Federal Customer Service Enhancement Act
Floor Speech
FEDERAL CUSTOMER SERVICE ENHANCEMENT ACT -- (House of Representatives - July 23, 2007)
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Mr. CUELLAR. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding the time on H.R. 404.
First of all, I want to start off by thanking Chairman Towns and his staff. The outstanding work that the chairman has done on moving this bill forward, I certainly want to thank him very much for the work that he has done. I also want to thank Mr. Duncan for the work that he has done because apparently he has done a lot of work on customer service, and I thank him for putting those provisions in my bill also. I also want to thank the gentlewoman from North Carolina, Virginia Foxx. I don't see her here. I know she has put a lot of time in, she and her staff, so I want to thank her in making this a bipartisan bill.
Today Congress takes a major step towards improving how Federal Government interacts with the American people. I think we all want a government that works with the people. I think we all want results-oriented government, and part of the results-oriented government is customer service.
H.R. 404 will raise the level of attention given to how the Federal Government responds to the American public. The bill requires the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, the OMB, to develop performance measures to determine whether Federal agencies are providing high-quality customer service to all the agencies to make sure that they have those customer service standards in place. It sets in place standards for Federal agencies to increase the quality of customer service and enhances the access to Federal information and services, like Mr. Duncan said a few minutes ago. It is important to know whom we are dealing with at the Federal Government and to make sure that people can access that information and get the quality of customer service that they deserve.
The legislation includes accountability provisions as well as incentives to Federal employees who go above this requirement. H.R. 404 also ensures that the initiatives outlined in this bill achieve their objectives through the use of both external and internal reviews by Congress. That is the oversight that Congress will provide on the customer service provisions that will be provided by the Federal agencies to the American public.
I believe that this bill improves Federal customer service, and this is something that is long overdue. I ask for a ``yes'' vote on this bipartisan bill, H.R. 404.
Again, Mr. Towns, thank you for the outstanding work you have done on this bill.
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