EXCLUSIVE Biden administration bizarrely spins empty office epidemic as a way to SAVE energy...but taxpayers footing a $5 billion per year bill aren't fooled

Daily Mail ^ | 5/06/24 | Jon Michael Raasch

[Libloather]

The Biden administration is being ridiculed for hypocrisy as it touts 'energy savings' at federal buildings that are nearly empty of workers - and wasting billions of taxpayer dollars.

Energy Sec. Jennifer Granholm recently celebrated the Biden administration's efforts to reach net-zero emissions from federal buildings by establishing a rule outlawing the use of fossil fuels on-site.

'The Biden-Harris Administration is practicing what we preach,' Granholm said in a statement about the rule. 'Just as we are helping households and businesses across the nation save money by saving energy, we are doing the same in our own federal buildings.'

But Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, is calling out Granholm for not sharing the whole truth.

She says that federal buildings are still hemorrhaging energy and cash as many government employees continue working from home while the lights remain on.

'If the administration is serious about practicing what it preaches on energy conservation, instead of spending more money, you could instead stop paying to heat, cool, light, and operate the ghost town of vacant buildings all around Washington, D.C.,' Ernst wrote in a Monday letter to Granholm exclusively obtained by DailyMail.com.

Ernst argued in her letter that the new rule would cost taxpayers money to refit federal buildings reliant on fossil-fuel energy sources while hardly any government employees actually work from those locations.

'This sounds more like another excuse to spend taxpayer dollars on a Green New Deal jobs program, since the Biden administration is wasting money and energy operating empty office buildings all over Washington, D.C. as bureaucrats continue working from home,' she wrote.

The Iowan has long been advocating for federal workers to return to in-office work after it was revealed in December that all government agency offices have not been over 50 percent capacity in months.

[Libloather]

Brandonomics.

[Sirius Lee]

The empty space in his head saves a lot of energy that would normally be required for metabolism.

[Brooklyn Attitude]

I was hoping the empty buildings were due to the elimination of federal workers but I knew that couldn’t be true. Why are these slackers still working from home?

[maddog55]

We did CWS Fridays on many of the bases I worked. Compressed work schedule. You did 10hrs a day and had every other Friday off for half the base workers then the other half had the other Friday off.

The intent was to save money on utilities etc. the stupidity behind that is staggering. You run shifts 2hrs longer so twice the people 2hrs every day and all facilities on every Friday had half the people full utilities running.

Great work schedule but they saved nothing.