Whistleblower Law Revision Sought to Prevent Corporate Protection

Attorney General Hubert Humphrey III and Minnesota state Senator John Marty have announced plans to revise the whistleblower law in the next legislative session. The change is in response to a recent Star Tribune report exposing how Koch Refining Co. used the law to prevent the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) from releasing an investigative file on the company. The current interpretation of the law restricts the release of investigative records naming employees who cooperate with state investigations, but Marty argues that the law was not intended to protect companies involved in wrongdoing. The proposed revision aims to ensure that the law is used to protect only whistleblowers and not companies under investigation.

Key Takeaways:

• The whistleblower law is being interpreted to restrict the release of investigative records naming employees who cooperate with state investigations, but this was not the original intent.
• Koch Refining Co. successfully argued that the records naming their employees should be kept private, citing the whistleblower law.
• Senator John Marty, author of the legislation, believes that the employees in question were not whistleblowers because they were accompanied by Koch representatives during interviews.
• The proposed revision aims to make it clear that the law is intended to protect employees from retaliation, not companies involved in wrongdoing.
• The legislation does not intend to restore full public access to investigative files that include the names of whistleblowers.
• The MPCA closed the Koch investigative file after receiving advice from the attorney general, who cited the whistleblower law as a reason to withhold the records.

Statistics:

• 1997: The year Senator John Marty authored legislation combining a longstanding whistleblower provision with the state open-records law.
• 1: The number of investigative files that can be released only if whistleblowers named in the records agree to release their names or have their identities expunged.
• X: The percentage of investigative files that were previously accessible to the public.

Sources:

• Star Tribune report (no date available)
• Senator John Marty (no date available)
• Attorney General Hubert Humphrey III (no date available)