NW Kentucky News

House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Chairman James Comer has reintroduced the Stopping Home Office Work’s Unproductive Problems (SHOW UP) Act for the 119th Congress. This legislation aims to address telework levels among federal employees, which increased during the COVID-19 pandemic. The bill seeks to prevent agencies from maintaining high levels of remote work without justifying its impact on agency performance and taxpayer expenses.

Chairman Comer stated, "The pandemic is long over and it’s past time for the federal workforce to show up to the office to better fulfill agencies’ missions and serve the American people." He criticized the Biden Administration's approach to telework, suggesting that it has negatively affected agency missions and service delivery while increasing costs due to underutilized federal buildings.

Following the pandemic, many organizations have returned employees to their worksites. However, certain federal government employees continue extensive telework. As of May 2024, more than one million federal office workers were engaged in telework or working exclusively from home. By March 2024, most large federal agencies were using a small fraction of their headquarters' capacity.

The SHOW UP Act requires federal agencies to reduce telework levels within 30 days to those seen in 2019. Agencies must also submit studies within six months detailing how pandemic-era telework impacted their missions. The bill prevents expanding telework without plans certified by the Office of Personnel Management that demonstrate improvements in mission performance, cost reductions, network security enhancements, and job dispersal outside Washington D.C.

Original cosponsors of this bill include Representatives Andy Biggs, Lauren Boebert, Tim Burchett, Eric Burlison, Michael Cloud, Eli Crane, Pat Fallon, Virginia Foxx, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Glenn Grothman, Clay Higgins, Brian Jack, Nick Langworthy, John McGuire, Gary Palmer, Scott Perry, Pete Sessions and William Timmons.