Well leave this now to go back to the floor of the house. Ordering the previous questn onouse resolution 1071 and adoption of the resolution, if ordered. The first electronic vote will be conducted as a 15minute vote. Pursuant to clause 9 of rule torquehe remaining electronic votes will be conducted as fiveminute vote. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule 20, the Unfinished Business is the vote on ordering the previous question on House Resolution 1071 on which the yeas and nays are oered. The clerk will report the right tool of the resolution. The cle the clerk house calendar numberrk 66, House Resolution 1071, resolution providing for consideration of the bill h. R. 6276, to direct the administrator of General Services and the director of the office of management and budget to identify the utilization rate of certain public buildings in federally leased space and for other purposes. Providing for consideration of the resolution, House Resolution 1065 denouncing the Biden Administrations immigration policies. The speaker pro tempore the question is on ordering the previous question on the resolution. Members will record their votes by electronic device. This is a [captioning made possible by the national captioning institute, inc. , in cooperation with the United States house of representatives. Any use of the closedcaptioned coverage of the house proceedings for political or commercial purposes is expressly prohibited by the u. S. House of representatives. ] a a the speaker pro tempore on this vote the yeas are 210. The speaker pro tempore on this vote the yeas are 209. The nays are 205. The previous question is ordered. The question is on adoption of the resolution. So many as are in favor say aye. Those opposed, no. In the opinion of the chair the ayes have it. For what purpose does gentleman seek recognition . Mr. Mcgovern i ask for a recorded vote. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman requests a recorded vote. A record is requested. Those favoring a recorded vote will rise. A sufficient number having arisen, a recorded vote is ordered. Members will record their votes by electronic device. This is a fiveminute vote. [captioning made possible by the national captioning institute, inc. , in cooperation with the United States house of representatives. Any use of the closedcaptioned coverage of the house proceedings for political or co of representatives. ] the speaker pro tempore on this vote the yeas are 209. The nays are 206. The resolution is adopted. Without objectioners the motion to reconsider is laid upon the table. Without objection, the motion to reconsider is laid upon the table. The speaker pro tempore the house will be in order. The house will be in order. For what purpose does the gentleman the speaker pro tempore for what purpose does the gentleman from pennsylvania seek recognition . Mr. Perry i ask unanimous consent that all members have five legislative days to hold on a second. Ok. That all members have five legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on h. R. 6276. The speaker pro tempore without objection. The gentleman is recognized. Mr. Perry mr. Speaker, i yield myself such time as i may consume. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman will suspend. Pursuant to House Resolution 1071 and rule 18, the chair declares the house in the committee of the whole on the state of the union for the consideration of h. R. 6276. The chair appoints the gentlewoman from virginia, ms. Kiggans, to preside over whole. The chair the house is in the committee of the whole house on the state of the union for the consideration of h. R. 6276 which the clerk will report by title. The clerk a bill to direct the administrator of General Services and the director of the office of management and budget to identify the utilization rate of certain public buildings and federally leased space and for other purposes. The speaker pro tempore pursuant to the rule, the bill is considered the chair pursuant to the rule, the bill is considered read the first time. General debate shall be confined to the bill and shall not exceed one hour, equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the committee on transportation and infrastructure or their respective designees. The gentleman from pennsylvania, mr. Perry, and the gentleman from washington, mr. Larsen, each will contro recognizes the gentleman from pennsylvania. Mr. Perry thank you, madam chair. I yield myself such time as i may consume. The chair the committee will be in order. The gentleman is recognized. Mr. Perry thank you madam chai h. R. 6276, the use it act of 2023, is commonsense and reasonable space occupancy standards to get federal employees back into the office or the agency will have to lose that unnecessary unneeded, unused space. As a recent Government AccountabilityOffice Review of how agencies were actually using their headquarter space here in washington d. C. , found that 17 of 24 agencies, the g. A. O. Re that g. A. O. Reviewed used 25 or less otheir space. 17 of 24. 25 or less of their space. One agency even admitted that if 100 of their employees showed up every single one of them showed up, they boo still would still only use 67 of their own bui even more troubling is some agencies were using only 9 , they cant even make double digits of their space, 9 . And to be clear, were not just paying for space to sit empty. But throughout the whole time were paying for utilities and services cooling, lighting. Regular power maintenance security for the entire space that no one is in. Empty Federal Buildings are not only a drain to the federal taxpayer, but they also dont produce investments needed for local econom because nobodys in the building. Theres nobody there to go out to lunch. The bottom line is agencies should bring federal to the office. But the reality is underutilized space has been a chronic problem in federal real estate and is one reason federal property has been on the g. A. O. s highrisk list since 2003. So this is 20 years on now that this problem has been identified and remains existing. In order to address the issue h. R. 6276 the house is not in order. The chair the gentleman is recognized. Mr. Perry thank you, madam speaker. In order to address the issue h. R. 6276 would use similar metrics to those used by the g. A. O. And require federal agencies to report on tal utilization rates. Set a target utilization of not less than 60 , not less than 60 , so its very reasonable and require the General Services administration to report to congress if any agency fails to meet that standard. Agencies will be given time to meet the 60 utilization standard, but if they fail to do so, they would have to lose or give up their excess space. Give up their excess space. Ultimately the result of 6276 will benefit not just the federal taxpayer but also allow unused Federal Buildings to be put to better use for the local communities. I urge support of this bill and time. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman from pennsylvania reserve the chair the gentleman from pennsylvania reserves. The gentleman from washington is recognizeddam chair. I yield myself as much time as i may consume. H. R. 6276 directs the o. M. B. And g. S. A. To establish standards for measuring o buildings. The bill directs the g. S. A. And federal tenants to use sensors to measure occupancy, requires the heads of federal agencies to report occupancy and utilization data, and directs the g. S. A. To notify agencies and congress when occupancy in a Federal Building falls below 60 , at which time g. S. A. Would be permitted to consolidate tenants. The bill further requires o. M. B. And g. S. A. To develop a plan to consolidate agency headquarter buildings in the National Capital region that result in the utilization rate of 60 or more. Now, i agree with representative perrys goal to reduce agency costs by giving up unneeded space and i consistently made that point to him and others on the committee. I am opposed to this bill. The bill defines occupancy as the total number of employees physically working from their offices at least five many federal employees may not sit at their desks all day every day, including federal firefighters disaster responders, Law Enforcement officers, Border Patrol agents, food safety inspectors, t. S. A. Supervisors, National ParkService Rangers and more. These employees would not be included in occupancy counts required by this bill. Also not counted would be the federal employees who work alter alternative Work Schedules. Federal law grants the office of personal Management Authority to promulgate regulations, to minister programs and permits agencies to allow the use of flexible schedules. This authority extends to employees of any executive agency, any military department and the library of congress. To have an accurate picture of a space needs in Federal Buildings, all federal employees occupying buildings should be counted. And a fulltime employee with an approved work schedule is still a fulltime employee. And this bill fails to consider that fact. I have concerns with the bill because it does not adequately concern the complexity of the federal leasing process, a process that is frankly far too complex. Directing the o. M. B. And g. S. A. To reduce space if occuypanc 60 sounds fiscally responsible but at most currently leased locations if agency space is reduced, the gove ment would still be on the hook for the original cost in the leased contract because most existing lease contracts do not include partial termination rights. Partial termination rights would increase the costs of leases for the government. Again, i want to work with the chairman, we want to work with the chairman and the committee to resize the federal estate footprint and reduce costs, not unnecessarily increase those but here again, that bill this bill falls short. After this period of general debate, were going to move on to a debate on seven amendments made in order by the rules committee. I will not be opposing any of those amendments, but unfortunately the seven amendments do not fix the underlying defects in the bill so i will still oppose final passage. Im disappointed as well the rules committee did not make in order the amendment that representative titus offered that would have adjusted the calculation of the occupancy rate to include employees with approved alternative Work Schedules. This fix would have gone a long way toward alleviating my with the legislation but not even allowing a vote on this amendment is a really missed opportunity for bipartisanship on this bill. So with will reserve the balance of my time. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman from washington reserves the chair the gentleman from washington reserves. The gentleman from pennsylvania is recognized. Mr. Perry thank you, madam speaker. To my good friend the Ranking Member of the full committee the Current Administration doesnt even count every single employee in the federal system. And this bill, as he knows does not effect flex schedules or teleWork Schedules, has nothing to do with that. So we can in this case have our cake and eat it too. We can have this bill, we can get our occupancy rate up to 60 . We can pass the bipartisan amendment that myself and representative awken class have worked together on and is in order and we can try to rightsize the people who show up to work while acknowledging in the federal system that not everybody has to be in the office. But with that i want to yield three minutes to my good friend from louisiana mr. Graves. The chair the gentleman is recognized. Mr. Graves thank you, madam chair. To thank the gentleman from colorado for promoting this legislation, for carrying it through the committee. Let me provide a little bit of background because i think theres been some confusion here. If we look at occupancy rates of Federal Buildings from prepandemic to current then 54 of the buildings are occupied as compared to prepandemic. Let me say this again. If you look at prepandemic occupancy and compare it to today, you have 54 occ compared to what would have been 100 at the time. 100 of those slots filled. So what this legislation does is it says that if leases are occupied 60 or less then the government needs to give up those leases. So my friend from washington has brought up the fact that you have folks who do telework and flexible schedules and things along those lines. Th a 40 cushion number one. Number two, i thinking is that is incumbent upon i think mething that is incumbent upon folks who are using public money to pay for this let me say it again, 2 billion a year to operate and maintain 5 billion a year to pay for leases, its incumbent upon these folks that are managing this to make sure that youre properly coordinating schedules. If people are teleworking or flexible schedules or whatever, thats fine. Just manage them in a way that maximizes the use of the space. Look, this is ridiculous whats going on. 7 billion a year. If we went around the congress and asked members of congress do you have something in your district that needs funding and youve been unable to get funding for . Every single one of us could spend 7 billion, weve been bridge crossing the Mississippi River for years and years now. It should have been done 40 years ago. So lets be clear. It only requires divestment or elimination of the lease if the occupancy is less than 60 . What private business would even do that . I think it actually should be a higher standard in an ideal situation. As chairman perry said, according to a Government Accountability office study that went through, they looked at 24 federal agencies and 17 of the 24 only used 25 of the space. This is insane. Theres better uses of taxpayer funds. And in closing, madam chair, i want to remind everyone here our current Government Debt is approximately 34. 5 trillion. Each individual taxpayers share of that is around 257,000. I couldnt afford that. I dont think we need to be irresponsibly and recklessly spending taxpayer dollars in this environment or ever. I commend my friend from pennsylvania for pushing this legislation. I urge adoption and yield back. Mr. Perry i thank the gentleman from louisiana. I reserve. The chair the gentleman from pennsylvania reserves. The gentleman from washington is recognized. Mr. Larsen thank you, madam chair. I want the representative from virginia, representative buyer. The chair the gentleman is roz representative beyer. The chair the gentleman is recognized. Mr. Beyer i rise in fir opposition to this bill. 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 work force 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 that g. S. A. Undertakes when it comes to contracting evaluations and consolidations. Further, the bill exempts warehouses and laboratories from space restrictions, but doesnt name secure classified information facilities as an exempted category. Im 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 offer noes offers no consideration for workers with alternative schedules. People who work field work or those who have telework arrangem get me wrong. Many of our colleagues and i support the idea of our federal agencies consolidating spaces to repurpose parts of their budgets. Theyve already done that with the patent and trade office in my district. Or to decrease spending. But this bill actually does the opposite. By cutting short contracts we increase spending. G. S. A. Already has agencies with consolidating unused spaces. If you take out the bill language that matches what g. S. A. s already doing, its easy to read thia partisan employ to ploy to move Agency Headquarters out of the National Capital region and attack federal employees. Theres no need to introduce the bill to mr1date work that g. S. A. Already does and to threaten to remove agency workspaces because of arbitrary Building Occupancy rates. Madam speaker, i have invested and managed real estate for many decades. This bill doesnt offer an appropriate metric to evaluate space usage, need or work productivity. I considered places in my car stores that were occupied by cars instead of people as wasted space. Its a matter of appropriateness. Any member here who would allow their staff to work from home would be a hypocrite to oppose this bill. We need the best and brightest to want to w government. And we want to utilize telework and nontraditional hours or days where its appropriate. After all, we want the most productive and effective federal work force and imply applying a 1950s mentality of butts in seats five days a week doesnt reflect the actual work that most americans do. What if they need to spend every day in a scif or site visit . For these reasons ill offer a motion to recommit this committee. If rules would have permitted i would have offered a motion with an important amendment to this bill offered by representative titus this. Amendment would ensure that all federal employees, including ones using alternative Work Schedules, are accounted for utilization rates of Federal Buildings. This amendment would significantly alleviate some