Border Patrol Agent Pay Reform Amendments Act of 2018

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. RUSSELL. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 5896) to amend title 5, United States Code, to modify the authority for pay and work schedules of border patrol agents, and for other purposes, as amended.

The Clerk read the title of the bill.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. Speaker, I urge support of H.R. 5896, the Border Patrol Agent Pay Reform Amendments Act of 2018, introduced by my friend, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hurd).

The U.S. Border Patrol is vital to the Nation's security interests. Border Patrol agents secure the international land border and the coastal waters of the United States. They protect the American public from dangerous people and dangerous materials.

Previous human capital management systems at the agency resulted in uncertain hours and overtime pay abuses. In 2014, Congress passed the Border Patrol Agency Reform Act to create a new pay system. This new system was designed to help the Border Patrol meet its mission by increasing the number of hours worked by agents, providing more reliable schedules and paychecks for agents and saving taxpayers around $100 million, annually.

Since enactment, several organizations have identified problems with the law's implementation, including U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the Office of Personnel Management, and the National Border Patrol Council.

H.R. 5896 seeks to address some of these implementation changes. It gives the Border Patrol additional flexibility to meet its staffing needs at specific locations. It removes the disincentive for agents to receive advanced training by allowing them to incur an overtime debt in lieu of a decrease in pay and by raising the amount of training an agent can receive before the debt accrues. H.R. 5896 allows agents to apply compensatory time off accrued for travel toward the overtime debt.

To prevent gaming the system, the bill retains limitations on overtime pay during an agent's control period, which is the period of highest pay, generally just prior to retirement. However, the bill switches from the current system, where the CBP controls the agent's schedule, to a method which lets the agent work any of these three pay levels, but with only a portion of their overtime pay computed into their retirement.

The bill allows agents to take leave without pay, often used for fulfilling National Guard and Reserve training requirements, without incurring an overtime debt that they must make up, as they do under the current system.

It allows Border Patrol agents at the level 2 and basic rates of pay to work compressed schedules, as they did prior to the 2014 pay system change. Agents will still work the required number of overtime hours ordered under the Border Patrol Agent Pay Reform Act.

Finally, the bill makes a series of final changes resulting from OPM and CBP experiences in implementing the law.

I would like to thank Representative Hurd for his enormous work on this important legislation. In addition, I would like to thank the CBP, OPM, and the National Border Patrol Council for working with the committee to get the bill where it is today.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. RUSSELL. Mr. Speaker, I urge adoption of the bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source