Grassley Urges NIH Director to Ensure Employees May Speak to Congress

WASHINGTON – Sen. Chuck Grassley has urged the director of the National Institutes of Health to ensure that agency officials do not intimidate federal employees against speaking to Congress. Grassley is concerned that in recent days, several employees at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, which is part of the National Institutes of Health, were given a form to fill out if they were contacted by congressional investigators.

“Federal employees should feel free to speak with Congress and tell us about problems where they work,” Grassley said. “Whistleblowers have exposed huge amounts of wasted tax dollars and abuse of the public trust. Any attempt to silence potential whistleblowers is not only wrong, but also illegal.”

As ranking member of the Finance Committee, Grassley has been conducting an inquiry into allegations of mismanagement and possible ethics violations at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. Upon learning that agency employees were given a form to fill out if they were contacted by congressional investigators, he wrote to the director of the National Institutes of Health and asked for an explanation.

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