i Whistleblowers need more protection
Morning Sentinel
Whistleblowers need more protection
Danielle Brian Kennebec Journal & Morning Sentinel 02/11/2009

At a time when Congress is poised to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to stimulate our economy, federal employees must be free to effectively oversee the use of these funds without fear of retaliation.

For at least two decades, federal whistleblower laws, while looking good on paper, have failed to protect federal workers from being fired, demoted or harassed when they report waste, fraud and abuse.

On Jan. 28, the House unanimously agreed to a bipartisan amendment ensuring the oversight of the hundred of billions of dollars Congress will be spending on an economic stimulus package. The bipartisan amendment will protect federal employees who report waste, fraud and abuse in government. Maine freshman Rep. Chellie Pingree supported the amendment.

Now it is up to the Senate to agree to strong whistleblower protections in the final stimulus package. We expect Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins, a new member of the Senate Appropriations Committee and a longtime proponent of transparency and accountability in government contracting, to be key to the final version.

The House amendment incorporates the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act of 2007, a bipartisan bill sponsored by Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and then-Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va. The House approved the bill by a vote of 331 to 94.

The Senate stimulus package, while offering whistleblower protections to state and local employees involved in stimulus spending, does not extend these protections to federal whistleblowers.

It is crucial that the final stimulus package extend whistleblower protections to federal employees.

Federal workers who expose lax oversight of drugs at the Food and Drug Administration, cozy relationships between FAA inspectors and certain airlines, hundreds of billions of dollars in conscious "underestimates" for the cost of prescription drug coverage, and billions of dollars wasted in no-bid defense contracts face intimidation and retaliation and often are fired or demoted. And their efforts to go through the chain of command or seek relief from retaliation by agency managers nearly always fail.

The reasons federal employees have no protections are complex, and have to do with unforeseen defects in a succession of efforts by Congress to strengthen the law. But the law has failed to live up to Congress's intent.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi spoke in favor of a taxpayer-accountability amendment to the stimulus bill, saying, "It is inconceivable that the people's business had been conducted for so long without whistleblower protections to encourage every public employee to do the right thing."

Inconceivable, but true.

Here's how the system works right now. Whistleblowers who are fired or demoted can file a complaint with the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB).

Whistleblowers who try to fight retaliation by appealing to the MSPB face daunting odds. In the past eight years, the board has heard 55 cases; whistleblowers have won only two .

Whistleblowers who appeal the decision of the MSPB have access to only one court, the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals, a special federal circuit appellate court designated to hear all whistleblower appeals. This court consistently has ruled against whistleblowers. And its decisions over the years have gutted the rights for whistleblowers that Congress intended.

Since 1994, when Congress last strengthened whistleblower protections for federal workers, whistleblowers have won only three out of 206 cases filed in the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals. That's a success rate of about one-half of one percent.

This legacy of failed protections is bad not only for whistleblowers, but also for American taxpayers. It sends a strong message to federal workers: Keep your head down and don't rock the boat. If you see waste, fraud and abuse, keep quiet or risk your career.

We believe that the accountability in federal procurement will not be possible until federal workers, who are on the front lines of the oversight of billions of stimulus dollars, can believe they will be protected from retaliation or worse at their job sites.

Taxpayers see the connection between strong whistleblower protections and accountability for how these enormous amounts of money are dispensed. Our leaders in Congress must listen.

Danielle Brian is executive director of the Project On Government Oversight in Washington, D.C., www.pogo.org.

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