WASHINGTON – Senator Chuck Grassley, Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy and Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Arlen Specter today said that a Judiciary Committee hearing to be held next week on the False Claims Act will bring to light harmful court interpretations of the federal law. Grassley is the author of the 1986 update to the False Claims Act that has returned more than $20 billion of taxpayer money to the federal treasury.
The hearing, announced today by Leahy, will focus on legislation Grassley introduced with Senator Dick Durbin last fall in response to recent federal court decisions that threaten to limit the scope and applicability of the law. Leahy and Specter are original co-sponsors of the bill.
“The courts have done their best to undo the most effective tool of the federal government in rooting out fraud and abuse,” Grassley said. “Our bill works to make sure recent court decisions won’t weaken the government’s ability to recover taxpayer dollars lost to fraud, whether it’s in health care, defense or another area of spending.”
"The Government loses millions to fraudulent contractors and unscrupulous companies every year, but due to the diligence and conscience of every-day citizens who report this fraud, we have recovered billions in taxpayers’ money using the False Claims Act. I applaud Senator Grassley’s efforts to correct and strengthen the False Claims Act, as well as protecting whistleblowers and cracking down on these deceptive practices, and I look forward to the Committee’s examination of this important legislation,” said Leahy.
“In the fight against waste, fraud, and abuse of taxpayer dollars, the federal government’s most effective tool is the employees who come forward to identify the misuse of funds,” Specter said. “We must not allow the courts to eliminate this valuable resource by weakening incentives and whistle-blower protections for these workers.”
The Senators cited a False Claims Act case from Ohio to reiterate the need to ensure that the FCA works as Congress intended when it enacted the 1986 amendments. He said that because of the 1986 update to the False Claims Act this whistleblower was able to continue her case against a federal contractor, despite the federal government’s decision to not join the case. In the end the contractor was found liable of supplying faulty valves to be used in Navy submarines. The government also recovered money paid to the contractor for these faulty valves.
“The False Claims Act helps give whistleblowers the courage, guts and strength to do the right thing,” Grassley said. “But, as demonstrated by the Ohio case, it’s not just about recovering money for the federal treasury, it’s also ensuring that the government gets exactly what it’s paying for and that government contractors provide the best possible products at the best price to the taxpayer."
Grassley and Representative Howard Berman updated the federal False Claims Act in 1986 to allow individual citizens to act on behalf of the government as private Attorneys General to recover taxpayer dollars. President Ronald Reagan signed these amendments into law, and as a result, the False Claims Act has returned more than $20 billion of taxpayer money to the federal treasury, and deterred countless billions that would otherwise be lost to fraud. Grassley’s changes to the law have become the federal government’s premier tool for recovering dollars lost to fraud, including health care fraud.