Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2015

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Madam Chair, this amendment would eliminate the increase of $596,000 for the Office of Inspector General under the Department of Commerce and apply that amount to the spending reduction account. This amendment has the support of the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Oversight, Representative Maffei, as well.

As chairman of the House Science Oversight Subcommittee within the Science, Space, and Technology Committee, I have had the unfortunate responsibility of discovering an incidence of whistleblower intimidation perpetrated by top-level agency employees at the Department of Commerce, Office of Inspector General.

Consequently, the Office of Special Counsel was brought in to investigate these allegations of whistleblower retaliation.

The investigation in this particular case found that the counsel to the inspector general and the principal assistant inspector general for investigations and whistleblower protection had threatened whistleblowers with an ultimatum: to either sign an agreement to not ``disparage the agency to Congress and their staff, the Office of Special Counsel, and the media'' or have failing performance reviews added to their permanent files.

Unfortunately, the Office of Inspector General ignored these findings and took minimal action against these individuals. That is not enough.

As a result, I, along with all of the members of the subcommittee, sent a letter on April 1, 2014, to the Commerce IG demanding he immediately fire the two officials in question.

The inspector general responded by saying, in part, that the office had ``moved on.''

It is beyond hypocritical that the inspector general's office has conducted itself in this manner.

According to its website, the Office of Inspector General ``endeavors to detect and determine waste, fraud, and abuse'' throughout the Commerce Department and ``keep Congress fully and currently informed about problems and deficiencies and the need for corrective action.''

As lawmakers, we depend on just and ethical inspectors general to protect taxpayers' interest and to hold Federal Government officials accountable to the law. Yet we can't depend on the Office of Inspector General at the Department of Commerce to even police its own, much less others who may seek to violate whistleblower protection laws. At the very least, we must refuse to increase the OIG's appropriation until corrective action is taken.

I urge my colleagues to adopt this nonpartisan amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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