Should Whistleblowers be Allowed to Disclose Information to More People? (H.R. 1064)

What is H.R. 1064?

(Updated February 25, 2019)

This bill would amend the U.S. Code to allow whistleblowers to disclose information to a broader range of recipients, including the Inspector General (IG) of an agency, a supervisor in the employee’s direct chain of command up to and including the agency’s head, and an employee designated as the recipient of whistleblower complaints.

Argument in favor

Whistleblowers play an important role in identifying illegal conduct, waste of funds, gross mismanagement, or other misconduct at federal agencies. These people should have as many avenues as possible for whistleblowing.

Argument opposed

Agency supervisors, agency inspector generals, and the Office of Special Counsel are all already authorized to receive information from whistleblowers. That’s enough people who can receive information from whistleblowers — expanding the list is unnecessary.

Impact

Whistleblowers; federal agencies; agency supervisors; agency heads; and agency IGs.

Cost of H.R. 1064

A CBO cost estimate is unavailable.

Additional Info

In-Depth: Rep. Katie Hill (D-CA) introduced this bill to create more avenues for whistleblowers to report information to the appropriate channels. This bill has one cosponsor, Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC).

Currently, there are three common ways for federal employees to blow the whistle: 1) reporting to a supervisor, 2) contacting the IG, and 3) contacting the Office of Special Counsel. Government Executive reports that federal employees are “often the only people in the position to identify illegal conduct, waste of funds, gross mismanagement or other misconduct at federal agencies… risking their careers.. [to] try to report and fix problems at their agencies” and protect the public’s interests.

Media:

• GovExec (Context)