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At the Department of Energy, our employees — as well as workers who are employed by our contractor companies — work with some of the most complex machinery and dangerous materials on Earth. From nuclear waste to lasers to particle accelerators, our workers' activities require vigilant safety and communication.

That's why the Department has gone to great lengths to ensure that employees can raise concerns about health, safety and management issues without fear of retaliation. Because we believe our mission is best served by a culture where employees are confident their concerns will be heard and that they will not be punished for raising them.

In fact, we have established an Employee Concerns Program for both federal and contractor employees, so they can address their concerns in a comfortable forum. And employees are of course protected by laws, regulations and even contracts that we sign explicitly prohibiting retaliation against whistleblowers.

Today, I am announcing two additional steps that will build upon our ongoing efforts.

The first is detailed guidance to our personnel responsible for entering into and administering contracts that makes it clear if and when the Department will reimburse legal costs in whistleblower cases. The guidance instructs that a primary consideration for whether one of our contracting companies can be reimbursed in such a case is whether the company in fact retaliated against a whistleblower. Just because a company prevails in their defense does not necessarily mean they will be entitled to reimbursement costs.

Second, the Department is publishing a proposed rule clarifying that the Department can assess civil penalties against contractors and subcontractors for retaliating against any employee who raises concerns relating to nuclear safety.

Going forward, if a contractor employee calls attention to a radiation hazard that is in violation of a nuclear safety requirement and the contractor retaliates against the employee for raising the issue, the contractor may be subject to a civil penalty for creating the radiation hazard and the contractor may have to compensate the employee for the retaliation. With this new proposed rulemaking, the Department would be empowered to impose an additional civil penalty against the contractor for the retaliation itself.

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