Mr. PLATTS. Mr. Chairman, the amendment that I'm offering with my colleague from Maryland (Mr. Van Hollen) would insert the text of the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act--H.R. 985 in the last session--into the underlying legislation.
H.R. 985 passed by a bipartisan vote of 331-94 in 2007. This amendment strengthens the inadequate protections currently afforded to Federal employees who report illegalities, gross mismanagement and waste, and specific dangers to the public health and safety.
As proposed, the underlying bill includes whistleblower protections for the employees of recipients of Federal funds approved through this bill, including State and local employees and government contractors. Federal employees responsible for overseeing the hundreds of billions of dollars in spending in this bill, however, will remain inadequately protected unless this amendment is adopted.
In 1989, as a result of findings that the civil service protections of the time were inadequate, Congress and the first Bush administration enacted into law the original Whistleblower Protection Act (WPA). In response to decisions by the Merit Systems Protection Board and the Federal Circuit Court weakening the WPA, Congress adopted additional whistleblower protections in 1994.
Unfortunately, we are once again back to where we started. Since the 1994 amendments were adopted, more than 200 whistleblower cases have come before the Federal Circuit Court; however, only three whistleblowers have prevailed.
The Federal Circuit Court has weakened whistleblower protections by requiring that for a Federal employee to reasonably believe there is evidence of waste, fraud or abuse, he or she must overcome with ``irrefragable proof'' the presumption that the agency was acting in good faith. This is an unheard of legal standard defined in the dictionary as ``impossible to refute.''
With the enactment of this amendment, the court and administrative decisions that undermine whistleblower protections would be overturned. This amendment replaces the irrefragable proof standard with a reasonable belief standard, grants employees the right to a jury trial in Federal court if the head of an agency does not take action within 180 days, and ends the Federal Circuit Court's monopoly jurisdiction.
Given the amount of money involved in the underlying legislation, Federal whistleblower protections will be that much more important to ensure effective oversight and accountability. As such, I urge adoption of this amendment.
Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Van Hollen). [Page: H729]
