Week in Review

EVENTS

• In an effort to thwart food-borne illnesses, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued several final rules under the Food Safety Modernization Act, “one of the most significant steps in decades” that the FDA says it has taken to strengthen food-related safety measures.

• President Barack Obama issued an executive order requiring that employers that contract with the federal government provide their employees with up to seven days of paid sick leave each year—a move which he hopes will influence Congress to impose similar requirements on private sector employers.

• The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced it is imposing fines on two debt buyers and collectors after determining the companies had purchased unverified debts, and then used inaccurate documents to acquire payments from debtors through lawsuits and settlements.

• In an effort to eliminate differences in pay between employees working for federal contractors, the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) published a final rule banning retaliation towards employees or prospective employees for requesting or providing information about pay.

• After several years of investigating and litigating against the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and related parties for alleged child labor law violations, the U.S. Department of Labor’s (DOL) Wage and Hour Division announced that it has filed an administrative action against these groups, seeking to collect over $1.9 million in civil penalties.

• The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), along with fifteen other agencies, proposed a rule that amends the safeguards that apply when humans are used in research.

• The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) added two weeks to the comment period for a proposed rule that creates new standards for trucks and other heavy-duty vehicles to decrease their fuel use and greenhouse gas emissions.

• The Department of Energy (DOE) released a report on the threats that climate change poses to tribal lands, finding that, due to the limited resources that tribes have to combat this problem, “[t]ribes are among the U.S. communities most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.”