Follow the Rules Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. DUFFY. I thank the gentleman from Arizona for yielding, and I thank my friends across the aisle for their support of this commonsense piece of legislation that, again, rights a wrong perception from the U.S. Court of Appeals.

Mr. Speaker, many of us in this institution do talk about how we are a nation of laws; but, unfortunately, on June 7, when the U.S. Court of Appeals handed down its decision, it ruled that we are a nation of laws but not a nation of rules and regulations, at least as they apply to Federal workers.

We have had a good discussion about the case. Dr. Timothy Rainey, just to summarize again, is a State Department employee who was asked to violate the Federal Acquisition Regulation, and he didn't want to do it; so he denied, and he invoked his right to disobey under the Whistleblower Protection Act. This was brought to the Merit Systems Protection Board, and it ruled against Dr. Rainey. It went to the U.S. Court of Appeals, and it also found against Dr. Rainey. This exposed a glaring inconsistency in the application of the Whistleblower Protection Act, which, again, is inconsistent with the intent of this institution.

So we ask ourselves: What does this mean?

I chair the Financial Services Committee's Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigation. Federal whistleblowers play an important role in exposing the mismanagement at Federal agencies and in supporting the oversight that all of us do in this Congress. Critical to them is the Whistleblower Protection Act, which provides Federal workers with certain safeguards to disclose information that an employee reasonably believes evidences gross mismanagement, a waste of funds, an abuse of authority, or a violation of law.

This court ruling will take away those protections when Federal employees stand up against bad actors within our Federal workforce. In effect, this ruling will give permission to supervisors in positions of authority to force Federal workers to violate the rules and regulations that Congress, through law, directs the agencies to implement.

For example, at the Treasury Department, one of the agencies that I have the great privilege of overseeing, this would mean that Federal workers could be forced to violate sanctions against Russia for a violation of Ukraine's territorial integrity. Many of those sanctions are enforced through the Code of Federal Regulations pursuant to laws that are passed by this Congress.

Regardless of one's opinion about rules and regulations--and if that were the conversation today, I am sure one would have a debate that was far more disagreeable, but that is not the issue. No matter what one thinks about rules and regulations, we should not leave exposed Federal workers who simply want to follow those rules and regulations. This bipartisan Follow the Rules Act, which, again, I introduced with my good friend from Virginia (Mr. Connolly), will close the loophole that was created by the court. What we are doing is ensuring that Federal employees aren't just protected under our whistleblower statute for violations of Federal law, but that they are also protected as whistleblowers if there is a violation of a Federal rule or regulation.

This makes sense. It closes a loophole. I think that is why we have seen such bipartisan support from the far right of this institution and the far left of this institution. I think this is a great bill, and I thank my friends for so closely working with me to garner the support.

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