Letter: Pro-telework policies for feds overdue

A reader says allowing feds to telework is a way to minimize highway traffic, save money on government building space and provide fed commuters with relief from gas prices.

Regarding "House approves bill to expand telework": It is about time that the federal government established a work at home enhancement for federal workers.  That's why we left Maryland.  The traffic was crazy.  All the federal working and contractors working for the federal government on their daily compute clogged up the highway. 

I went back to my brother-in-law’s funeral and it took three hours to get from Baltimore to D.C. due to the daily compute time with federal workers getting off work to return home. 

You can't tell me that with the age of technology they can't do 99 percent of the work at home.  Which would be a saving on gas much less the space that the government rents to keep all those people.  By working at home they could share working space with other employees instead of everyone having offices, which are extremely costly to rent and to heat and air condition. 

It is also hard on employees having to pay the high cost for gas.  I guess they will be getting a 50 percent cost-of-living increase since everything has to go up due to oil.  It would be one way to stop using more gas and to stop the high demand for gas. 

Why should every other company having people work from home and the federal government the policy and law folks not doing their part to save and reserve gas. The federal government is the largest employer in the United States, so if they had a mandatory telework program we wouldn't have the high prices and demand for gas that we have today.  Great article. 

Again, it's long overdue.  Keep on this one because it effects everyone person.  As I watch the stock market go crazy today and oil prices go up.  I was so happy to read this article.  The worldwide demand for oil is 84.1 million barrels of oil a day.  Current production level is 80, so, it is not going to stop going up until the demand goes down.  So the federal government's policy is creating the demand because these workers were required to report to work everyday to a specific rented space.  WHY?

 Sharon Kilcrease

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