[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 39 (Tuesday, March 15, 2011)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1681-S1682]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. GRASSLEY (for himself and Mrs. McCaskill):
  S. 586. A bill to amend the Congressional Accountability Act of 1995 
to apply whistleblower protections available to certain executive 
branch employees to legislative branch employees, and for other 
purposes; to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental 
Affairs.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, today I am introducing a bill that will 
keep the Federal Government accountable.
  Whistleblowers are the key to unlocking the secrets of wrongdoing 
because they have access to information about how the frauds were 
perpetrated and can help lead authorities in the right direction to 
uncover the frauds. However, for their brave efforts, they are often 
the victims of retaliation and are removed from their jobs by 
supervisors who don't want the wrongdoing uncovered. I have often said 
whistleblowers are as welcome as skunks at a Sunday picnic, despite the 
fact that all they do is bring forward the truth. This is wrong and 
that is why I have supported strong whistleblower protection laws 
during my time in Congress.
  The landmark whistleblower law, the Whistleblower Protection Act of 
1989, WPA, provided rights and remedies to Executive Branch 
whistleblowers that are the victims of retaliation. I proudly 
cosponsored the WPA, but like many laws that are 20 years old, it needs 
to be updated. So, I cosponsored legislation introduced by Senator 
Akaka in the previous Congress to do just that. We are currently 
working to introduce similar legislation in this Congress. Despite this 
effort, there is still a critical gap in whistleblower protections for 
government employees, namely the lack of whistleblower protections for 
employees of the Legislative and Judicial branches of the Federal 
Government. I am here today to start that discussion and introduce 
legislation that will provide the same whistleblower protection rights 
currently extended to Executive Branch employees to the Legislative 
Branch.
  I am pleased to be joined by Senator McCaskill in introducing the 
Congressional Whistleblower Protection Act of 2011. This important 
legislation simply adds whistleblower protections to the Legislative 
Branch by incorporating the WPA into the Congressional Accountability 
Act of 1995, a law I authored to bring Congress in line with many labor 
laws and workplace protections. I have long believed Congress should 
practice what it preaches, and this legislation will do just that.
  A theme that has dominated this new Congress, as well as the 
elections this past November, is accountability and responsibility in 
Washington. In most instances, the only reason we discover waste or 
fraud is because employees are brave enough to stand up to the 
wrongdoers and expose their offenses. Without these whistleblowers, the 
American taxpayer would continue to foot the bill.
  This bill is long overdue. I have previously introduced similar 
legislation but, unfortunately, those bills were never brought up in 
Committee. I hope that the Homeland Security and Government Affairs 
Committee will examine this legislation closely and expeditiously 
report it to the full Senate so we can ensure employees of the 
Legislative Branch that they are protected from any reprisals related 
to protected whistleblowing.
  Now, it's been a number of years since the Congressional 
Accountability Act was signed into law by President Clinton, so I would 
like to remind my colleagues why we passed this law. It was a time very 
similar to today, the American people were demanding more from their 
elected officials in Washington and wanted accountability and 
transparency in all branches of Government. I believed then, as I do 
now, that Congress needs to put its money where its mouth is and apply 
the various labor and employment laws that we enforce on other branches 
of government

[[Page S1682]]

and businesses all across the country to ourselves. The Congressional 
Accountability Act did just that.
  It applied a number of important laws to Congress, including, the 
Fair Labor Standards Act, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 
the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Age Discrimination and 
Employment Act, the Family Medical Leave Act, the Occupational Safety 
and Health Act, the Employee Polygraph Protection Act, the Worker 
Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, the Rehabilitation Act, as 
well as some provisions of title 5 related to Federal service labor-
management relations. It also created the Office of Compliance in the 
Legislative Branch that oversees application of these important laws to 
the Legislative Branch and ensures that employee's rights under these 
laws are protected. While the Congressional Accountability Act was a 
good start, the Office of Compliance has recommended additional laws be 
applied to the Legislative Branch, including the Whistleblower 
Protection Act.
  We have already taken the steps to protect whistleblowers in the 
Executive Branch. It doesn't make sense not to extend these same 
protections to whistleblowers in our own backyard. This bill will, very 
simply, give congressional employees the same protections that workers 
in the other branches of government already possess. It does this by 
simply adding the Whistleblower Protection Act to the preexisting list 
of statutes that are applied to the Legislative Branch by the 
Congressional Accountability Act. This is a straightforward and simple 
solution to ensure that employees of the Legislative Branch are not 
without vital whistleblower protections.
  I hope my colleagues will join me and Senator McCaskill in supporting 
this bill to ensure that those who help us in the fight to hold 
government accountable are not punished for their efforts.
                                 ______