Political Quotes

“Madam Chair, I rise in firm opposition to H.R. 6276, the Utilizing Space Efficiently and Improving Technologies Act. Contrary to what the title would suggest, this bill is an irresponsible partisan effort that would seriously harm not only our Federal workforce located in the national capital region, but simply ignores the practical realities of Federal jobs. While I agree that we should always help our agencies run more efficiently and decrease spending where we can, this bill reveals ignorance of the current process the GSA undertakes when it comes to contracting, evaluations, and consolidations. Further, the bill exempts warehouses and laboratories from its space restrictions, but doesn't name secure classified information facilities, SCIFs, as an exempted category. I am concerned that this would cause negative implications for local facilities that have been designed specifically for use of SCIFs and for our national defense work broadly. Finally, this bill offers no consideration for workers with alternative work schedules, people who do field work, people who work nontraditional hours or days, or those who have telework arrangements. Don't get me wrong, many of our colleagues and I support the idea of our Federal agencies consolidating spaces to repurpose parts of their budgets.…”