Stuff in the News: Asset Forfeiture Seizures, Lay-offs, Legionnaire's Disease, China, EPA Damage

This week, a bipartisan group of members on the House Ways and Means Oversight Subcommittee is calling on the Treasury Department to return money seized from a Maryland family of dairy farmers. Earlier this year, the subcommittee held a hearing examining civil asset forfeiture and found that small-business owners were having their bank accounts seized—without due process—simply because of how they were depositing money. The hearing found that this abuse of power has devastated families, eliciting an apology from the IRS commissioner. The Department of Justice has since announced that it will no longer pursue such cases unless it has reason to believe the deposits are somehow related to underlying criminal activity. While this policy change is welcome, some small businesses are still reeling from the seizures. That’s why the lawmakers, led by subcommittee Chairman Peter Roskam (R-IL), have sent a letter asking the administration to remit the money that rightfully belongs to Randy and Karen Sowers, the Maryland dairy farmers, as well as to return assets to all taxpayers whose bank accounts were seized inconsistent with the updated policy. Attorneys for the Sowers family have also filed a petition asking the government to return the Sowers’ funds.

Kraft Heinz announced major layoffs on Wednesday. They laid off 2500 workers. The company has been based in Northfield, IL. According to Representative Jan Schakowsky (D-IL, 9th), "The Kraft-Heinz merger, approved earlier this year, is a direct cause of these layoffs. This follows a pattern by the merged company’s private equity owner, 3G Capital Partners, which also laid of thousands of American workers when it took over Anheuser-Busch in 2008."

U.S. Congressman Jose E. Serrano (D-NY, 15th) sent a letter to Secretary of Labor Thomas Perez asking for the Department of Labor, specifically the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), to play a role in the federal investigation of the origins of the Legionnaires’ disease in the Bronx and to help determine whether the violation of federal workplace safety laws have been a factor in the outbreak. Most of the locations affected so far are workplaces required to meet federal safety regulations. Congressman Serrano also encouraged the Department to revisit previously proposed indoor workplace air standards shelved by the Bush Administration in 2001, which “would have required employers to develop written plans to maintain indoor air quality, conduct regular inspections and maintenance to ensure indoor air quality, and to take preventive measures to control specific hazardous sources.”

Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) Chairman Representative Chris Smith and Cochairman Senator Marco Rubio in a joint statement urged the Obama Administration to use the occasion of the U.S.-China Human Rights Dialogue, convening in Washington, DC this week, to send the unambiguous message that tangible progress on human rights should be a key goal of President Xi Jinping’s planned September visit.

Members of the Colorado and New Mexico Congressional delegations are urging President Barack Obama to direct any and all appropriate federal resources to help respond to damage from the Gold King Mine spill that occurred in southwest Colorado last week. Communities in both states along the affected rivers are working quickly to minimize the short-term and long-term public health and economic challenges caused by the tragic spill. Recovering from the spill will take a full and coordinated approach from the Environmental Protection Agency and other federal agencies working with state, tribal, and local officials.