Claire McCaskill

It is especially important to have accurate contract data because that allows you to be able to track and identify where the funds are.

Is there a recommendation that should be made that we should end the notion that Arlington should not have fiscal year appropriation like anybody else would?

I was worried when I saw the article in the Washington Post yesterday that they had some problems in the VA system.

I'm not going to comment about people drawing conclusions about the appearances of this contract. I want to get into the facts.

How did this become a no-bid contract? Was it justified as a no-bid contract? Overall, I think we need to begin asking some policy questions about the kind of money we're spending on developing drugs where the United States government is…

It is just unbelievable to me that we have allowed this to occur.

I think the laws clearly have to be improved, stepped up.

Now, if a DOE employee reports waste of government funds, they are fully protected from retaliation; whereas, it is not clear that you as a contractor employee have that same protection.

I am speechless about the reality of you still going there every day as a walking billboard to everyone to keep their mouth shut, because that is essentially what you are.

I have introduced legislation, along with my friend Jim Webb, that will expand the protection of whistleblowers to any whistleblower, whether they are an employee or whether they are a Federal contractor.

I think that the standard that should be used should apply across the board going forward.

As far as I am concerned--and I think many of the people who serve in an oversight capacity in the Senate--they are the unsung heroes in terms of us trying to get at the problems we have with the government spending money in ways it should…

This is about safety. And that is what is really of concern.

I think that one of the things we have tried to get at in 241--and I just want to put this on the record--kind of goes to the point you were making, Ms. Garrison, earlier about the government asking for something to happen with an employee…

The people who are tasked with the administrative process are the ones who advised you, Get out of Dodge, so to speak, and get into the civil court system because the administrative system is not going to be adequate in terms of addressing…

So we need to look into that. We need to ask some significant questions of DOE about who is paying for the defense of this case and whether or not taxpayers are----

I hope that Senator Portman takes a hard look at Senate bill 241.

So the administrative remedies that we have in the law for whistleblowers completely failed you?

Isn't that always the defense?

OK. We were told in a briefing that DOD IG was also relying on the previous standards in the law...

It is interesting, the award fee stuff we saw over and over again in Iraq and Afghanistan...

But how do you know that without investigating?

So that the retaliation, no matter where it occurs, whether it occurs by the government or whether it occurs by the employer, be it a contractor or subcontractor, would all be covered.

Because at the root of all this, these are good old-fashioned fraud cases, right?

I think it is pretty important that we clarify that this law applies to Congress.