Markup Wrap Up: Committee Advances Legislation to Reauthorize Critical Drug Programs, Address Use of Official Time for Union Activities, Streamline Permitting, and More

WASHINGTON—Today, the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability held a markup to consider a series of bills to address transparency in the federal government, safeguard American taxpayer dollars, and streamline government processes.

“Today, the Oversight Committee introduced commonsense measures to remedy a number of issues that will improve service for American taxpayers, make federal agencies more efficient, increase transparency within the federal government, and more. We are pleased to report these bills favorably out of Committee and that many of these bills were drafted on a bipartisan basis,” said Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.)

The following bills were reported favorably to the House by the Committee:

H.R. 3642, the Executive Branch Accountability and Transparency Act of 2023, Rep. Nick Langworthy (R-N.Y.) and Rep. Jill Tokuda (D-Hawaii): This legislation requires the Office of Government Ethics (OGE) to create a public centralized database for ethic records of high-level, non-career political appointees.

“It’s been said that sunlight is the best disinfectant. That’s why preventing conflicts of interest in the federal workforce requires public access to and scrutiny of financial and ethics disclosure,” said Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.). “The Executive Branch Accountability and Transparency Act represents an opportunity to continue to update the federal ethics disclosures regime in a way that eases public access to non-career federal employee filings,”

“…Ethics records should be readily available for public scrutiny, not scattered across the obscure corners of a government website,” said Rep. Nick Langworthy (R-N.Y.)“I am proud to share that H.R. 3642 enjoys support from a bipartisan coalition of members, many of whom are members of this Committee.”

H.R. 9598, the Office of National Drug Control Policy Reauthorization Act of 2024, Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) and Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.): This legislation reauthorizes the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) and maintains critical grant programs working to keep drugs out of communities across the country.

“Overdose deaths remain near record highs. This is an ongoing, deadly, national emergency that affects every community in our nation. […] H.R. 9598 represents an important reauthorization effort in the House Oversight Committee’s jurisdiction,” said Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.).

H.R. 9592, the Federal Register Modernization Act, Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.) and Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Mass.): This bill revises the authorizing provisions of the Federal Register and the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) to replace requirements that document are printed each day.

“Congress has recently taken steps to make the Federal Register more efficient by passing the Federal Register Printing Savings Act in 2017. However, additional reforms are still needed to alleviate the Government Publishing Office of the 1935 laws requirement to print and distribute paper copies of the Federal Register each day,” said Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.).

“The Modernization Act updates critical pieces of our federal infrastructure, the Federal Register and the Code of Federal Regulations to align with the technological realties of today’s world,” said Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.)

H.R. 9597, the Federal Acquisition Security Council Improvement Act of 2024, Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) and Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.): This bill strengthens the governing structure of the Federal Acquisition Security Council (FASC) by enhancing the authorities and operational support for FASC to ensure it can achieve its mission.

“Our foreign adversaries have been using information technology and telecommunications equipment to infiltrate and exploit the systems of the U.S. government’s federal agencies,” said Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.). “In other words, the FASC Improvement Act consolidates the past six years of Congressional legislation addressing national security procurement risk by reforming established processes and expanding authorities. We need to ensure the Executive Branch can properly act to protect the federal supply chain and agency information systems from the farthest technology influence from foreign adversaries.”

H.R. 9595, the Federal Improvement in Technology (FIT) Procurement Act, Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Mo.): This legislation improves federal procurement by deploying reforms aimed at reducing administrative burden and training the acquisition workforce.

“The FIT Procurement Act streamlines the procurement process for small businesses and small transactions and will enable the government to take full advantage of commercial best practices,” said Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.)

“This bill would improve federal procurement by deploying a number of reforms aimed at reducing administrative burden and training the acquisition workforce. The reforms in this bill would streamline and simplify the federal procurement process and ultimately save taxpayer dollars by reducing agency acquisition costs,” said Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Mo.).

H.R. 9566, the Source Code Harmonization and Reuse in Information Technology (SHARE IT) Act, Rep. Nick Langworthy (R-N.Y.): This bill requires federal agencies to share custom-developed code government wide or publicly.

“To reduce redundant and unnecessary costs, once one agency invests in developing custom code, that code should be made available to other agencies looking to solve a similar problem,” said Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.).

“This is a straightforward and commonsense measure that would require federal agencies to share custom-developed software code with one another,” said Rep. Nick Langworthy (R-N.Y.). “Without code sharing we see redundancy as agencies pay contractors to recreate solutions the government has already funded elsewhere.”

H.R. 9596, the Value Over Cost Act, Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) and Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.): This legislation changes a requirement pertaining to how the General Service Administration’s (GSA) Multiple Award Schedule (MAS) program awards contracts and how agencies place orders against those contracts.

“By allowing GSA to choose to award contracts based on best value, this bill puts the Multiple Award Schedule program on a level playing field with other acquisition procedures. This choice maximizes the federal government’s ability to procure modern technology and helps empower the small business community,” said Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.).

“Instead of just looking at the initial price tag, the federal government should be fiscally responsible and also consider the contractual value of products and services over time. It fits in the best interest of the federal government. My bill provides this necessary flexibility to do just that,” said Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.).

H.R. 5536, the Grant Transparency Act of 2023, Rep. Russell Fry (R-S.C.) and Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas): This bill requires federal agencies to disclose the selection criteria for grant applicants.

“Each year, hundreds of billions of dollars in federal grants are awarded to improve education, community development, job training, transportation, and other initiatives across the country. Despite this, applying for federal grants can be a complicated process, especially for smaller organizations or new grant applicants which may be unaware of how selection criteria are weighted,” said Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.).

“The Grant Transparency Act would ensure that these applicants can better understand that criteria being evaluated in the application process for federal grants,” said Rep. Russell Fry (R-S.C.).

H.R. 9593, the Manager Attitudes and Notions According to Government Employee Responses (MANAGER) Act, Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas): This legislation requires annual surveys of federal employee managers.

“Federal managers are vital to the mission success of agencies. Their voices should be heard,” said Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.).

“We’re trying to hear feedback about their ability to affectively mature, get in and manage, and make sure the culture of the federal government employee is protected,” said Rep. Sessions (R-Texas).

H.R. 8784, the Full Responsibility and Expedited Enforcement (FREE) Act, Rep. Celeste Maloy (R-Utah) and Rep. Mary Peltola (D-Alaska): This bill streamlines federal permitting government-wide.

“Federal permitting has been far too slow for far too long,” said Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) “The FREE Act promises relief for all permit applicants, whether for infrastructure, home construction, critical minerals, mining, farming, ranching, or a host of other worthy activities.”

H.R. 9594, the Protecting Taxpayers Wallet Act, Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.): This bill would charge federal labor organizations for their use of agency resources as well as any official time.

“This bill would shift the financial burden of supporting such official time away from the taxpayers to the federal employee union organizations. It would shock American taxpayers that federal employees are being paid to work substantial hours in support of public sector unions instead of the agency operations, missions, and programs they were hired for in the first place,” said Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.).

“This bill remedies a longstanding injustice: Taxpayers bearing the financial burden of federal employees being paid to conduct union activities when they would otherwise be performing their jbo responsibility as public servants – what they were hired to do,” said Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.).

H.R. 825, the Banning Operations and Leases with the Illegitimate Venezuelan Authoritarian Regime (BOLIVAR) Act, Rep. Mike Waltz (R-Fla.) and Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (R-Fla.) This bill temporarily prohibits, with exceptions, an executive agency from entering into a contract with any person that it determines knowingly engages in business operations with the Maduro regime in Venezuela:

“The American government should always stand in solidarity with the long-suffering people of Venezuela and against this dictatorship,” said Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.).

“If we want to get to the root causes of a migration crisis and the illegal immigration crisis that’s facing the United States, this gets at it,” said Rep. Mike Waltz (R-Fla.). “I think we need to send a very strong message that any foreign company that wants to work with the United States government needs to think twice about working with the Maduro regime.”

Post Office Naming Bills.

Watch the markup here.