Washington Report

Coming Soon: A Tussle Over Whistleblower Protections

Lawmakers failed to pass new whistleblower protections for Defense Department civilians and other federal employees before fleeing Washington for the mid-term congressional elections, but advocates are holding out hope that voters’ growing discontent with government corruption will soon propel Congress to adopt legislation that boosts rights for government workers who divulge waste, fraud and abuse on the job.

Several organizations pushing for whistleblower reforms believe there is a strong possibility that lawmakers will return to Washington from the campaign trail in November looking to establish legitimate credentials as agents of change. Safeguarding the rights of whistleblowers, they say, is a way to do just that.

Whistleblowers have a long history in the federal government — particularly within the walls of the Pentagon, where workers have exposed contractor fraud and other abuses for decades.

One of the better known was Ernie Fitzgerald, an Air Force civilian who alerted Congress in the late 1960s to major cost overruns on Lockheed Martin’s C-5A transport plane. Fitzgerald, who retired earlier this year, initially lost his job — winning it back three years later after a protracted legal struggle.

But the revelations sparked congressional campaigns against government waste, and launched Fitzgerald’s storied career as a crusader for reform and a well-known, respected voice for his fellow whistleblowers.

“Courageous souls such as Ernie Fitzgerald make our nation and our government stronger and better,” Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, said on the Senate floor days after Fitzgerald retired in March. “They help to strengthen and keep the public trust. They help to make the government transparent and accountable, and that is exactly what the citizens of this country want and what the citizens of this country ought to expect.”

Despite widespread congressional support, lawmakers earlier this fall stripped whistleblower protections passed by the Senate from the final fiscal year 2007 defense authorization bill amid strong objections from the Department of Justice.

The language in the Senate’s version of the defense bill is viewed by some as a compromise and a solid step toward passing substantial whistleblower protections, which, advocates say, have eroded in the last several decades as whistleblower cases have languished in the federal courts charged with hearing them.

Government whistleblowers, these advocates argue, are at a stark disadvantage in the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals, in particular, which has consistently ruled on the side of the government.

The language, offered as an amendment to the bill by Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, and Susan Collins, R-Maine, was unanimously approved by the upper chamber on a voice vote — a positive move that many advocates believe brings them one step closer to their ultimate goal.

It would overturn what advocates consider hostile case law that has resulted in more than 100 rulings against whistleblowers since 1994. And it, among other reforms, establishes a normal process of appeals for whistleblowers, eliminating one Federal Circuit Court’s sole jurisdiction over the cases.

But some whistleblower advocates say the Senate language is an unpalatable compromise — largely because it would exempt whistleblowers at the FBI, CIA, National Security Agency and Defense Intelligence Agency from the enhanced protections.

The language “is not even a quarter of the loaf — it’s an illusion of a quarter of the loaf,” said Sibel Edmonds, founder and executive director of the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition. National-security whistleblowers, she estimates, account for 95 percent of all federal employees who have reported instances of government corruption and fraud since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Edmonds, a former FBI translator who was fired from her job in 2002 after accusing a coworker of covering up illicit activities, maintains the Akaka language ultimately will hinder the cause.

“Don’t rush and say this is at least something,” she warned. “That actually makes our situation worse.”

Indeed, she and several other whistleblowers recently sent a letter to House Armed Services Chairman Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., urging him to nix the Senate language during bicameral conference talks on the defense bill.

Instead, they asked him to back legislation already approved by the House Government Reform Committee that would protect all federal employees, including those from the intelligence agencies who now have no whistleblower rights.

Regardless of the protections in future legislation, an uphill battle against the administration and government attorneys who have won case after case against whistleblowers.

Between 1994 and April 2006, the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled 119-1 on the side of the government.

Edmonds also acknowledges that fighting for more comprehensive reforms than what is offered in the Akaka legislation could push the issue into the next Congress — time she is willing to take.

“Six months [versus] three months is not going to make a difference,” she said. “Do more media campaigns and educate people.”

Hill Orders Review of Marine, Army Readiness

Amid mounting concerns on Capitol Hill about the state of the military’s heavily deployed ground forces, Congress has required the Governmental Accountability Office (GAO) to investigate Marine Corps and Army readiness and submit a report by June 1, 2007.

The detailed report, ordered as part of the 2007 defense authorization bill, will look at active and reserve components of the Marine Corps and Army, assessing whether they are experiencing any major deficiencies in equipment or occupational specialties. The report, according to the authorization bill, must identify any specialties that are experiencing unusually high or low deployment rates and analyze retention rates in those jobs.

In addition, GAO officials must review efforts in the Army and Marine Corps to mitigate the stress of high operational tempos, including cross-training personnel and units for new or additional missions. Lawmakers also directed the GAO, Congress’ investigative arm, to compare Army and Marine operational tempo with past levels.

Lawmakers have long been concerned about the stress of constant deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan on the military’s ground forces, as well as the operational wear and tear on equipment.

“We know the Army and Marine Corps equipment is wearing out, and we do know that some units are coming back to little or no equipment whatsoever,” House Armed Services Ranking Member Ike Skelton, D-Mo., said on the House floor in late September.

Coast Guard Evaluating Caribbean Training Options

The Coast Guard is assessing options to pursue training engagements with Caribbean nations after its dedicated training cutter was decommissioned following only six years of service in that role.

The service’s unique Caribbean support tender, Gentian, used to train foreign personnel and promote international engagement, was decommissioned in June. Gentian was a former Balsam-class seagoing buoy tender that was converted and recommissioned in 1999 for its Caribbean role. The Coast Guard decommissioned the ship because “it exceeded its service life and costs to maintain her were skyrocketing” said Chief Petty Officer Dan Tremper, a Coast Guard spokesman. The service also decommissioned its last Balsam-class buoy tender this year.

Tremper said the Coast Guard is using its International Training Division in Yorktown, Va., to cover some of the gap in the training of Caribbean nation’ sea services formerly visited by Gentian. Some Caribbean nations are sending students to the United States for resident training, he said.

Sea Base Technologies Are Put to the Test

Naval Sea Systems Command, along with Military Sealift Command and Maersk Line Ltd., recently concluded an extensive test of the Navy’s sea basing concept off the coast of Virginia.

David Sloane, director of contract vessel management at Maersk, said the main goal of the testing, which took several months, was to evaluate new technologies that might be used when sea basing becomes a reality in the 2016 time frame.

Sea basing is the Pentagon’s warfighting concept of the future that is meant to devise ways to get materiel from cargo-laden transport ships at a sea base to shore without docking and offloading in the traditional manner. Operations relevant to the sea base, such as troop staging and the offloading of weapons, munitions, food and parts for U.S. troops, would be done about 75 miles at sea, instead of ashore.

Some of the technologies tested, Sloane said, included transferring cargo from the USNS Red Cloud, a Large, Medium-speed, Roll-on/

Roll-off Ship, to a float on/float off ship similar to a conceptual mobile landing platform ship, which would play a crucial role as a connector at the sea base.

Also tested were automated selective retrieval systems, which would allow precise offloading of targeted containers or palettes of cargo without having to offload the whole ship.

Marine Logistics Chief Predicts More Disaster Aid

The Marine Corps’ top logistics official said he sees the Navy-Marine Corps team much more involved in humanitarian assistance and disaster relief operations around the world as the global war on terrorism continues to evolve.

The services’ relief capabilities “will become a more essential aspect of theater engagements as we try to work together with our partners as we face the ongoing terrorist threat,” said Lt. Gen. Richard S. Kramlich, deputy commandant for Installations and Logistics, at the Military Logistics Summit 2006 in Tysons Corner, Va.

Citing such past examples as tsunami relief in Indonesia in 2005 and earthquake relief in Pakistan, Kramlich said such assistance “engenders ourselves to our allies in these regions.”

Coast Guard Eyes Parallel Logistics Plan

Adm. Thad Allen, Coast Guard commandant, has directed a group of in-house experts to develop a logistics support plan for the Deepwater program’s National Security Cutter (NSC), the largest ship being developed by Deepwater for late 2007 delivery, and the HC-235A, a medium-range surveillance maritime patrol aircraft. The Coast Guard was to take delivery of the first patrol plane Oct. 23.

The work parallels that of Integrated Coast Guard Systems (ICGS), which is developing a logistics support system for all Deepwater assets at a cost to date of $138.3 million. Some in the Coast Guard worry that the broader ICGS system will not be ready to support the NSC and patrol craft when they come on line, a source said.

ICGS is the joint venture between Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman that manages the Coast Guard’s $25 billion, 24-year Deepwater procurement program.

Kennedy Savings Run Into the Billions

The Navy estimates retiring the carrier USS John F. Kennedy will save $20 million a month on routine maintenance and personnel costs — and more than $2 billion that would have been needed to repair and upgrade the 38-year-old carrier to operational conditions. Congressional aides said the savings hopefully would be spent on the Navy’s next-generation fleet.

Navy officials first proposed retiring Kennedy in late 2004, and after a prolonged battle, reluctant lawmakers eventually acquiesced.

Senate Armed Services Chairman John Warner, R-Va., supported the retirement, which brings the carrier fleet down to 11 ships, after he initially opposed it last year. But House lawmakers, including Armed Services Chairman Hunter, remained wary, arguing that the Navy needs all 12 of its carriers to respond to operations around the world.

Ultimately, the Senate won out during conference negotiations on the fiscal 2007 defense authorization bill, with several lawmakers backing Warner, including Reps. Thelma Drake and Jo Ann Davis, two key Republican House

members from shipbuilding-heavy southern Virginia, where the Navy would have overhauled the Kennedy.

Older Marine Hornets Displacing Newer Models

The Marine Corps is rotating older F/A-18 Hornet strike fighters from reserve squadrons into the active-duty force to better manage the service life of the aircraft, according to Capt. Manuel Delarosa, a spokesman for Headquarters, Marine Corps.

Many of the relatively new F/A-18C versions have reached the maximum number of catapult launches and carrier landings allowed, rated at 2,000 per aircraft, due to the Marines’ heavy operations tempo.

Because the older F/A-18A+ versions — long resident in the reserve squadrons — have accrued fewer carrier launches and landings, they are needed in the active squadrons for the units to continue carrier operations.

Delarosa said the Marine Corps plans to eventually deactivate two of its three reserve Hornet squadrons to better manage the fleet in the active squadrons.

The F/A-18A+ features upgrades that make it nearly the equivalent in capability to an F/A-18C.

Delarosa said the Navy has similar plans for its Hornet fleet, ironically only a few years after completing transition from A models.

Reporting by Seapower Correspondent Megan Scully. Managing Editor Richard R. Burgess, Associate Editor Matt Hilburn and Assistant Editor David W. Munns contributed to this report.