With his first term coming to a close, Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Long Beach, announced Thursday the passage of his first two bills, both aimed at making government more efficient.
This includes House Bill 5301, the “Eliminate Useless Reports Act,” which removes the need for federal agencies to file outdated or duplicative reports in their annual budget justifications; and H.B. 5300, the “GAO Inspector General Parity Act,” which strengthens the federal watchdog office by granting it an independent general counsel and allowing it send its budget requests directly to Congress.
The two bills, both backed with bipartisan support come as the 118th Congress has continued an unproductive stretch. Since last year, it’s passed less than 160 bills, including 27 in 2023 – the fewest in a given year since 1931.
“Regardless of the gridlock we’ve faced this Congress, I’m glad folks could come together for the American people,” Garcia wrote in a release.
Both bills aim to streamline government and cut waste, at a time when criticisms of federal inefficiency have spiked.
“We can all agree that our outdated government processes waste time and resources without providing value, which is why we must continue to push for legislation that makes our agencies more efficient and responsible,” Garcia wrote.
According to Garcia’s office, nearly 600 reports have been submitted to Congress since 2023.
These reports come from nearly every federal agency and program and can range from a few to hundreds of pages. Despite the work that goes into publishing, these reports often go unread, are provided without direction or well after Congress needs them.
“And so you can imagine with endless, useless reports, they are, one, costing taxpayers an enormous amount of money, but, two, the amount of time that we’re putting on our civil servants in our workforce,” Garcia said
It was originally tucked in as an amendment by Sen. Jon Ossoff from Georgia in S.2073, but was later removed after the bill became the Kids Online Safety and Privacy Act, which aims to add safeguards around children’s use of the internet.
The bill was one of 50 signed into law on Christmas Eve, along with legislation that prohibits hazing in higher education and makes the bald eagle the nation’s official bird.
H.R. 5300, meanwhile, was signed into law by President Biden on Nov. 25, 2024.
Garcia said this was inspired by the 2018 voter-approved Long Beach Measure AAA, which amended the city charter to allow the city auditor to conduct independent audits of city departments, boards and commissions with increased access to reports and contracts.
In a release, the congressman said this will ensure that the GAO can more effectively pursue its mission of detecting waste, fraud, and abuse in government operations.
It comes a year after he introduced the “FLASH Act” Fast-Track Logistics for Acquiring Supplies in a Hurry Act of 2023, to help the Department of Health and Human Services cut through red tape to quickly buy critical medical materials during emergencies — from PPE to tests and vaccines — as well as the critical materials needed to make and distribute medical supplies.
Ahead of his Jan. 20 swearing-in, President-elect Donald Trump has floated the idea of a new Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, headed by billionaire Elon Musk and former Republican candidate Vivek Ramaswamy.
In interviews on the department, Musk has assured it will “send shockwaves through the system.”
Garcia has been a vocal critic of Musk’s ideas and the incoming Trump administration.
“These bills are examples of actually how you make government more efficient, unlike what Elon Musk is proposing,” Garcia said. “Which is essentially to slash the federal government so dramatically and to redistribute people’s hard-earned working people’s hard-earned money and wealth back into the pockets of the billionaire class.”