A bill to amend and strengthen the Whistleblower Protection Act was introduced yesterday by Senator Daniel Akaka (D-HI) and several bipartisan Senate colleagues.
“Our legislation ensures that Federal whistleblowers are protected from retaliatory action when notifying the public and government leaders of waste, fraud, and abuse,” Senator Akaka said.
“If we fail to protect whistleblowers, then our efforts to improve government management, protect the public, and secure the nation will also fail.”
See Introduction of the “Federal Employee Protection of Disclosures Act,” January 11.
There is no question this is a Big Deal. If you are a university or research lab, or aspire to work in one, or are simply an enthusiast of federally-funded research, what’s next will matter.
The emerging federal metascience community is asking fascinating questions that are equally vital for democratic legitimacy: beyond “did this program work” to “how does the federal R&D enterprise itself work, and how could it work better?”
If you’re new to the climate intervention space, welcome! The TL;DR: if we can’t stop the most catastrophic impacts of climate change with current tools quickly enough, then we need a bigger toolbox.
After months of delay, the council tasked by President Trump to review the FEMA released its final report. Our disaster policy nerds have thoughts.