James Comer

Mr. COMER

Mr. COMER. Mr. Speaker, I rise to celebrate the biggest high school sports achievement in the history of Cumberland County, Kentucky. Congratulations to the Cumberland County Lady Panther softball team on their recent victory in the 2026 All A Classic State Championship. The Lady Panther victory marks the very first State championship won by any sports team in the history of Cumberland County High School. Cumberland County is one of Kentucky's most rural counties, with a population of just over 6,000 residents. Cumberland Countians were so proud of their softball team, they lined the streets of Burkesville, Kentucky, for a massive parade honoring their hometown heroes. Congratulations again to the State champion Cumberland County Lady Panther softball team.

Mr. COMER

Mr. COMER. Madam Speaker, I rise to recognize my good friend and First Congressional District of Kentucky resident, Dave Baker, upon his retirement from the University of Kentucky Sports Network after 37 years. Dave ``Buzz'' Baker began his career at WKYT in Lexington as an intern and was hired full time upon his graduation from Georgetown College in 1982. Dave and his lovely wife, Donna, reside in Frankfort and attend church with me and my family at Forks of Elkhorn Baptist in Midway, Kentucky. Dave began working Southeastern Conference events in 1993 and has been a constant presence on the SEC Network and other University of Kentucky televised events ever since calling men's and women's basketball, baseball, softball, and volleyball. Buzz Baker is a Kentucky sports legend who has always been and will continue to be a force in what we in the Bluegrass State call Big Blue Nation. Mission of Oversight and Government Reform Committee

Mr. COMER. Madam Speaker, I rise to give an update on the work that the House Oversight Committee has been doing recently. I want to remind everyone that our mission on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee is to identify waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in the Federal Government. We have been going State by State and focusing on identifying massive fraud in the Federal welfare programs administered by poorly run States. We began in Minnesota. We worked with nine whistleblowers. These whistleblowers were career State employees who came forward, and I hope that whistleblowers in other States saw how we treated those whistleblowers. We protected the whistleblowers. We sat down with the whistleblowers. We interviewed them. We did transcribed interviews and took their testimony to produce a report to build our case to help with the Department of Justice's ongoing investigation in Minnesota on the welfare fraud. What we concluded after bringing in people who were State employees in Minnesota who had been ringing the bell on fraud there for many years, we concluded that both Attorney General Keith Ellison and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz knew about the massive amounts of fraud in the welfare programs in Minnesota, yet did nothing about it, and in some instances, retaliated against the State employees who did the right thing and came forward. Now we have moved our investigation into California, and we are focusing on a massive hospice fraud scheme--hospice of all things. This is a program I think every Member of Congress supports. Hospice is who we call in our deepest, darkest times of need. We have zeroed in on one particular area in California: Los Angeles County. A recent audit revealed over $3.5 billion in hospice fraud primarily in one county: Los Angeles County. What we found in Los Angeles County is that 18 percent of the total bill for the Federal Government for hospice in America went to one county. You had thousands of people registered as hospice providers billing hospice for hundreds and hundreds of patients that no one can find. We are going to continue to work with auditors. We hope that whistleblowers will come forward in California like they did in Minnesota, and we are going to try to identify this and hopefully work with authorities in Minnesota who have prosecuted over two dozen people already in Minnesota for fraud. We are serious on the House Oversight Committee, the Republicans are, about doing something about the massive amounts of fraud we are seeing. We want to get the backs of the American taxpayer. The hardworking taxpayers who work hard every day and send their tax dollars here to Washington are frustrated that we are losing so much money to fraud. We are going to do something about it.

Mr. COMER

Mr. COMER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor all the brave first responder men and women who braved the dangerous terrain and frigid temperatures to help provide food and shelter, as well as to restore power and water to my constituents in Monroe and Allen Counties. Last week, south central Kentucky experienced a catastrophic snow and ice storm that left many thousands without power and water, some for as long as 5 days, all while temperatures remained below freezing. I especially want to recognize the workers at Tri-County Electric Membership Cooperative who worked all day and night, often during temperatures in the single digits, to restore power which was lost from the hundreds of power lines that completely broke from the freezing rain. These workers, along with our water utilities, law enforcement, and volunteer fire departments, deserve a huge thanks for stepping up and delivering in our time of need.

Mr. COMER

Mr. COMER. Mr. Speaker, I rise to address an issue very near and dear to my heart--industrial hemp. As Kentucky's Commissioner of Agriculture, I led the charge to make Kentucky the very first State to legally grow hemp. Fast forward to today, hemp is a major crop for our Kentucky farmers, and nearly every farmer I know who grew hemp last year was a former tobacco farmer. Hemp is doing exactly today what I predicted in 2015. It has become an alternative crop to tobacco for Kentucky farmers. The Senate recently added language to a continuing resolution that would put our Kentucky hemp farmers out of business. I will be working to add language to the continuing resolution next week to fix it. I certainly hope all my colleagues will join with me in supporting this language to help our Kentucky farmers as well as the hundreds of jobs that have been created because of industrial hemp in Kentucky.

Mr. COMER

Mr. COMER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to H.R. 2550. Americans pay several hundred billion dollars in taxes each year to fund the salaries and benefits of more than 2 million Federal civilian employees. These workers are paid to carry out the critical mission and functions of the Federal Government, but the more than 340 million Americans who foot the bill do not directly manage Federal executive branch employees. They elect a President to do that. The President directs the workforce of the executive branch so he can fulfill his constitutional duty to ensure the laws of the land are faithfully executed. When President Trump ran for office last year, he told the American public that if--if elected, he would return Federal employees to their offices, reform the bureaucracy, and restore much-needed accountability to the workforce. The American people chose to elect him to do just that. Even before President Trump took office, Federal collective bargaining legal authorities were weaponized to sabotage what Americans had voted for. On their way out the door, lameduck Biden administration officials signed collective bargaining agreements with Federal employee union bosses specifically designed to tie the hands of incoming President Trump. In January, at our very first hearing this Congress, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform heard testimony from President Biden's Social Security Commissioner, Martin O'Malley. He cut a deal with union bosses after the November election and just before leaving the agency to run for chair of the Democratic National Committee. The deal locked in telework levels for tens of thousands of Social Security Administration employees for the entirety of the incoming Trump administration. To be clear, this was done specifically to Trump- proof the workforce and to force the incoming President to continue the failed management policies the public had just voted to end. We must ask: Are we going to uphold the President's constitutional role as head of the executive branch? Can he truly lead if he is held hostage by union deals to which he never agreed and were intended to undermine his authority? Should an elected President be unable to bring tax-funded Federal employees back to work for his entire 4-year term? The American people do not think so. That is why the House Committee on Oversight and Reform adopted legislation that would allow the President to manage the workforce without being bound by last-minute union agreements designed to undermine him. That legislation, the Preserving Presidential Management Authority Act, sponsored by Representative Cloud of Texas, is the bill we should be debating here today. It is important to remember that public-sector unions are fundamentally different from their private-sector counterparts. In fact, none other than Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a major champion of private-sector unions, believed that public-sector unions made no sense. FDR wrote: ``The process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service.'' Why is that? In the private sector, unions represent workers and sit across the bargaining table from representatives of businessowners. However, Federal unions are not negotiating with a profit-seeking corporation. They are negotiating with the public's elected representatives. As FDR put it in the case of the public sector, the employer is the whole people. Federal unions, in other words, seek concessions not from private owners but from the taxpayers themselves. Since Federal salaries and benefits are determined by laws, which also establish basic civil service protections for employees, what exactly do Federal unions bargain over? They bargain over conditions of employment like telework. Unions also seek contract provisions that limit management's ability to hold employees accountable through disciplinary procedures or performance management processes. I urge my colleagues to buck Federal union bosses. Put Americans first and oppose the so-called Protect America's Workforce Act. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time. General Leave

Mr. COMER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Cloud).

Mr. COMER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Biggs).

Mr. COMER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gill).

Mr. COMER. Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentleman.

Mr. COMER. Mr. Speaker, that was a long minute for the leader of the Democratic Party to advocate for more work-from-home policies for our Federal employees. I think the American people have spoken loud and clear. They support our Federal employees, like the Republican Party, but we expect them to show up for work, not get paid to be home and not be accessible by phone or by computer or by email. That is what we heard from the leader of the Democratic Party. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. COMER. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. COMER. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. COMER. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. COMER. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. COMER. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. COMER. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. COMER. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. COMER. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. COMER. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. COMER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, she mentioned healthcare, and the healthcare system that she is talking about that she says has failed is ObamaCare, what they voted for and they created. I just find it ironic. I hope every taxpayer in America who gets up in the morning, drives to work, works hard, and pays their taxes is listening to this debate because there is a difference here. What the President is trying to do is make government more efficient. The argument I am hearing here, and I think the people who work hard and pay taxes are hearing, there is not a single government agency that is at any time inefficient. Every single Federal employee is at 100 percent efficiency and doesn't need to be held accountable. They can work from home and do whatever they want. We support the Federal workforce. We want to make the Federal workforce hardier. We want the taxpayers to get their money's worth out of the hard-earned taxes that they send to Washington. What this legislation is doing and the goal is to try to hinder the President's ability to get the backs of the American taxpayer and ensure that every government agency is efficient and every Federal employee is working hard, just like the taxpayers who work hard and pay taxes and send their tax dollars here to Congress for us to appropriate. I think that is an important part of the discussion that needs to be mentioned on the floor. I hope that a lot of people in America, working hard, frustrated with Washington are watching this debate. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. COMER. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. COMER. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. COMER. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. COMER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Speaker, the President has been fighting back against the deals that public sector unions have negotiated for themselves at the expense of the American taxpayer by invoking an existing legal authority. H.R. 2550 directly threatens that progress by overturning the President's executive order that exercises one of the few tools available to him under the law to more effectively manage the Federal workforce. Now, it is no secret that accountability problems in the Federal workforce are legendary. It takes a Herculean effort to fire a poorly performing Federal worker or one who is engaged in misconduct. Collective bargaining agreements often create procedural hurdles to firing such employees, above and beyond steps required in law and regulation. For example, unions can bring removals before private arbitrators instead of appealing to the Merit Systems Protection Board. The Trump administration is exercising its electoral mandate to address this problem. For instance, the President has embarked on an ambitious overhaul of the performance management system and is pursuing more streamlined disciplinary procedures. The reality is that preexisting union agreements the President never signed onto can subvert these efforts. They provide barriers to accountability beyond basic employee protections that exist in law. Perhaps the most inappropriate aspect of Federal collective bargaining agreements come from provisions governing the use of official time, which is when Federal employees are paid by taxpayers to do union business. Indeed, many Federal employees spend all their time doing union business. More than 3 million Federal employee work hours were spent doing union business time in 2024 alone, according to the OPM report. The cost to American taxpayers in salary and benefits was more than $200 million. There was an additional $31 million cost for related expenses, primarily the provision of Federal meeting space. The only reason we know this is that the Trump administration collected and reported this 2024 data. House Oversight Committee Republicans have attempted to legislate annual public reporting on the use and abuse of official time. However, Democrats have consistently opposed even this ounce of accountability. They have another opportunity to change their ways by supporting the current version of this legislation H.R. 5749, the Official Time Reporting Act. However, if my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are not interested in supporting legislative reforms to bring accountability to the Federal workforce and public sector unions, they should at the very least not roll back existing progress made under this administration. I, therefore, call on my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to stand with the American taxpayer by supporting the administration's efforts to bring accountability to the executive branch's workforce and oppose H.R. 2550. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.