Time to Get Back to the Office

Floor Speech

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Mr. ALFORD. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize our recently introduced legislation, the Congressional Access to Bureaucratic Offices, the CABO Act.

Oversight of the executive branch is one of the core functions of this very body, the U.S. House of Representatives, but agencies have continuously refused entry to Members of this House. For 6 long months, we have been refused entry into the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Small Business Administration. I sit on the Ag Committee and the Small Business Committee. This is unacceptable.

From everything we have been told, it appears that at least half of the Federal workforce is away from their office at any given time. Some reports say if you go over to these Federal offices down the way here from Congress, fewer than 20 percent of the workforce will actually be at their desks.

I ask, Mr. Speaker, are these agencies trying to hide the low numbers of workers actually showing up for work and doing their jobs like we do here?

Our legislation, the CABO Act, will address this very problem. It will allow Members and their staffs full access to these bureaucratic agencies without excuses like COVID restrictions or other declared emergencies. We need transparency. We need access to these agencies, these Federal bureaucracies that we oversee.

There is no reason that Members of Congress should not be allowed to see what is happening inside these buildings. It is time to get off the beach and back to work in Washington, D.C.

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