I 
110TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION H. R. 3180 
To amend title 31, United States Code, to clarify who is an original source 
for purposes of bringing a qui tam action. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
JULY 25, 2007 
Mr. UDALL of Colorado introduced the following bill; which was referred to 
the Committee on the Judiciary 
A BILL 
To amend title 31, United States Code, to clarify who is 
an original source for purposes of bringing a qui tam action. 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE; FINDINGS; PURPOSE. 
(a) SHORT TITLE.—This Act may be cited as the 
‘‘Whistleblower Recovery Act of 2007’’. 
(b) FINDINGS.—The Congress finds the following: 
(1) The False Claims Act, codified in title 31, 
United States Code, was established to encourage 
the disclosure of wrongdoing by Federal agencies or 
those contracting with or otherwise working on be-
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half of Federal agencies by allowing so-called ‘‘whis-
tleblowers’’ to recover a portion of any awards recov-
ered from judicial proceedings from such disclosures. 
(2) On March 27, 2007, the United States Su-
preme Court, in Rockwell International Corp. v. 
United States, ruled that a former employee at the 
Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant of the United 
States Department of Energy, Mr. James Stone, 
was not entitled to recovery under the False Claims 
Act regarding the failure of a component of the 
cleanup of this site. 
(3) The Court found that even though Mr. 
Stone was an ‘‘independent source’’ of allegations 
regarding the failure of the cleanup activity—and of 
the public disclosure of those allegations—he could 
not recover because he did not have direct knowledge 
of the precise way that the failure occurred and was 
determined at trial. As a result, the Court concluded 
that it did not have jurisdiction to determine wheth-
er Mr. Stone was entitled to recovery. 
(4) The Court’s ruling may have the undesired 
effect of discouraging ‘‘whistleblowers’’, as it could 
make it harder for them to gain access to the Court 
in order to prove that they may be entitled to recov-
ery as an ‘‘original source’’ under the False Claims 
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Act. By requiring that purported ‘‘whistleblowers’’ 
must know of the precise way in which an allegation 
or transaction of wrongdoing occurs, the Court set 
a high and potentially insurmountable hurdle for 
‘‘whistleblowers’’ to meet. In the best interest of 
public policy—and to encourage people to come for-
ward and disclose allegations of wrongdoing—it’s 
necessary to make it clear that ‘‘whistleblowers’’ 
need only have direct knowledge of the public disclo-
sure of the allegations or transactions and not of the 
precise way in which the wrongdoing occurs. In 
other words, if an action would not have been 
brought and an award granted under the False 
Claims Act but for the public disclosures of the 
‘‘whistleblower,’’ that ‘‘whistleblower’’ should be al-
lowed to an award under the False Claims Act. 
(c) PURPOSE.—The purpose of this Act is to clarify 
that individuals who publicly disclose allegations or trans-
actions of false claims can still recover a portion of any 
awards following legal proceedings of allegations or false 
claims under the False Claims Act for those public disclo-
sures. 
SEC. 2. AMENDMENT TO FALSE CLAIMS PROVISIONS. 
Subparagraph (B) of section 3730(e)(4) of title 31, 
United States Code, is amended to read as follows: 
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‘‘(B) For purposes of this paragraph, the term ‘origi-
nal source’ means an individual who has direct and inde-
pendent knowledge of information that the individual has 
voluntarily provided to the Government before filing an ac-
tion under this subsection and that is the basis for ei-
ther— 
‘‘(i) the allegations or transactions; or 
‘‘(ii) public disclosure of the allegations or 
transactions.’’. 
SEC. 3. EFFECTIVE DATE. 
The amendment made by section 2 shall apply to any 
civil action commenced under section 3730 of title 31, 
United States Code, on or after the date of the enactment 
of this Act. 
Æ 
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