Congress Approves Stronger Protections for Federal Whistleblowers

By Thomas Greer | November 30, 2012

On November 13, 2012, the U.S. Senate gave the final Congressional approval to the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act (WPEA), legislation that will strengthen protections for federal workers acting as whistleblowers. The law is designed to protect government employees who expose fraud, waste or other wrongdoing in government agencies from retaliation by their supervisors. The bill must be signed by President Obama before it will become law.

The WPEA will be enforced by the Office of Special Counsel (OSC), which praised the bill for giving the OSC the ability to discipline federal employers who retaliate against whistleblowers and expanding the agencies that are covered under whistleblower protections. For the first time, whistleblower protection includes Transportation Security Administration officers and government scientists.

The WPEA offers protections to federal whistleblowers even when they are not the first to report improper activity. It also allows whistleblowers to challenge the consequences of government policy decisions.

The bill was sponsored by Senator Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii) who is retiring this year. It took 13 years to get the bill approved.

While government whistleblowers still don’t have the same level of protection as private sector employees, the WPEA is hailed as a first step towards protecting worker rights and reducing waste and fraud within the government.

The WPEA does not include whistleblower protections for national security and intelligence employees, but President Obama has issued a separate Presidential Policy Directive that prohibits retaliation by employers against national Transportation Security Administration officers security and intelligence workers who expose waste, fraud and abuse.

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