Rep. Dan Newhouse, R-Wash., is bringing back his Federal Employee Return to Work Act for the 119th Congress.

Rep. Dan Newhouse, R-Wash., is bringing back his Federal Employee Return to Work Act for the 119th Congress. Tom Williams / Getty Images

Congressional Republicans dial up multiple bills to cull telework flexibility 

The 119th Congress has started early on reintroducing or debuting new plans to reduce telework capabilities at federal agencies.

Roughly two weeks into a new session, the 119th Congress is continuing to forecast new restrictions on federal employee teleworking as a legislative priority for several Republican members.

Many of the bills emerging since the new Congress took office on Jan. 3, are relaunches of legislative efforts that didn’t advance in previous sessions, such as Rep. Dan Newhouse’s, R-Wash., Federal Employee Return to Work Act (H.R. 236) and its Senate companion, (S. 27) from Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La. 

Other bills, like Sen. Joni Ernst’s, R-Iowa, Requiring Effective Management and Oversight of Teleworking Employees Act (S. 21), are new efforts that propose to monitor the data of teleworking employees as a performance-monitoring practice. 

The legislation coincides with the anticipated efforts of the incoming Trump administration to address telework as part of its broader campaign to make the federal government more efficient and its workforce smaller. 

Here’s a rundown of the bills introduced so far:

The Federal Employee Return to Work Act (H.R. 236), sponsored by Rep. Dan Newhouse, R-Wash., Senate version by (S. 27) Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La. 

The legislation would bar federal employees who spend at least one day per week on telework from receiving the locality pay based on their official work station location, but would not apply to employees with a disability and a reasonable accommodation, Foreign Service members Federal law enforcement or active duty Armed Service members. 

Newhouse introduced the bill previously in October, where it stalled. Cassidy’s version fared little better, though it was introduced in August 2024, it never made it out of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.  

The renewed bills join another revived Cassidy proposal, the Federal Employee Locality Accountability in Retirement Act, which the senator said in a statement that he was reintroducing after an August 2024 version didn’t make it out of committee. That bill would remove locality pay from annuity calculations under the Federal Employees Retirement System.

The Return to Work Act (H.R. 107), sponsored by Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz.

Biggs is back with legislation that would require federal agencies to wind back their telework policies to the versions in place on Dec. 31, 2019. The Arizona Republican first introduced the legislation in 2022 and again in January 2023, each time, the bill failed to make it out of committee. 

The Requiring Effective Management and Oversight of Teleworking Employees Act (S. 21), sponsored by Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa. 

Ernst, who has been an outspoken critic of current federal telework practices, introduced legislation on Jan. 7 that would require agencies to measure the login data and network traffic from teleworking employees to monitor how many times they log in and the length of time they are connected. 

The senator paired the legislation with two other bills drafted in an effort to help relocate federal employees outside the National Capital Region.   

The Telework Reform Act (S. 3015), sponsored by Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla.

On Tuesday, Lankford reintroduced legislation that he had previously cosponsored with former Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz., in October 2023, that doesn't seek to reduce telework, but instead proposes to codify the Office of Personnel Management's definitions of telework and remote work and offers agencies other flexibilities in support of the practice. 

This includes requiring agencies "to renew their telework and remote work agreements on an annual basis, including a process by which workers and supervisors review whether employees’ duties and performance or the agency’s needs have changed."

The bill would also require annual telework training for employees and new reporting requirements for agencies. The legislation previously cleared the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee in May 2024 in a 9-2 vote and was placed on the Senate legislative calendar in December, but didn't advance to a floor vote. 

The legislation comes as leaders from the president-elect’s non-governmental commission, the Department of Government Efficiency, have previously cited telework practices as one of their identified targets.