Three Democratic Senators on Monday asked newly minted Energy Secretary Rick Perry to instate new whistleblower protections at the agency that the Trump administration delayed as part of a government-wide regulatory freeze.
The whistleblower protection was part of a rule published in the waning days of Barack Obama’s administration that clarified DOE may assess civil penalties against contractors that retaliate against whistleblowers within their ranks. The rule would have gone into effect January 26, but the Trump administration delayed the phase-in until at least March 21, pending a White House review.
This angered the three Senators, who have been reliable voices for better protecting whistleblowers across DOE’s nuclear complex.
“DOE has a long history of failing to protect whistleblowers,” Sens. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), Edward Markey (D-Mass.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) wrote in their March 6 letter to Perry, which was printed on Senate stationery. “The Department indisputably had the statutory authority to take enforcement action, including the issuance of civil penalties for nuclear safety violations by its contractors.”
Wyden’s office published a copy of the letter online.
The delayed DOE rule, published Dec. 27 in the Federal Register, states that the agency’s “prohibition against whistleblower retaliation is a DOE Nuclear Safety Requirement to the extent that it concerns nuclear safety.”
The Trump administration stayed the rule “for the purpose of reviewing questions of fact, law, and policy they raise,” according to the Jan. 20 presidential memo announcing the government-wide regulatory freeze.
In 2012, DOE halted construction on significant portions of the Waste Treatment Plant (WTP) Bechtel National is building to treat liquid waste at the Hanford Site in Washington state after an employee at a WTP subcontractor blew the whistle over safety concerns — a move the employee, nuclear engineer Walter Tamosaitis, said cost him his job.
