WASHINGTON - Today, House Committee on Oversight and Reform Ranking Member James Comer (R-Ky.) and Subcommittee on Government Operations Ranking Member Jody Hice (R-Ga.) sent a letter to the Director of U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM), Kiran Ahuja, Acting Director of the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), Shalanda Young, and Administrator for the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA), Robin Carnahan requesting further information regarding the potential impact of President Biden’s sweeping vaccine mandate for federal employees. OPM, OMB and GSA provided a staff-level briefing on Biden’s problematic executive orders, but Committee Republicans still have numerous questions that remain unanswered.
“OPM, OMB, and GSA explicitly intend to enforce compliance with the President’s vaccine mandates with as few exemptions as possible. Through these orders, the President and his administration are mandating that virtually all federal employees and employees of federal contractors be vaccinated or risk losing their livelihoods. Furthermore, federal contractors must ensure their workforces are vaccinated or risk losing their contracts. OPM, OMB, and GSA believe there will be minimal employee attrition due to these mandates. They did not, however, substantiate the reasons for this belief. If they are wrong about attrition from either category of employees, they risk significant disruption of agency missions, major adverse consequences for workers, families and businesses, and the breach of an untold number of federal contracts," wrote the lawmakers.
“The President’s authoritarian and extreme mandates infringe upon American freedoms, are unprecedented, and may ultimately be deemed unlawful. Meanwhile, the rates of new COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths in the United States have been declining substantially and steadily from their peaks around the date the President issued these mandates. It is entirely possible that by the time the mandates can be fully implemented, the alleged predicates for their imposition will have dissipated. The mandates will be another example of President Biden’s sluggish response to the virus but more consequential since many Americans will be forced to forego their livelihood and in some cases their retirement funds," concluded the lawmakers.
To assist Committee Republicans in understanding the impact of President Biden’s vaccine mandate, the lawmakers are seeking information such as the current number of vaccinated federal workers, documentation tracking federal employee terminations and disciplinary actions and information on the design, implementation and enforcement of the mandates.
Read the full letter to Director Ahuja, Acting Director Young and Administrator Carnahan here.
