Comer slams Biden's 'failure' to convince federal workers to return to office, vows to make it happen

Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., isn't playing games when it comes to bringing federal employees back to office. At the first committee hearing of the 119th Congress, Comer gave a speech criticizing the Biden administration's “failure” to bring federal employees back to office.

“When President Trump's team enters the headquarters of federal agencies in and around Washington, they will find them mostly empty. This is due to the failure of the Biden administration to end teleworking and bring back federal employees in the office,” Comer said.

Even though there are still days left in President Biden's term, Washington is bracing for a change before President-elect Trump returns to Washington. According to the Oversight Committee report, which cites “the Biden-Harris administration's own data,” as of May 2024, 1,057,000 telework-eligible federal employees were in the office three times per week, and another 228,000 employees were remote. “never come to the office”. at all.”

A woman works on a desktop computer in a home office in Bern, Switzerland in 2020. (Stefan Wermuth/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

New polls show Biden leaving office with approval ratings still buried deep in negative territory.

The report, titled “The Lights Are On, But Everyone's Home: Why the New Administration Will Enter Federal Agency Offices Largely Vacant,” is 41 pages long and was prepared by the committee's Republicans. In its report, the commission says telework policies have been “detrimental” to government agencies.

During the hearing, Comer pointed the finger at Democrats, particularly Sen. Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York. He criticized Schumer for allegedly letting the Show Up Act “gather dust.” The legislation would return teleworking of federal employees to “pre-pandemic levels.”

Rep. James Comer, left, and President Joe Biden. (Getty Images)

House Oversight Report Says Telecommuting 'Wastes Billions' of Taxpayer Money Ahead of First Hearing

“The Government Accountability Office found that 17 of the 24 largest federal agency headquarters in the Washington, DC area were less than 25% occupied, some at well under 25%. A separate study by the Public Buildings Reform Board found revealed that occupancy rates were only half that at 12%, 12% occupancy,” Comer said during the hearing. “Taxpayer money is being wasted on renting and maintaining all these empty, expensive offices.”

The commission writes in its report that Trump inherits “a largely absent workforce,” attributing that to telework policies “entrenched” by the Biden administration.

Comer also noted that the telework policy for federal workers has resulted in a “lack of foot traffic” that is “economically devastating” for DC, which Mayor Muriel Bowser also pointed out. Bowser has been “begging the White House to change” the telework policy for nearly two years.

In fact, the Democratic lawmaker met with President-elect Trump to discuss what could be done with “underutilized federal buildings” around the city.

Bowser expressed optimism after the Dec. 30 meeting, saying she and Trump “want Washington, D.C. to be the best and most beautiful city in the world and we want the capital to reflect the strength of our nation.”

Photo of a young woman using a laptop and completing paperwork while working from home. (iStock)

The committee's report acknowledges that Trump “heavily invoked telework and remote work” at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and adds that he “quickly sought to return federal employees to their offices to meet the needs of the American people when it became clear that indiscriminate lockdowns were not the right societal response to the pandemic. »

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Brooke Singman contributed to this report.