Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of my bill, H.R. 1293, to amend title 5 of the United States Code to require the Office of Personnel Management to submit an annual report to Congress relating to the use of official time by Federal employees. Mr. Speaker, I am here today to talk about a bill that would provide taxpayers with greater transparency of official time. ``Official time'' is that term that describes when Federal employees do union work on the taxpayers' dime. The only standard provided by the statute authorizing official time is that the employees perform union work on official time in a manner that is ``reasonable, necessary, and in the public interest.'' Currently, Federal law does not require agencies to report, annually, on the amount of official time their employees perform. Until March of this year, the Office of Personnel Management had not reported on official time since fiscal year 2012. When the report was released in March, the data was out of date, containing information from fiscal year 2014. While the Office of Personnel Management may request that agencies provide data related to official time, OPM does not have any set of standards or procedures prescribing the collection of official time data. Considering the burden that official time puts on the taxpayer, more stringent reporting is necessary.…”