WASHINGTON – Senator Chuck Grassley has co-sponsored legislation to provide a much needed update to the Whistleblower Protection Act by restoring congressional intent of the original law. Grassley said that whistleblowers are being denied the protections they should have under the law because of decisions of the Merit Systems Protection Board, the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals, and the general anti-whistleblower sentiment held by those in executive branch agencies.
Grassley co-authored the 1989 Whistleblower Protection Act with Senator Carl Levin of Michigan. The law provides protection for federal employees who expose waste, fraud and abuse in federal agencies. Grassley introduced the update with Senators Daniel Akaka of Hawaii; Susan Collins of Maine and Joe Lieberman of Connecticut.
"Whistleblowers are key to unlocking the secrets deep in the closets of our bureaucracy. They’ve helped me uncover untold amounts of waste, fraud and abuse across the federal government,” Grassley said. “This important update to the Whistleblower Protection Act will restore the congressional intent of the law and also includes a provision we worked out in the last Congress to provide employees in the intelligence community whistleblower protections for the first time."
Grassley had a major hand in building consensus around the provision that gives whistleblowers, who help shed light on fraud and wrongdoing in federal intelligence agencies, expanded protections against retaliation by their colleagues.
A long-time advocate for whistleblowers, in addition to co-authoring the 1989 whistleblower law, Grassley sponsored changes made in 1986 to the President Lincoln-era federal False Claims Act to empower private sector whistleblowers. Since the 1986 amendments were signed into law, the False Claims Act has brought back more than $27 billion to the federal treasury, and has deterred even more fraudulent activity. In 2009, in coordination with Senator Patrick Leahy, Grassley worked to pass legislation to shore up whistleblower protections in the False Claims Act that had been eroded by the courts after years of litigation by defense and healthcare contractors.
The Iowa senator has stood up against the heavy hand of the bureaucracy – regardless of whether Republicans or Democrats were in charge -- for individual whistleblowers from the Pentagon, the FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the IRS, the Interior Department, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The legislation introduced today would:
• clarify that "any" disclosure of gross waste or mismanagement, fraud, abuse, or illegal activity may be protected, but not disagreements over legitimate policy decisions;
• suspend the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals sole jurisdiction over federal employee whistleblower cases for five years;
• extend Whistleblower Protection Act coverage and other non-discrimination and anti-retaliatory laws to all employees of the Transportation Security Administration;
• clarify that whistleblowers may disclose evidence of censorship of scientific or technical information under the same standards that apply to disclosures of other kinds of waste, fraud, and abuse;
• codify and strengthen the anti-gag provision that has been part of every Transportation-Treasury Appropriations bill since 1988;
• allow jury trials under certain circumstances for a period of five years;
• provide the Merit Systems Protection Board with authority to consider and grant summary judgment motions in certain cases for a period of 5 years;
• clarify that employees protected by the Whistleblower Protection Act may make protected classified disclosures to Congress using the same process as intelligence community employees;
• establish protections for the intelligence community modeled on existing whistleblower protections for FBI employees;
• establish a process within the executive branch for review if a security clearance is allegedly denied or revoked because of a protected whistleblower disclosure;
• establish Whistleblower Protection Ombudsmen to educate agency personnel about whistleblower rights; and
• provide the Office of Special Counsel with the independent right to file “friend of the court” briefs, or amicus briefs, with federal courts.
In late 2010, a nearly identical version of this bill passed the Senate and a modified version passed the House, but Congress adjourned before the two versions could be reconciled. Prior versions of the bill also passed the Senate by unanimous consent in 2007, and have been approved by the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs in the last five Congresses.
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