacant, according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO).