It is being reported by NPR that Carolyn Lerner has been nominated by President Obama to head the Office of Special Counsel, the federal office charged with investigating whistleblower complaints. A nomination for this crucial position has been needed for some time. GAP released the following statement regarding this development:

“With this choice, the White House completes selection of the strongest team of presidential appointees in history to protect whistleblower rights. Every appointee at the Department of Labor Administrative Review Board for corporate employees, Merit Systems Protection Board for government workers, and now the Special Counsel has a life long record of commitment to transparency and expertise in employment law. President Obama is doing his share to fight fraud, waste and abuse.

“The public is about to find out early if new House Republican leadership is serious as well. This week there is a credibility test of new Republican House leaders before they even take office. Those politicians campaigned on a mantra of fighting fraud, waste and abuse. This week we will find out whether they meant it. The test is whether they will try to block House approval of the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act after unanimous Senate approval. Republican campaign speeches will be exposed as hot air, if their first act after the election is to abandon the whistleblower who risk their careers to actually live those values in the belly of the bureaucratic beast.”

Scott Bloch, the controversial former head of the Office of Special Counsel during much of the Bush administration, was charged yesterday with criminal contempt of Congress by the feds. Media reports are also stating that Bloch plans to plead guilty, in what can only be seen as an admission that he did indeed withhold information from congress.

The OSC, of course, is the federal agency that is charged with investigating the concerns of federal employee whistleblowers, and protecting them from retaliation. Bloch was let go by the Bush administration in late 2008, after a seemingly endless string of controversies involving his leadership of the agency. These included, among numerous others, that he attempted to purge his staff of homosexuals, and that the total number of federal employees helped by OSC plummeted during his tenure.

Specifically…(from AP)

According to the court papers, Bloch failed to give the House committee staff a complete explanation about his instructions that the repair firm, Geeks On Call, perform data deletions on Bloch's computers and on computers of two non-career appointees at Bloch's office.

Bloch told the House investigative staff that the data wipe was done to protect government and personal information on the computer, not to destroy it, according to interview transcripts.

That was one heck of a day in May 2008 when federal agents raided the OSC and the home of Bloch, confiscating numerous computers and file data related to the Geeks On Call fiasco.

GAP was long critical of Bloch, and we’re not surprised by this news. What we do continue to be surprised at, however, is the delay and failure of the Obama administration to appoint a new head of this crucial agency that acts to safeguard against government wrongdoing. The office has been operating without a head for 18 months now. It needs a leader.

The Office of Special Counsel, the federal agency charged with protecting federal employees from retaliation for whistleblowing, has been without a leader for almost 18 months. This issue deserves more media attention, and it’s good that GovExec is recognizing that. Without a director, the agency has been unable to implement major policy changes or program initiatives, or support upcoming whistleblower protection legislation.

Several Government Accountability Project clients have found success with the OSC. Gabe Bruno, former Federal Aviation Administration Manager of the Orlando Flight Standards District Office, blew the whistle on certain failures of the FAA to promote security. The OSC informed Bruno in 2009 that it found his disclosures revealed a “substantial likelihood that serious safety concerns persist in the management and operation of the certification and management programs at FAA.”

Bogdan Dzakovic was a former leader of the FAA’s counter-terrorism unit ‘Red Team’ which, prior to 9/11, tested aviation security in airports around the world. The security systems failed around 75-90 percent of the time, but the FAA censored any written records of the failures, and banned retesting. After the attacks, the Red Team was grounded. Dzakovic filed a formal whistleblower complaint with the OSC, which eventually ruled in favor of his allegations, stating that the FAA executed its civil aviation security mission in a manner that “was a substantial and specific danger to public safety.”

by Molly Peterson

This is part three of a four-part series. Click here to go to the homepage of the series.

We continue a story today about hurricane protection equipment, pumps installed in New Orleans after Katrina. A Los Angeles-based Corps engineer says they won’t protect the city in a major storm. To this day no public records indicate that these pumps will work as designed. KPCC’s Molly Peterson reports on how the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and other federal agencies have listened to this whistleblower’s concerns.

by Peter Eisler

Huge flood-control pumps installed in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina don't protect the city adequately and the Army Corps of Engineers could have saved $430 million in replacement costs by buying proven equipment, a federal investigation finds.

This editorial was written by GAP Legal Director Tom Devine and GAP Legislative Assistant Adam Miles.

July’s hearing on the Office of Special Counsel (OSC) leads us to this conclusion: Special Counsel Scott Bloch is hopelessly over his head in his job to defend the federal civil service merit system. To restore legitimacy for the office, he must resign or be removed by the president for cause.

Bloch’s mission is to shield federal employees from retaliation and the civil service from political interference. But his mismanagement casts a cloud over OSC career staff members, who remain effective when allowed to do their jobs.

Productivity has plummeted, including a drop in help for whistleblowers. According to OSC’s own reports, the number of “favorable actions” OSC obtained for whistleblowers, its primary constituency, fell from 98 in fiscal 2002 — the last full year of the previous special counsel — to 40 in fiscal 2006. The figure of 40 is an inflated one considering that OSC broadened its definition of favorable actions in 2005.

The House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee on the federal work force met July 12 on the agency’s reauthorization. But the hearing degenerated when Bloch was confronted with charges of authorizing the leak of a draft OSC report to the media.