The defense authorization bill now near final approval in Congress includes language of a House-passed bill providing that heart disease, lung disease, and specified cancers are presumed to be caused by employment for purposes of FECA workers’ compensation benefits for federal employees who worked in fire protection activities.
The policy would apply to those who worked in certain occupations for at least five years and who are diagnosed with the disease within 10 years of employment. Covered occupations would include, in addition to firefighting, positions such as paramedic, emergency medical technician, rescue worker, ambulance personnel, or hazardous material worker.
The bill also would extend to FBI employees the standard rights to challenge alleged whistleblower retaliation to the MSPB; the current internal adjudication process for initial claims would remain but employees could make the outside appeal if that process results in a decision adverse to the employee, or if it did not result in a decision within 180 days of the filing.
It meanwhile would return the probationary period for newly hired competitive service employees at DoD to the one year that is the standard elsewhere. The department has been using a two-year period since 2016 but a provision enacted last year ordered a return to a one-year period starting in January 2023. Negotiators over the bill dropped a Senate provision to continue the longer period for another year to continue studying its impact.
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