II
119THCONGRESS
1
STSESSION S. 21
To require each Executive department to establish policies and collect informa-
tion regarding teleworking employees of the Executive department, and
for other purposes.
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
JANUARY7, 2025
Ms. E
RNSTintroduced the following bill; which was read twice and referred
to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
A BILL
To require each Executive department to establish policies
and collect information regarding teleworking employees
of the Executive department, and for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-1
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 2
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 3
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Requiring Effective 4
Management and Oversight of Teleworking Employees 5
Act’’ or the ‘‘REMOTE Act’’. 6
SEC. 2. UTILIZATION DATA AND REPORTING. 7
(a) D
EFINITIONS.—In this section: 8
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(1) AGENCY OFFICE.—The term ‘‘agency of-1
fice’’ means any office space— 2
(A) that is owned or leased by an Execu-3
tive department; and 4
(B) in which not less than 1 employee of 5
the Executive department described in subpara-6
graph (A), or a contract employee with respect 7
to that Executive department, regularly per-8
forms the duties of that employee or contract 9
employee, as applicable. 10
(2) B
UDGET JUSTIFICATION MATERIALS .—The 11
term ‘‘budget justification materials’’ has the mean-12
ing given the term in section 3(b)(2)(A) of the Fed-13
eral Funding Accountability and Transparency Act 14
of 2006 (31 U.S.C. 6101 note). 15
(3) C
OMPUTER NETWORK .—The term ‘‘com-16
puter network’’ means software or a system— 17
(A) that is operated by or for an Executive 18
department; and 19
(B) to which an employee of the Executive 20
department described in subparagraph (A), or a 21
contract employee with respect to that Execu-22
tive department, is required to be digitally con-23
nected in order to work on behalf of that Exec-24
utive department, such as to access the email 25
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account, user account, or file systems provided 1
by the Executive department to that employee 2
or contract employee, as applicable. 3
(4) C
ONTRACT EMPLOYEE .—The term ‘‘con-4
tract employee’’ means an individual who— 5
(A) is not an employee of an Executive de-6
partment; 7
(B) is an employee of an entity that has 8
entered into a contract with an Executive de-9
partment; and 10
(C) works pursuant to the contract de-11
scribed in subparagraph (B). 12
(5) E
XECUTIVE DEPARTMENT .—The term ‘‘Ex-13
ecutive department’’ has the meaning given the term 14
in section 101 of title 5, United States Code. 15
(6) L
OGIN.—The term ‘‘login’’ means the act 16
by which an employee of an Executive department, 17
or a contract employee with respect to an Executive 18
department, makes a digital connection to a com-19
puter network with respect to that Executive depart-20
ment. 21
(7) N
ETWORK TRAFFIC.—The term ‘‘network 22
traffic’’ means the volume and flow of data across 23
and within a computer network. 24
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(8) TELEWORKING EMPLOYEE .—The term 1
‘‘teleworking employee’’ means an employee of an 2
Executive department, or a contract employee with 3
respect to an Executive department, who is— 4
(A) working on behalf of the Executive de-5
partment and not detailed to a different Fed-6
eral entity; and 7
(B) covered by a telework agreement. 8
(9) W
ORKING REMOTELY .—The term ‘‘working 9
remotely’’ means, with respect to a teleworking em-10
ployee, that the teleworking employee is performing 11
work duties on a computer while located physically 12
outside of an agency office with respect to the appli-13
cable Executive department (or, with respect to a 14
contract employee, outside of office space owned or 15
leased by the entity that employs the contract em-16
ployee). 17
(b) D
ATACOLLECTION.—The head of each Executive 18
department shall— 19
(1) not later than 180 days after the date of 20
enactment of this Act, establish— 21
(A) policies requiring the recording of the 22
login activity of, and the network traffic that is 23
generated by, each teleworking employee with 24
respect to that Executive department; and 25
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(B) directives for managers of teleworking 1
employees with respect to that Executive de-2
partment to periodically review the network 3
traffic generated by each such teleworking em-4
ployee while that teleworking employee is work-5
ing remotely; and 6
(2) not later than 1 year after the date of en-7
actment of this Act— 8
(A) begin retaining the data described in 9
paragraph (1)(A), which shall include, with re-10
spect to each teleworking employee with respect 11
to that Executive department who is working 12
remotely— 13
(i) the average number of logins made 14
each day by the teleworking employee; 15
(ii) the average daily duration of the 16
connection by the teleworking employee to 17
the applicable computer network; and 18
(iii) the network traffic that such tele-19
working employee generates while working 20
remotely; and 21
(B) establish a policy that the Executive 22
department may dispose of data retained under 23
subparagraph (A) not sooner than 3 years after 24
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the date on which the Executive department 1
collects the data. 2
(c) S
WIPEDDATACOLLECTION.—Beginning on the 3
date that is 180 days after the date of enactment of this 4
Act, the head of each Executive department, with respect 5
to each employee of the Executive department and each 6
contract employee with respect to the Executive depart-7
ment who regularly performs the job duties of the em-8
ployee or contract employee, as applicable, at the head-9
quarters building of the Executive department— 10
(1) shall require that employee or contract em-11
ployee to use a Personal Identity Verification Card 12
or Common Access Card, as applicable, to make a 13
login; 14
(2) shall collect login data by that employee or 15
contract employee using a Personal Identity 16
Verification Card or Common Access Card, as appli-17
cable, which shall include, with respect to the em-18
ployee or contract employee— 19
(A) the average number of logins made 20
each day by the employee or contract employee; 21
(B) the average daily duration of the con-22
nection by the employee or contract employee to 23
the applicable computer network; and 24
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(C) the network traffic that such employee 1
or contract employee generates while working 2
from the headquarters building; 3
(3) shall retain data collected under paragraph 4
(2); and 5
(4) may dispose of data retained under para-6
graph (3) not sooner than 3 years after the date on 7
which the Executive department collects the data. 8
(d) R
EPORT.—With respect to the first fiscal year 9
that begins after the date that is 180 days after the date 10
of enactment of this Act, and with respect to each fiscal 11
year thereafter, the head of each Executive department 12
shall publish the data collected pursuant to subsections 13
(b)(2)(A) and (c)(2) in the budget justification materials 14
of the Executive department in a format that, for the ap-15
plicable fiscal year— 16
(1) protects personally identifiable information; 17
(2) compares the average login rates of tele-18
working employees working remotely on each week-19
day to the total number of teleworking employees 20
approved to be working remotely on each weekday; 21
and 22
(3) compares the average login rates of tele-23
working employees working remotely on each week-24
day to the average login rates of employees working 25
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from the headquarters building of the Executive de-1
partment. 2
SEC. 3. CHIEF HUMAN CAPITAL OFFICER REPORTS. 3
Section 6506(d) of title 5, United States Code, is 4
amended— 5
(1) by amending paragraph (1) to read as fol-6
lows: 7
‘‘(1) I
N GENERAL.—Each year, the Chief 8
Human Capital Officer of each executive agency, in 9
consultation with the Telework Managing Officer of 10
that agency, shall submit a report to the Chair and 11
Vice Chair of the Chief Human Capital Officers 12
Council on agency management efforts to promote 13
the efficient use of telework, which shall include a 14
description of the adverse effects of telework policy 15
on the performance of the executive agency, includ-16
ing any increased incidences of disciplinary actions 17
against employees of the executive agency.’’; 18
(2) by redesignating paragraph (2) as para-19
graph (3); and 20
(3) by inserting after paragraph (1) the fol-21
lowing: 22
‘‘(2) C
OLLECTION AND RETENTION OF REL -23
EVANT INFORMATION .—Not later than 60 days after 24
the date of enactment of the Requiring Effective 25
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Management and Oversight of Teleworking Employ-1
ees Act, the Chief Human Capital Officer of each 2
executive agency shall establish a policy that re-3
quires any manager of an employee of the executive 4
agency who teleworks who revokes the privileges of 5
that employee to telework due to a reason specific to 6
that employee to provide written information to the 7
human capital office of that executive agency (which 8
shall retain that information for a reasonable 9
amount of time after the employee is no longer em-10
ployed by the executive agency) and to the employee 11
regarding the circumstances giving rise to that rev-12
ocation, which shall include— 13
‘‘(A) the name, title, office, years of serv-14
ice, official worksite, and annual rate of basic 15
pay of the employee; 16
‘‘(B) the total number of days that the em-17
ployee teleworked in the 6 work periods imme-18
diately preceding the work period in which the 19
revocation occurred, which shall include an 20
itemized identification of each day on which 21
that employee teleworked during those 6 work 22
periods; 23
‘‘(C) a brief narrative summary of the cir-24
cumstances giving rise to the revocation, with 25
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detail sufficient to confirm the propriety of the 1
revocation under the policies of the executive 2
agency; and 3
‘‘(D) any steps the manager took to dis-4
cipline the employee before carrying out the 5
revocation.’’. 6
Æ
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