Earlier this week, Joe Biden and his Administration extended the National Emergency Declaration for COVID-19, along with the Public Health Emergency, until May 11th and announced that at that date both emergencies will end. This decision was a feeble attempt by the Biden Administration to save face in advance of House Republicans’ legislation this week to restore our Constitutional rights and freedoms after two long years of Democrats’ COVID-19 power grab policies.
While the Biden Administration wants to wait until May, House Republicans have led the charge to return to regular order today. That’s why we will bring to the floor Rep. Paul Gosar’s joint resolution to IMMEDIATELY end the COVID-19 National Emergency Declaration and Chairman James Comer’s SHOW UP Act, which requires federal employees to return to the office.
RESOLUTION TERMINATING THE COVID-19 NATIONAL EMERGENCY DECLARATION:
In February 2022, President Biden extended the National Emergency Declaration relating to COVID-19 for another year. However, in September 2022, President Biden publicly acknowledged “the pandemic is over.”
H.J. Res. 7, consistent with the requirements of the National Emergencies Act (NEA), would terminate the National Emergency Declaration.
The NEA establishes enhanced Congressional oversight authorities of national emergency declarations and provides that a national emergency will end, (1) after one year unless the President publishes a notice of renewal in the Federal Register, (2) upon a Presidential declaration ending the national emergency, or (3) if Congress enacts a joint resolution terminating the emergency.
Section 202 of the National Emergencies Act requires Congress to consider a joint resolution to terminate a national emergency six months after declaration, and every six months after that. Under the National Emergencies Act, resolutions terminating national emergencies are subject to expedited procedures. Once referred to the relevant Committee, the resolutions must be reported within 15 calendar days and then become pending business to be voted on within three calendar days on the floor.
Then Speaker Pelosi refused to bring a previous version of this resolution to the floor in the 117th Congress and instead twice adopted a special rule to block expedited consideration.
The NEA was originally enacted in response to abuses of executive power, culminating in the Watergate scandal, to provide a framework and more accountability for the disparate authorities provided to the President related to national emergencies.
Currently, President Biden, by allowing this authority to continue for nearly 3 years, is blatantly continuing to abuse his executive power rather than utilize it for its original purpose – to quickly respond to a national emergency.
THE SHOW UP ACT:
Led by Chairman James Comer of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, House Republicans will bring up for a vote the Stopping Home Office Work's Unproductive Problems Act, or the SHOW UP Act.
According to the Office of Personnel Management’s most recent report on telework, 47% of federal workers teleworked in Fiscal Year 2021, a two percent increase over
Fiscal Year 2020, the year when the pandemic struck.
According to a Federal Times report this past October, just one in three federal workers has returned to their office full-time.
Members are well aware of the problems constituents have experienced getting help from the Social Security Administration; or veterans who cannot access their records. Both examples are due to employees not being in the workplace.
This legislation includes requirements for:
Federal agencies to return to 2019 pre-pandemic telework levels within 30 days;
Federal agencies to complete and submit to Congress studies within six months detailing how pandemic-era telework levels impacted their missions—including adverse effects on customer service, network security, and costs for real property and locality pay; and
Preventing federal agencies from permanently expanding telework without submitting to Congress telework plans certified by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) that detail how remote work policies will:
Substantially improve agency mission-performance;
Substantially lower agency costs for real property and locality pay;
Ensure security for agency networks, data and records;
Accelerate the dispersal of federal jobs across the nation and outside the Beltway.
MAKE NO MISTAKE: The American people know the pandemic has come to an end, and it’s time for Joe Biden’s authoritarian COVID-19 power grab to end too. Now that most of America has returned to the office, it’s also past time for taxpayer funded federal employees to SHOW UP for the people they serve—the American people. This is how House Republicans are fighting to deliver on our commitment to an accountable government.