Date: 2007-03-14
Speaker: LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Florida

I would like to thank my friend from Florida for the time. Mr. Speaker. I yield myself such time as I may consume. Congress has the constitutional duty to oversee the executive branch. In order to discharge our constitutional oversight responsibility. Congress depends on information obtained through agency reports and direct communication from Department heads. However. we also depend on information provided directly from employees within the agencies who are witnesses to the misuse of taxpayer dollars and alert Congress of the possible corruption or incompetence in management. In 1989. Congress passed the Whistleblower Protection Act in an effort to strengthen statutory protections for Federal employees who assist in the elimination of fraud. waste. abuse. illegality or corruption. H.R. 985 would modernize and expand this protection to Federal employees. with added whistleblower protection. For example. the bill would extend protection to FBI agents. CIA agents. employees of the Defense Intelligence Agency. the National Geospatial Agency and the National Security Agency. I think it is important to have whistleblower protection for the intelligence community. I would like to point out. however. that Congress has already passed such legislation. In 1998. Congress passed the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act to encourage the reporting to Congress of wrongdoing within the intelligence agencies. In crafting the 1998 legislation. Congress sought to balance the need for information with national security requirements. giving intelligence community whistleblowers access to Congress but through the intelligence committees. Yesterday. the Rules Committee denied the ranking member of the Intelligence Committee. Mr. HOEKSTRA. from offering an amendment striking section 10 of the bill. Section 10 conflicts with the provisions of the existing Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act of 1998. The amendment. I believe. should have been made in order. National security is obviously one of the most important issues that we deal with. Before we make changes to how Congress handles intelligence oversight. we should have a full and complete debate on that particular provision. We could have done that if the majority had made the Hoekstra amendment in order. Under the bill. defendants in whistleblower cases will now be able to make their cases to any Federal district court if the Merit Systems Protection Board does not take action within 180 days. Part of this provision will allow claims to be processed on amore timely basis than they are now. However. there are possible problems with the provision. Yesterday. Oversight and Government Reform Committee Ranking Member DAVIS asked the Rules Committee that his amendment be made in order. His amendment sought to retain uniformity in the consideration of whistleblower cases in the Federal courts by keeping in place the current requirement that all whistleblower appeals go through the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. rather than opening up appeals to all circuits. Without the amendment. Federal employee whistleblowers could end up possessing a different set of rights and protections. depending on where they file their claim. However. unfortunately. the majority decided to close down the debate process on that issue. and refused to allow the House to debate that very important and meaningful amendment. I believe the majority should have made those amendments. the- Hoekstra amendment and the Davis amendment. in order. along with other important amendments brought beforethe Rules Committee. Mr. Speaker. I reserve the balance of my time.