Joni Ernst Releas­es Scathing Report About Fed­er­al Tele­work As Musk, Ramaswamy Vis­it Capi­tol

Repub­li­can Sen. Joni Ernst unveiled a scathing report on the effects of tele­work on the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment Thurs­day, cit­ing mul­ti­ple instances of abuse and fail­ures stem­ming from the wide­spread use of the prac­tice.

Pres­i­dent-elect Don­ald Trump named Tes­la CEO Elon Musk and for­mer Repub­li­can pres­i­den­tial can­di­date Vivek Ramaswamy as co-chairs of DOGE on Nov. 12. Ernst’s 60-page report cov­ered find­ings from Ernst’s inves­ti­ga­tions into tele­work since she sent an August 2023 let­ter to 24 gov­ern­ment agen­cies seek­ing a review of the issues involved with telecom­mut­ing and was released at the meet­ing that Musk and Ramaswamy attend­ed. (RELATED: ‘Account­abil­i­ty Is Com­ing’: Joni Ernst Sends Musk’s DOGE ‘A Tril­lion Dol­lars’ Worth Of Ideas To Gut Gov’t Spend­ing)

“If fed­er­al employ­ees can’t be found at their desks, exact­ly where are they?” the report asked ear­li­er, before not­ing the effects of the absences from the office.

Ernst called out mul­ti­ple high-rank­ing Biden admin­is­tra­tion offi­cials for being away from the office, includ­ing Sec­re­tary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Sec­re­tary of Trans­porta­tion Pete Buttigieg and revealed per­for­mance issues in agen­cies like the Depart­ment of Agri­cul­ture and the Depart­ment of Veteran’s Affairs.

“Fed­er­al employ­ees are on the beach and in bub­ble baths but not in office build­ings,” Ernst told the Dai­ly Caller News Foun­da­tion. “Even mem­bers of Pres­i­dent Biden’s cab­i­net claimed to be on the clock while being out of office and unreach­able. Unlike Biden’s bureau­crats, I am about to be very busy mak­ing Wash­ing­ton work for tax­pay­ers.”

Ernst pre­vi­ous­ly raised con­cerns about the vacan­cy rate at fed­er­al office build­ings, not­ing that the Trans­porta­tion Depart­ment has used less than 15% of its office space in its Wash­ing­ton, D.C., head­quar­ters com­plex. In the report, Ernst described how the shift to tele­work delayed the response to a com­plaint about con­di­tions at a baby for­mu­la fac­to­ry that led to a recall after the con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed for­mu­la killed nine chil­dren.

“The whistle­blow­er com­plaint detail­ing safe­ty con­cerns at an infant for­mu­la plant was deliv­ered to the FDA in Octo­ber 2021,” the report says. But ‘mail­room staffing issues due to COVID-19,’ name­ly employ­ees work­ing remote­ly, ‘pre­vent­ed the hard­copies from reach­ing FDA senior lead­ers’ until Feb­ru­ary, when the plant was then shut down.”

Naysay­ers to @DOGE are prob­a­bly eat­ing the pork out of the trough.

But @elonmusk, @vivekgramaswamy, and I are going to trim the fat and #makeem­squeal! pic.twitter.com/ID1KHCzrvn

— Joni Ernst (@SenJoniErnst) Novem­ber 28, 2024

“A back­log of food facil­i­ty inspec­tions caused by COVID-19 era poli­cies is cur­rent­ly being reviewed by the Depart­ment of Health and Human Ser­vices (HHS) Office of Inspec­tor Gen­er­al (OIG). The find­ings are expect­ed to be released in 2025,” the report adds. “Thou­sands of phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal plants that man­u­fac­ture antibi­otics, can­cer ther­a­pies, and oth­er med­i­cines have also not been inspect­ed since pri­or to the pan­dem­ic. The Asso­ci­at­ed Press reports the FDA ‘began using video and oth­er online tools to eval­u­ate plants remote­ly dur­ing COVID-19, although those aren’t equiv­a­lent to phys­i­cal inspec­tions.’ And even with remote inspec­tions, almost 40 per­cent few­er inspec­tions are being con­duct­ed now than before the pan­dem­ic.”

The Ernst report described issues tele­work cre­at­ed involv­ing local­i­ty pay, an adjust­ment to the basic pay of civil­ian employ­ees in the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment intend­ed to make sure that fed­er­al employ­ees have com­pa­ra­ble com­pen­sa­tion to pri­vate-sec­tor coun­ter­parts in a giv­en area of the coun­try. The report not­ed that as many as 68% of employ­ees were receiv­ing incor­rect local­i­ty pay.

“A num­ber of U.S. Agency for Inter­na­tion­al Devel­op­ment (USAID) employ­ees have also been bust­ed fraud­u­lent­ly col­lect­ing Wash­ing­ton, D.C. local­i­ty pay while liv­ing else­where,” the report states. “One senior USAID employ­ee lived in Flori­da for the dura­tion of her employ­ment but used an office sup­ply store in Vir­ginia for work-relat­ed cor­re­spon­dences to decep­tive­ly col­lect D.C. local­i­ty pay. Despite being required to report to the USAID office in Wash­ing­ton, D.C. twice every pay peri­od, she was per­mit­ted to vio­late the tele­work agree­ment by her super­vi­sor.” (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: GOP Sen Demands Meet­ing With Biden Admin To Pre­pare Crack Down On Tele­work Vio­la­tions In New Trump Term)

The report also detailed how an employ­ee of the Depart­ment of Hous­ing and Urban Devel­op­ment was arrest­ed for dri­ving under the influ­ence while sup­pos­ed­ly being on the clock and how a Social Secu­ri­ty Admin­is­tra­tion employ­ee was launch­ing a home-inspec­tion busi­ness on gov­ern­ment time.

The report also not­ed issues with large­ly vacant office build­ings stem­ming from the wide­spread autho­riza­tion for tele­work that extend­ed to as many as 90% of employ­ees, depend­ing on the agency. The report said that in addi­tion to wast­ing tax­pay­er dol­lars, the vacant build­ing cre­at­ed an unsafe envi­ron­ment.

“The [Pub­lic Build­ings Reform Board] adds, ‘In addi­tion to high costs, oth­er prob­lems with low uti­liza­tion rates include envi­ron­men­tal and health impacts,” the report states. “The per per­son car­bon emis­sions from heat­ing and cool­ing near­ly emp­ty build­ings, not to men­tion ener­gy costs, are inde­fen­si­ble. Severe­ly under­uti­lized build­ings can also pose health risks to their occu­pants as GSA recent­ly dis­cov­ered with Legionel­la out­breaks in many of its build­ings when water stag­nat­ed in their plumb­ing sys­tems from under­uti­liza­tion.’”

“Legionel­la is a bac­teri­um that can cause Legion­naires’ Dis­ease, a severe form of pneu­mo­nia with a 33 per­cent mor­tal­i­ty rate in pedi­atric cas­es, and up to 80 per­cent mor­tal­i­ty rate in at-risk adults,” the report con­tin­ues. “While most healthy peo­ple exposed to the bac­te­ria don’t get sick, the Cen­ters for Dis­ease Con­trol and Pre­ven­tion (CDC) notes, ‘there’s no known safe lev­el or type of Legionel­la.’”

Ernst wrote the Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency (EPA), urg­ing the agency to take emer­gency action in an August 28 let­ter sent to EPA Admin­is­tra­tor Michael Regan about con­t­a­m­i­nants that built up in the drink­ing water of fed­er­al build­ings left unoc­cu­pied by a shift to remote work. (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: EPA Agrees To Audit Tele­work Poli­cies One Year After GOP Senator’s Request)

Ernst intro­duced the Stop­ping Home Office Work’s Unpro­duc­tive Prob­lems (SHOW UP) Act, in Sep­tem­ber 2023 as part of a pack­age of leg­is­la­tion to rein in the “admin­is­tra­tive state.”

The Trump-Vance Tran­si­tion Team did not imme­di­ate­ly respond to a request for com­ment from the DCNF.

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