Washington, D.C. -Today, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform passed a bill introduced by Ranking Member Elijah E. Cummings that will strengthen protections for federal employees.
The Committee passed H.R. 702, the Federal Employee Antidiscrimination Act of 2017, which is substantially similar to H.R. 1557, a bill that passed the House unanimously last Congress. The bill would:
* ensure that the head of an agency’s Equal Employment Opportunity program reports directly to the agency head;
* expand notifications that agencies are required to provide when discrimination is found to have occurred, and require agencies to track and report whether such findings resulted in any disciplinary action; and
* prohibit non-disclosure agreements that seek to prevent federal employees from disclosing to Congress, the Office of Special Counsel, or an Inspector General any information that relates to violations of laws, rules, regulations, or instance of waste, fraud or abuse.
This legislation is cosponsored by Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz, as well as Reps. Eleanor Holmes Norton, James F. Sensenbrenner, and Sheila Jackson Lee.
“The Federal Employee Antidiscrimination Act will help ensure that federal employees can report discrimination without suffering retaliation and that such reports will be thoroughly, fairly, and timely investigated and adjudicated," Cummings said. “The bill would also prohibit policies, forms or agreements that seek to prevent employees from disclosing waste, fraud, or illegal actions to the Congress. This bipartisan measure passed the House during the last Congress by a vote of 403 to 0, and I hope it can finally cross the finish line and be enacted this Congress."
