FederalDaily - April 25, 2005

Senators Vow to Push Postal Reform

Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Tom Carper, D-Del., released a joint statement on April 21 saying they are committed to getting postal reform legislation approved by Congress and signed into law this year. “We are working closely with the administration to implement many of the recommendations of the President’s Commission,” Collins and Carper stated. However, they added that the administration has expressed serious reservations about two of the recommendations made by the President’s Commission—both of which the Senators support. Collins and Carper said the administration’s position that the USPS should pay retroactive retirement costs for the military service of its employees is in “direct contradiction” to the recommendation of the President’s Commission. No other federal agency is required to make this payment retroactively.

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Negroponte Confirmed as DNI

The full Senate confirmed John Negroponte as the first Director of National Intelligence (DNI) on April 21 in a vote of 98-2. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, authored the intelligence law that created the position of DNI (the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, which was enacted in December 2004). The bill gave the DNI the authority to manage the federal intelligence community. “Having served recently as our ambassador in Iraq , he has first-hand, up-to-date insight as an intelligence consumer into the need for better intelligence,” Collins said about Negroponte at his confirmation hearing. She added, “He will be the first intelligence CEO to set the entire community’s budget, to establish community-wide intelligence gathering and analytic priorities, and to employ financial, technological and human resources where and when they are most needed.”  

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Air Marshal Wants Right to Talk

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Southern California on April 21 filed a lawsuit on behalf of a federal employee—Air Marshal Frank Terreri—who is seeking a ban on Federal Air Marshal Service rules that prohibit him from speaking publicly about his job or saying anything in connection with the Air Marshal Service. “The Department of Homeland Security is not only infringing on Frank Terreri's right to free expression, they are actually jeopardizing the public's safety by limiting the speech of whistleblowers," said Peter Eliasberg, managing attorney of the ACLU of Southern California. The lawsuit seeks a declaration that portions of the Federal Air Marshal Service rules that say marshals may not "release or divulge investigative information or any other matters pertaining to the FAMS" are unconstitutional. ACLU’s complaint can be read at: www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/SafeandFree.cfm?ID=18085&c=206.  

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Enticing Ex-Feds to Rejoin the Government

Rep. Jim Moran, D-Va., reintroduced legislation t hat would help entice private sector employees to rejoin the federal workforce by allowing individuals to reinvest their federal retirement without losing credit for previous years of service. Under the FERS (Federal Employee Retirement System) Redeposit Act, H.R.1739, individuals who have left federal service and received a refund of their FERS contributions would be able to re-enter government service without losing their accrued annuity. Those returning employees would be able to redeposit their cashed out annuity before being re-employed. Currently this benefit of redeposit is available only to federal employees in the Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS).

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