On the recordNovember 18, 2010
I want to thank the gentleman for yielding. I want to thank Chairman Towns, Chairman Lynch, Chairman Davis, who I worked with previously on this bill, cosponsors Gerry Connolly, Jim Moran, Dutch Ruppersberger, and others who have collaborated with us on bringing this bill forward. I also want to take a moment to salute Frank Wolf, our colleague on the other side of the aisle. He has worked on this issue for two decades, and he has been a tremendous advocate for telework, and I appreciate all of his support and collaboration as we develop these ideas going forward. I was listening to the end of that statement that was just made, calling for efficiency and effectiveness in government, ways to address the bureaucracy and so forth. I can't think of a piece of legislation that does more to meet those objectives than this does. It creates a nimbleness on the part of the Federal Government with respect to how the workforce operates. And if you look at the goals that it seeks to promote, they all make perfect sense. They are common sense. First of all, the benefits include that you can improve productivity among the workforce. All the studies show that morale goes up, productivity goes up. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, as it was referenced, can demonstrate huge increases in productivity among the workforce. So that is a benefit. It increases competitiveness.
