Congress is moving to protect whistleblowers from employer retaliation. Buried in the Investor Protection Act is an amendment that would close a loophole that currently exposes some employees to the will of their employer for reporting corporate wrongdoing.

The Wall Street Journal reports:

[T]he Labor Department has dismissed many whistleblower complaints on a technicality, saying the law, as written, doesn't apply to corporate subsidiaries.

Since the law was passed in 2002, the government has ruled in favor of corporate whistleblowers in 21 out of 1,455 complaints. Another 996 cases have been dismissed. The rest of the cases were withdrawn, settled or are pending.

The amendment just passed out of the House Financial Services Committee by a party-line vote and should come before the full House in a matter of weeks.