Nearly lost amid higher-profile nomination hearings in high-octane committees this week is a nuts-and-bolts piece of legislation that could open the door for more whistleblower disclosures in the nuclear weapons, waste, and power industries.
The bill, slated for a hearing Thursday in the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee along with several other pieces of legislation, is sponsored by Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.): a freshman lawmaker whose burgeoning national notoriety has little to do with nuclear matters.
Duckworth’s 18-line “Department of Energy and Nuclear Regulatory Commission Whistleblower Protection Act of 2018” would close a loophole in a 1974 federal law that created the NRC and a precursor to DOE, and which Duckworth said allows either agency to easily dismiss certain whistleblower complaints.
The 1974 Energy Reorganization Act “empower[s] DOE and NRC to dismiss any whistleblower claim brought against them under the Energy Reorganization Act’s employee protection authorities,” Duckworth’s office wrote in a May 24 press release introducing her bill.
Mechanically, the measure would tweak the law to clarify that DOE and NRC are legally considered a “person.” That, according to Duckworth’s office, would prevent the agencies from asserting sovereign immunity — a government legal aegis against prosecution — to dismiss whistleblower complaints raised under the 1974 act.
Duckworth’s bill has been sitting in the Energy and Natural Resources Committee since Illinois’ senior senator, Sen. Dick Durbin (D), introduced the measure in the upper chamber on Duckworth’s behalf at the beginning of the summer.
Congress has fewer than two weeks of workdays scheduled in its 115th session, meaning Duckworth’s bill has a long way to go and a short time to get to President Donald Trump’s desk. If it clears the committee after tomorrow’s scheduled vote, it will need to be approved on the Senate floor, then make its way through the House Energy and Commerce Committee and the full House before heading to the White House.
Any bills not signed in the 115th Congress will be rendered null and void after the 116th Congress gavels in. The next session is scheduled to begin Jan. 3.
