Federal Customer Service Enhancement Act

Floor Speech

FEDERAL CUSTOMER SERVICE ENHANCEMENT ACT -- (House of Representatives - July 23, 2007)

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Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

First of all, I would like to commend Chairman Waxman and my colleague from New York, my longtime friend (Mr. Towns), with whom, as he noted, we share the same birthday, for bringing the Federal Customer Service Enhancement Act to the floor today. I also appreciate their efforts as it moved through committee, and I certainly want to thank him for accommodating comments and concerns we raised during the process. As Chairman Towns noted, he has included and the chairman has included in this legislation concerns that the gentlewoman from North Carolina (Ms. Foxx) raised and also has included legislation that I introduced, H.R. 2324, in this bill. As a cosponsor of this legislation, I fully support this bill, and I want to commend the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Cuellar) for his hard work on this, and we will hear from him in just a few minutes.

The Oversight and Government Reform Committee has always sought to improve the performance of the Federal Government, and as anyone who has ever worked in the private sector knows, customer service is the lifeblood of any organization.

As we often look to the private sector for best practices, I think it is important, Mr. Speaker, that we in the Federal Government are able to capture data on how each and every agency is doing in regard to customer service. The administration continues to work with us on this bill so no unnecessary bureaucratic hurdles are created.

This bill recognizes the importance of the agencies within the Federal Government to be responsive to their various constituencies and for the government to remain accountable to the American taxpayer. Responsiveness and accountability are the things that really are behind this legislation.

I particularly appreciate section 2 in which the Director of the Office of Management and Budget shall develop standards and measures of customer service performance. I think that is very important and is a first. It has not been done before within the Federal Government. And especially, also, the parts in section 3, which incorporate much of my legislation and require customer service information such as a mailing address, phone number, and e-mail address. It requires the appointment of a customer relations representative. And one thing I have noticed, I have gotten letters from Federal Departments and agencies in the past, and there has been no mailing address, no phone number on there, almost as if the people within that Department or agency really didn't want to be bothered by their bosses, bothered by the American people calling on them or finding out how to contact them, and making it very difficult for many people to do so.

Section 5 is another good section of this bill and really is the result of the work of the gentlewoman from North Carolina (Ms. Foxx), and that includes some incentives in there to do better jobs. Bonuses to Federal employees will now be based, at least in part, on customer service.

So with all of these things, I think this is good legislation. I ask my colleagues to join me in support of H.R. 404.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Speaker, I would like to just simply once again thank Chairman Towns and also thank the primary author of this legislation, Mr. Cuellar, for their work in bringing this bill to the floor.

I urge my colleagues to support what I think is very worthwhile and timely legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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