Three Democratic U.S. senators who have pushed the Energy Department to reform its whistleblower policies will introduce a bill that would expand and tighten whistleblower protection for agency and contractor personnel.
Sponsored by Sens. Edward Markey (D-Mass.), Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and titled “Department of Energy Whistleblower Accountability Act,” the bill would permit employees of DOE and its contractors to file confidential whistleblower complaints about waste, fraud, and abuse; under the 42 year-old Energy Reorganization Act, federal whistleblower protection for DOE employees extends only to nuclear safety complaints, according to a Monday press release from Wyden’s office.
If passed, the legislation would force contractors to pay legal and administrative expenses for wrongful termination cases unless they can prove DOE was specifically involved in the retaliation. The Labor Department could also impose punitive damages on contractors that retaliate against whistleblowers.
The bill would also extend the amount of time employees can wait after an alleged safety incident to file a complaint with DOE to one year from six months, and give the department only a year to complete an investigation of a complaint before the whistleblower could seek a jury trial in federal court, according to the press release.
“I’ve been at this a long time, and it has become clear that the Department of Energy is not going to change its culture of retaliation against whistleblowers, so it’s up to Congress to change it,” Wyden said in the release. “This bill beefs up the penalties for contractors who retaliate, relieves taxpayers from picking up the tab for contractors’ legal costs, and gives whistleblowers more power to challenge violations of their rights.”
The bill’s prospects for passage are uncertain in an election year followed by a lame-duck session of Congress. If the proposal cannot be sent to the president’s desk before the 114th Congress gavels out Jan. 3, it — and any other pending legislation — will be considered dead, and will have to be reintroduced in the 115th Congress.
