We agree with Sen. Charles Grassley; the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) “took a step in the right direction” last week when it adopted rules to establish a whistleblower program. As described by Accounting Today: “The new SEC whistleblower program, implemented under Section 922 of the Dodd-Frank Act, is primarily intended to reward individuals who act early to expose violations and who provide significant evidence that helps the SEC bring successful cases.”

Grassley said in a press release that protection for employees who report financial fraud “might prevent the next (Bernie) Madoff,” referring to the Ponzi scheme that wrecked so many investment portfolios.

Just to make doing the right thing even more palatable, Grassley pointed out that finding out about bad actors can save money for the rest of us, too.

“Twenty years ago, the Justice Department resisted whistleblowers. Since then, whistleblowers have helped the department recover $28 billion that otherwise would have been lost to fraud,” according to Grassley. “More recently, there was a lot of skepticism about beefing up the IRS’ whistleblower incentives. That office recently recovered $20 million for the taxpayers in the first reward under the new setup. Now, the SEC needs to break away from its past of resisting whistleblowers.”

The Government Accountability Project (GAP) has praised Grassley as being one of the most reliable champions for whistleblowers.

Now if certain other Republican lawmakers would just get on board. The Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act, designed to shield government employees from retaliation for exposing wrongdoing, has been introduced once again in the U.S. Senate. It was close to passage last winter, but a secret hold was placed on it; GAP said Jon Kyl of Arizona and Jeff Sessions of Alabama “have taken turns placing holds” on the bill each time it appears.

It’s another case of government resisting the medicine it prescribes for the rest of us.