Proposed “Schedule Policy/Career” Rule is Open For Comment Now, and If Implemented Could Significantly Change How Decisions Are Made
Our government depends on objective, evidence-based, information to make the best policy. From national defense to our everyday quality of life, Americans depend on highly specialized government professionals doing research, gathering data, analyzing results, and delivering services. We depend on people doing this work, making the best decisions they can, without fear or favor. That objectivity is key to their work.
Right now there’s a threat to government professionals’ ability to do their jobs: The Proposed Rule on Improving Performance, Accountability and Responsiveness in the Civil Service, also known as Schedule Policy/Career. If adopted, this rule will change the employment relationship for a significant number of federal employees, depending on the agencies’ reclassification determinations. It changes them to “at will” employees, stripping them of civil service protections if they are in positions that affect policy.
On the surface, changing a federal employee’s status seems like simply an administrative change. But, the reason Americans want federal employees with career longevity isn’t just for all their accumulated knowledge and expertise; it is to insulate our system from the shocks and cold-starts that come with constant turnover. When we introduce “at-will” employment to government employees, we also introduce the potential for environments where people are more concerned about self-preservation than service to others.
What makes this problematic, and even potentially dangerous, is that the Proposed Rule has few guidelines for agencies to determine what positions “influence policy” and therefore go into this new schedule. “Schedule Policy/Career” (“Schedule PC”) rescinds civil servant employment protections, placing unnecessary and undesirable political pressure on highly specialized scientific and technical career professionals serving in government. Assigning federal employees to this status could foster an environment of fear when reporting data that is viewed as politically incorrect or inconvenient. For these reasons FAS believes this could have an outsized, negative impact on scientific and technical research in particular. Read our full policy statement here; we encourage citizens to submit public comment here through May 23rd, when the window for comment closes.
How might a change like this proposed rule make it difficult to keep, or even do, one’s job? How might this be damaging not to just one person, but to our government’s capacity to pursue necessary scientific and technical research?
Picture yourself an industrial hygienist, a person tasked with evaluating workplace safety, at a nuclear power research facility. You are a federal employee newly placed in the Policy/Career Schedule because it has been determined that your job affects policy. Through your work testing the safety of new nuclear generator technologies, you uncover serious vulnerabilities that would require safety equipment and protocols. If you make the recommendation to implement safety changes, you know that this will likely delay power deployment and increase costs. However, you are working in an administration that has policies, written and unwritten, to accelerate nuclear technology development, even if it includes taking greater risks in deployment. What would you choose to do? If you were working as a Schedule P/C there might be immense pressure to drop safety recommendations to speed power delivery. You are now in a position to either bring this information forward and potentially risk your job or hold back or downplay this information and keep your job.
Consider a few more examples of how this shift in classification could permanently alter the way in which federal employees are incentivized. Do you want them looking out only for themselves, or for the larger mission and for the health and wellbeing of the nation? Do you want them to have the freedom to present challenging data, or would you prefer they meekly do whatever serves the immediate needs of their individual situation even if it causes long term or widespread harm?
How do you want the marine biologist to handle this? How about a cybersecurity professional protecting the nation from cyberattacks? How about the statisticians reporting on the health of our economy? How about the pharmacologist testing the safety of your medicines? How about the administrative law judge deciding on Social Security benefits? Each of these federal employees are gathering information and making decisions that affect us. We depend on their objectivity and their forthright, evidence-based delivery of what they find.
If you want better, more effective, more efficient government write a comment to oppose this Proposed Rule before comments close June 7th.