Nevada senators propose law to protect federal whistleblowers

LAS VEGAS -- New legislation by Nevada's senators aims to broaden job protections for federal energy workers who suffer retaliation after reporting wrongdoing.

Sens. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and John Ensign, R-Nev., said Monday in Washington, D.C., that they were motivated by their unsuccessful efforts to persuade two Yucca Mountain Project workers to testify at a May hearing in Las Vegas about flaws in the nuclear waste repository program.

The Nevada lawmakers announced legislation allowing federal employees of the Energy Department and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to file whistle-blower complaints with the Department of Labor. DOE contractor workers already have that ability.

The bill would allow all whistle-blowers to take their claims to federal court if the Labor Department does not settle their cases within 180 days.

"One of our most fundamental freedoms is the right to be heard," Ensign said in a statement. "Nowhere should this be more obvious than in our own federal government."

Under current law, federal DOE employees must take claims of job retaliation through either an administrative court system operated by the Merit Systems Protection Board or the government's Office of Special Counsel, said Doug Hartnett, a staff attorney for the Government Accountability Project, which monitors whistle-blower cases.

The avenues are flawed by an appeals process that is "historically hostile to whistle-blowers," Hartnett said.

The Reid-Ensign bill incorporates elements of a whistle-blower amendment the House passed earlier this year. The amendment by Reps. Ed Markey, D-Mass., and Billy Tauzin, R-La., was tacked onto an energy bill.

Reid will try to add the whistle-blower protections to the Senate version of the energy bill later this summer, an aide said.

Reid and Ensign have accused the Energy Department of quashing testimony by former DOE quality assurance director Robert Clark and Donald Harris, a quality assurance auditor employed by a DOE subcontractor, Navarro Research and Engineering.

On separate occasions over the past two years, Clark and Harris had called DOE attention to flaws in the Yucca program. They declined Reid's invitation to testify at a May 28 hearing.

"I believe these workers have a right to be heard, and this is one step we will take to ensure they are protected," Reid said in a statement.

Energy Department officials have denied pressuring the workers. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham is preparing a statement to Congress on the matter.