At the first meeting with Musk and Ramaswamy, Senate DOGE leader Ernst will address government telework abuse.

Since President-elect Trump appointed Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to lead the new agency, Ernst, R-Iowa, has been working with them as the chair of the Senate DOGE Caucus.

During her first Senate DOGE Caucus meeting on Thursday morning, Ernst will present her new proposal and a 60-page report, which Musk and Ramaswamy are expected to attend.

For two years, Ernst has been researching telework misuse and used her findings to propose recommendations to DOGE.

Ernst proposed a bill to move non-security government departments and agencies out of Washington to locations with relevant expertise for their missions.

She suggested legislation to move at least 30% of non-security-related government employees from Washington, D.C., to field offices in various communities nationwide.

The White House and executive branch agencies could relocate some staff, as suggested by Ernst, without any congressional mandate.

Ernst is suggesting that Congress establish a target for all federal government agencies to achieve a 60% daily occupancy rate at their headquarters, despite the fact that none of them currently have even half capacity occupancy.

The report reveals that thousands of government buildings across the country are vacant and not being utilized, with much of this space being leased.

""Use it or lose it," the report states."

The General Services Administration should sell "unused and underutilized buildings and property without excessive restrictions."

She suggested that agencies should immediately cancel or allow to expire the $15 million worth of underutilized leased office space and property.

"According to Ernst's report, no major agency or department headquarters in the nation's capital is even half full, with an average occupancy rate of 12% for government buildings."

The government owns 7,697 vacant buildings and another 2,265 that are partially empty, according to Ernst.

The Federal Assets Sale and Transfer Act (FASTA) Reform Act was proposed by her to Congress to extend the Public Buildings Reform Board's mission of identifying unused properties for the government to sell.

She suggested that Congress enact legislation mandating the reduction and consolidation of unused space to guarantee that all buildings maintain a utilization rate of 60 percent or higher.

Ernst suggested that Congress enact approximately five bills to enhance transparency and accountability in telework.

Federal employees have been inflating their salaries by falsely claiming to work in higher-paying areas, even though they reside elsewhere, according to Ernst.

"According to my audits, some teleworking employees are receiving incorrect locality pay, which can result in a salary increase of up to 68%," she stated. "In some cases, employees who live more than 2,000 miles away from their office are still receiving locality pay, and one temporary teleworker collected higher pay for nearly a decade."

On Thursday, Musk and Ramaswamy will be introduced to Ernst's proposal during the meeting, after they expressed their primary concern about how DOGE could help identify waste and regulations that could be eliminated through the executive branch.

When President-elect Trump returns to office in January, Republicans will control both chambers of the legislature and the White House.