Federal agencies will gradually return to normal operations in parallel with the White House’s three-phase plan to reactivate the national economy as the COVID-19 pandemic recedes, the Trump administration said Monday.
The new guidance does not provide any set schedule for the process, but rather says managers must make decisions on reducing telework and staffing up offices based on factors including geography, personnel guidelines, and guidelines for travel by federal employees and contractors. Reopening steps would be made in alignment with corresponding decisions by state, local, tribal, and territorial governments, “while also accounting for agency operational needs, as appropriate and applicable.”
“Given the diversity of Federal workforce missions, geographic locations and the needs of individuals within the workforce itself, this transition will require continued diligence and flexibility from Federal agencies and the Federal workforce,” according to a memorandum to federal agency heads from Russell Vought, acting director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, and Michael Rigas, acting director of the Office of Personnel Management.
So far, agencies are not saying much about how they will approach this process. An industry source said he spoke with senior Energy Department officials this week, but they did not want to discuss reopening.
The Office of Environmental Management did not comment by deadline Friday on how it is addressing the guidance.
There were over 2.1 million full-time civilian federal employees in 2019, not including U.S. Postal Service personnel. About 85% of them work outside Washington, D.C.
The majority of staff at federal offices in Washington and around the nation have been working remotely since March to curb the spread of novel coronavirus 2019.
Only mission-critical federal personnel are going into offices, such as employees who work with classified material that cannot be brought home, or whose responsibilities require use of a sensitive compartmented information facility, or SCIF, the industry source noted.
Work at Department of Energy nuclear weapons and cleanup sites has been limited to essential operations. This generally amounts to maintaining emergency crews, and regulatory monitoring to ensure compliance with government safety and environmental standards. Little work on big construction or demolition is taking place.
As of Friday afternoon, 828,441 cases of COVID-19 had been confirmed in the United States, with 46,379 deaths, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Federal documents issued early this month warned that lifting all social distancing measures could lead to over 300,000 deaths, NPR and the Center for Public Integrity reported earlier this week.
Bringing federal workers back to their offices will be a complex process, the source said. Many children are now being homeschooled and schools will not necessarily reopen during this academic year. Some employees are over age 70; managers will need to avoid endangering a small, but vulnerable population of workers without discriminating against them.
The White House on April 17 rolled out its “Opening Up America Again” guidelines. It urges state and local leaders to hold off on widespread opening of businesses until, in part, a two-week “downward trajectory” in both confirmed cases of COVID-19 and influenza-like illnesses. That would open the gate for individuals and employers to move toward normal activities, in three phases.
The process would work like this:
- Phase One would be for states and regions that meet the initial gating criteria. Vulnerable individuals are advised to continue sheltering in place, while others are urged to maintain social distancing and avoiding congregating in groups of more than 10. Employers would encourage telework, bring employees back in phases, bar personnel from common areas, and keep nonessential travel to a minimum. Certain employers, such as schools and bars, would remain closed, and high-traffic businesses such as concert venues and gyms would have to sustain physical distancing and other safety measures.
- Phase Two is for states and regions that have met the gating criteria two times without signs of a rebound in infections. Vulnerable individuals would remain sheltered in place, with others still employing social distancing but group sizes up to 50 people. Non-essential travel would be allowed. Employers would still be urged to promote telework and to close common areas. Businesses that had been closed in the first phase could reopen, but with social distancing in effect.
- Phase Three covers states and regions that have passed the gating criteria three times without any indication of a disease rebound. Vulnerable individuals could interact with the public and there would be no limit on groups sizes. There would be no restrictions for on-site staffing at work locations and capacity restrictions would be lifted for businesses such as bars and gyms.
“In general, the Federal Government will calibrate its transitional strategy to return to normal operations to the Phase of a state, county, region, or metropolitan-area determined by the state assessment,” according to Vought and Rigas.
Telework would be ramped down over time, with mandatory and maximum telework directives lifted while avoiding endangering workers who are particularly at risk of infection. Reopening a facility for full staffing would require screening to prevent entry by sick or higher-risk individuals, ensuring buildings are cleaned, and maintaining social distancing and availability of hygiene supplies.
Along with its headquarter’s offices in Washington, D.C., DOE’s Office of Environmental Management manages 16 cleanup sites around the nation. That could mean coordinating reopening with 16 states, at least 16 counties, and any number of municipalities.
How this all will actually function, and over what period of time, remains to be seen and will almost certainly not be conducted uniformly across the nation. President Donald Trump on Sunday himself urged residents of three states to “liberate” themselves, seemingly against the continued restrictions imposed by their Democratic Party governors.
Many state and local leaders are warning against a rush to reopen that could undo efforts to control the disease. Some states, notably Georgia, meanwhile are moving quickly to reopen businesses – not waiting on the gating period advised by the White House.
Predictions Vary on DOE Nuclear Cleanup Sites
Currently, on-site workforces at Energy Department cleanup jobs are generally no more than 25% of normal levels. Educated guesses on when sites would return to normal staffing varied anywhere from mid-May to July, among sources willing to speculate on the matter.
United Steelworkers Local 1-689 President John Knauf, who represents union personnel at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio, said he has not received any explicit ramp-up information from the Energy Department. However, Knauf said he would not be surprised to see it occur in mid-May.
The union official thinks DOE and the contractors made the right call in reducing on-site staffing to bare bones levels. “You can never prove the negative,” said Knauf, who believes many cases of COVID-19 are being prevented by keeping most people home for the time being.
Personally, Knauf said he would have misgivings about a full-scale return to work at DOE sites until testing for the virus is more readily available. The ideal would be something akin to a home pregnancy test kit, where individuals could discover the results within minutes, he added
In communities near the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, opinions are “mixed” about when to return to work, said Savannah River Community Reuse Organization Executive Director Rick McLeod. Some people in the complex are eager to get back on the job site now, while others are wary about health risks associated with possibly returning too soon, he said
Whenever cleanup sites return to full operations, daily routines will likely be significantly different, sources seemed to agree. Expect more use of social distancing, personal protective equipment, and other precautions at the Savannah River Site and other locations in the weapons complex, according to McLeod.
An executive with an Energy Department contractor understands there is a significant amount of discussion and planning going on inside the Office of Environmental Management about when and how to start bringing significant numbers of people back on-site. The industry executive expects it to occur in phases, and to vary by sites depending on their regional infection rates.
As far as any schedule, the industry executive’s hunch is that it will happen “slowly” over mid-May to July, with a number of exceptions being made for people in higher risk populations. Public health officials tend to say people age 60 and up, and those who have gone through major illnesses like cancer that might have affected their immune system.
ExchangeMonitor Reporter Wayne Barber contributed to this article.
