Mr. President. Today I rise to discuss the current flexibilities available to agencies in the federal government. The President has called for flexibility to manage the workforce. I agree and have said repeatedly that we must have the right people with the right skills in the right places. I have long been a proponent of providing agencies with the tools they need to better manage their workforce. I agree with the President that agencies need flexibilities to carry out agency missions. However, according to David Walker, Comptroller General of the United States, agencies currently have many of the flexibilities they need.

Current law allows managers to:

--remove a federal employee from his post and suspend him immediately without pay if the head of the agency finds that action necessary in the interests of national security (5 USC 7532,

--swiftly reassign federal employees to fight terrorism and reassign federal employees to similarly graded positions or detail them from other agencies or within the Department and that employees who refuse reassignments or details may be terminated, (5 CFR part 335),

--retrain, reassign and reshape their workforce,

--choose whether to fill a vacant position from the outside or the inside, eliminate positions due to changes in programs, lack of funding, reductions in workload, reorganizations, privatization, "divestiture," or contracting out; establish personnel ceilings, or decide to re-employ a returning worker; determine the job or jobs to be eliminated in the context of a Reduction in Force, and unilaterally reassign employees to vacant positions in the agency,

--have additional management rights including: promotions; adverse actions (suspensions for 14 days or less; suspension for more than 14 days; removals; demotions, reductions in grade or pay); permit the return of a career appointee from the Senior Executive Service (SES) to the GS or another pay system; the power to reassign, transfer, and detail or fire of a career SES employee; determine the substance of a position description, its performance standards of an employee's position, and award (or not award) performance payments,

--decide whether employees have earned pay increases known as "step" increases, based upon performance, and are able to grant employees additional financial "incentive awards" such as performance-based cash awards, special act or service awards, and quality step increases, and

--decide whether to award recruitment, retention, and relocation bonuses worth up to 25% of base salary.

In addition, the Lieberman substitute provides additional flexibilities government-wide. The Voinovich-Akaka amendment, which was included in the Lieberman substitute unanimously by the Governmental Affairs Committee, allows agencies to hire candidates directly and bypass the current requirements under Title 5 once OPM has determined that there is a severe shortage of candidates for the position.

This provision allows agencies to streamline its staffing procedures by authorizing use of an alternative method for selecting new employees instead of the traditional rule of three. This will make the government more competitive with the private sector by improving the federal hiring process. Under the new system, the agency may divide applicants into two or more quality categories based on merit and select any candidate from the highest category while maintaining veterans hiring preference.

The amendment provides government-wide authority for Voluntary Separation Incentive Payments and Voluntary Early Retirement Authority, two provisions currently in place in limited situations. The expansion of this authority would give agencies the flexibility required to reorganize the workforce should an agency need to undergo substantial delayering, transfer of functions, or other substantial workforce reshaping. The provision would allow agencies to reduce high-grade, managerial, or supervisory positions, correct skill imbalances, and reduce operating costs without the loss of full time positions.

To address the impending human capital crisis, the government will need to retain federal employees with institutional knowledge. To assist in this effort, the amendment increases the cap on the total annual compensation of senior executives, Administrative Law Judges, officers of the court, and other senior level positions to allow career executives to receive performance awards and other authorized payments.

The Akaka-Voinovich amendment also helps ensure that we have a world-class federal workforce and can retain talented federal employees who wish to continue their education. This provision reduces restrictions on providing academic degree training to federal employees and requires agencies to facilitate online academic degree training.

As a result of the current flexibilities and those provided in the Lieberman substitute, it is curious why the President continues to demand additional flexibilities. As I have previously stated, studies indicate that the flexibilities at the Federal Aviation Administration and the Internal Revenue Service have not provided the intended results and employee morale is very low. With such uncertainty in additional flexibilties and the great importance of this new agency, I question the need for such a broad grant of power. I believe the existing flexiblities and the Voinovich-Akaka provisions provide agencies the tools that they need to manage effectively their workforce. I urge my colleagues to support the Lieberman substitute.