That Whistle's Been Blowing for Two Years

In an unusual step, Devine, Jeff Ruch of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility and Danielle Brian of the Project on Government Oversight sent a letter this week to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee asking that it not support higher funding for Bloch's office in fiscal 2008.

Bloch's office, which has 113 employees, has said it needs an additional $3 million for Hatch Act investigations, primarily to hire technical experts who can extract documents and e-mails from computer systems. The White House had requested $16.3 million for the office next year.

As part of the Hatch Act initiative, Bloch has created a special task force, which has six staff members and a manager. The task force supplements the regular Hatch Act staff of five.

But the watchdog groups, in their letter, said they do not trust Bloch, adding that his office "cannot take on any more responsibilities without further abandoning its primary constituency: government whistle-blowers."

Leslie Phillips, spokeswoman for Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.), chairman of the Senate committee, said Lieberman has expressed support for additional funding for Bloch's office, "but he remains deeply concerned about the serious allegations that led to the IG investigation."

Lieberman, she added, "believes it is essential that the IG investigation be promptly concluded."

Talk Shows

Rhonda Trent, president of Federally Employed Women, and Cecelia Davis, the group's vice president, will be the guests on "FEDtalk" at 11 a.m. today on http://federalnewsradio.com and WFED radio (1050 AM).

John W. Cox, chief financial officer at the Housing and Urban Development Department, will be the guest on the IBM "Business of Government Hour" at 9 a.m. Saturday on WJFK radio (106.7 FM).

Stephen Barr's e-mail address isbarrs@washpost.com.