Senate panel advances bills to protect whistleblowers, fix CBP workers’ retirement benefits

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on Wednesday unanimously advanced two bills expanding protections for whistleblowers who work for federal contractors and to fix a longstanding benefits inequity impacting around 1,350 U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers.

The 2025 Expanding Whistleblower Protections for Contractors Act (S. 874), would extend whistleblower protections to federal contractors who refuse to follow illegal order remove an exception that allows executive branch officials to order reprisal against a whistleblower under some circumstances, and invalidate any predispute arbitration agreement that waives a contractor’s rights as a whistleblower.

The measure, introduced by Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., the committee’s top Democrat, and sponsored by Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, previously advanced out of the panel unanimously last year, but the bill was not called up for a vote on the Senate floor.

In a statement Wednesday, Maya Efrati, director of legislation and congressional affairs for the Government Accountability Project, which previously endorsed the bill, applauded the panel’s unanimous vote.

“This bipartisan legislation fixes the glaring loopholes that have left federal contractors vulnerable for too long,” she said. “With trillions of taxpayer dollars going to contractors, honest employees deserve the security to speak up when they witness waste, fraud or abuse.”

The committee also voted to advance a bill aimed at fixing a more than decade-old error that misled around 1,350 CBP officers about their retirement benefits.

In 2008, CBP implemented a law making officers eligible for enhanced retirement benefits to make up for the fact that they are required to retire at age 57, provided that they have 20 years of service and make larger contributions toward their retirement annuity. The law set up a transitional system for those hired before July 6, 2008, which provides the enhanced annuity rate despite the fact that they would not have reached 20 years of service before their mandatory retirement date.

But the agency mistakenly told officers who were given their job offers before the transition date but who were not onboarded until afterward that they would be eligible for the enhanced benefits. In 2020, CBP realized its mistake and rescinded those enhanced benefits, despite the fact that the impacted workers had spent over a decade putting more of their paychecks toward those benefits.

The 2025 Customs and Border Protection Officers Retirement Corrections Act (S. 727), introduced by Peters and Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., would require CBP to honor their original promise of enhanced retirement benefits to the impacted workers, including by providing retroactive annuity increases for those who have retired before the bill’s enactment.

“Customs and Border Protection officers work tirelessly to protect our communities in Michigan and across the country, ensuring the secure and efficient flow of trade and travel at ports of entry,” Peters said in a statement upon the bill’s reintroduction in February. “These dedicated officers made career and retirement decisions based on benefits they were promised when hired. This bipartisan legislation will ensure Customs and Border Protection upholds its commitment to these public servants and provides them with the retirement benefits they earned through their years of service.”

Both bills advanced by 13-0 votes. They now head to the Senate floor for consideration by the full chamber.