EPA claims it has the power to garnish wages without court approval

Government out of Control

The Environmental Protection Agency has quietly claimed that it has the authority to unilaterally garnish the wages of individuals who have been accused of violating its rules. 
According to The Washington Times, the agency announced the plan to enhance its purview last week in a notice in the Federal Register. The notice claimed that federal law allows the EPA to "garnish non-Federal wages to collect delinquent non-tax debts owed the United States without first obtaining a court order." 
The notice went on to say that the EPA had fast-tracked the new rule, enabling it to take effect September 2 unless the agency receives enough adverse public comments by August 1. The EPA said the rule was not subject to review because it was not a "significant regulatory action."
The EPA has claimed this new authority by citing the Debt Collection Improvement Act of 1996, which gives all federal agencies the power to conduct administrative wage garnishment, provided that the agency allows for hearings at which debtors to challenge the amount or the terms of repayment schedule. 
The plan has drawn protests from conservatives, including Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., who told The Washington Times, "The EPA has a history of overreaching its authority. It seems like once again the EPA is trying to take power it doesn’t have away from American citizens.”
The conservative Heritage Foundation claimed that the rule gives the EPA "unbridled discretion" over the process of challenging fines.  David Addington, group vice president for research at Heritage, told the Times that the rule not only puts the burden of proof on the debtor, rather than the agency, but also allows the EPA to decide whether a debtor even gets a chance to present a defense before picking whomever it chooses to serve as a hearing officer.
The amount of money the EPA has collected in fines has increased steadily since President Barack Obama took office. In 2012, the agency took in $252 million in fines, up from just $96 million in 2009.

Concerns raised over strains on US military bases housing more than 2,700 unaccompanied minors

More than 2,700 unaccompanied minors who came across the southern U.S. border illegally are now being housed and cared for at military bases in California, Texas and Oklahoma, raising concerns about overburdening the facilities.
On Tuesday, the Pentagon – which provided the 2,700 figure -- confirmed it was in discussions with the Department of Health and Human Services to take on additional unaccompanied minors. But neither agency would reveal how many children were being discussed or what military facilities could be impacted.
"We're proud to be able to support them in this regard, but it is a temporary mission," Pentagon spokesman Rear Admiral John Kirby said.
Kirby said the Pentagon has reached a mutual agreement with HHS to care for the children for 120 days, but there already is some dispute about that timeframe. 
Rep. Jim Bridenstine, R-Okla., said, "There are rumors ... that they've already had requests from HHS to have, you know, a new 120-day period beyond the first 120-day period."
Bridenstine, a Navy pilot, said he's growing more concerned that the situation is actually beginning to impact the military's first priority: readiness.
"We have barracks that troops need to use to train, and it certainly doesn't help when our military bases are being used as refugee camps," he said.
Bridenstine added that he was turned away when he tried to get a firsthand look at the situation at Fort Sill in Oklahoma and was told to make an appointment for three weeks later, despite his objections.
He has criticized plans to hold a "media tour" for journalists on Thursday.  Restrictions include bans on recording devices, asking questions and talking with staff. 
"When the government tells you, 'You can tell a story, but you have to tell the story that the officials in the United States government will tell you that you can tell,' that is not within the keeping of the Constitution," he said.
The administration has said there are critical reasons for the restrictions.
According to the Administration for Children and Families at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services: "In order to protect the safety and privacy of the children, it has long been HHS's standard policy to not allow recording devices in Office of Refugee Resettlement shelters for minors. Children in these shelters are especially vulnerable.  ...  They may have been trafficked or smuggled."
In addition to the burden on military facilities, Rep. Phil Gingrey, R-Ga., a physician, has raised health concerns. 
In a letter to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Gingrey cited concerns about swine flu, Ebola virus and tuberculosis and asked the agency to "take immediate action to assess the public risk posed by the influx of unaccompanied children..."

Cartoon

Seattle business group clears hurdle in push to repeal $15 minimum wage

A coalition of Seattle businesses has cleared a major hurdle in its effort to repeal the city’s newly enacted $15-an-hour minimum wage, gathering enough petition signatures to put the issue to voters on the November ballot if the signatures hold up. 
Forward Seattle -- which represents restaurants, merchants and other businesses -- submitted roughly 19,500 signatures last Wednesday to City Hall.
The group needed 16,510 signatures. City officials could complete a preliminary count by as early as Monday, then send the signatures to the King County election office for final verification.
However, the effort also faces allegations of fraud that appear backed by well-funded groups intent on preserving the wage increase, Forward Seattle Co-Chair Angela Cough said.
She also told FoxNews.com the group’s grassroots effort is under-funded in large part because members are being intimidated by opponents, who she said are compiling online boycott lists and going on members’ Facebook pages and websites like Yelp to post negative comments.
“This is a principle-based fight for me,” Cough said. “But others are simply too scared.”
She also argued her group is not opposed to minimum wage increases. Rather, she said they are objecting to the process in Seattle that led to passage of the measure, to which members offered alternatives.
Democratic lawmakers have tried in recent months to raise the minimum wage across the country, in their effort to close the so-called income-inequality gap. But none has come close to Seattle raising its rate by 60 percent -- from $9.25 an hour.
The Democrat-controlled City Council in June unanimously approved the increase, which was then signed into law by Democratic Mayor Ed Murray.
While Democrats have pushed for the increases, critics say such hikes will burden businesses, forcing them to perhaps move, slow their growth or even close.
The Seattle increase is scheduled to be phased in over several years, depending on the size of the business.
Those with fewer than 500 workers must comply with the increase in the next seven years, while larger ones must do it within three years, or four if they offer health insurance, according to Reuters.
If the signatures on the Forward Seattle petition are validated, voters would be asked in November whether they want to repeal the increase.
Forward Seattle critics, though, say paid signature-gathers told potential signers the referendum would increase the minimum wage or that the measure had yet to be made law.
Cough acknowledges the validated signature count will be close, considering the typical margin of error could eliminate as many as 3,000 names.
“We’ll keep a list of every challenged signature and fight,” she said. “It’s going to be very, very close.”

Lines drawn at California town in immigration fight

Protesters and illegal immigrant supporters have drawn battle lines once again in Murrieta, the California city where angry residents last week turned back busloads of border crossers.
The small city about 60 miles north of San Diego has been in the national spotlight since last Tuesday when a group of protestors stopped three federal buses filled with mostly women and children from central America. The buses eventually turned around and left.
On Friday, six protestors were arrested but that hasn’t stopped even more from showing up again on Monday. Many say they’re worried about the immigrants being released in their community after they’re processed. 
“We’re out here to say, 'No more,'" said Kender Macgowan. "We’re drawing a line in the sand, well, not even the sand. We’re drawing a line in the blood of the patriots that have died for this country.”
One protester holding an American flag exchanged insults with several illegal immigrant supporters covering their faces with bandanas.
“I don’t think that mobbing a bus of terrified children is the way to go about it," said Cassandra Rules. "I think if you want to protest this take it to your politician's doorstep, take it to the White House. Don’t terrorize little kids who are already scared.”
The mayor of Murrieta said he has received little information from federal authorities. He said a planeload of immigrants arrived in San Diego Monday morning and that he is waiting to see if buses will arrive to Murrieta later in the day.
“We’re trying to get information out to both sides of the protest line but when we don’t have answers people get very very frustrated,” Mayor Alan Long said.
Long said the current process of shipping illegal immigrants to small city processing centers is a Band-aid on a bigger problem. He said the world has arrived on the door-step of his community over the last week.

DHS Secretary Johnson gives no clear answers on whether illegal immigrant children will be deported

Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson dodged pointed questions Sunday about whether the tens of thousands of Central American children who have recently entered the U.S. illegally will be deported or allowed to stay.
His responses on NBC’s “Meet the Press” and those of other Obama administration officials about what exactly they will do about the estimated 50,000 children who have entered the U.S. illegally in recent months are being characterized as ambiguous, as officials try to secure the U.S.-Mexico border.
Johnson said everybody who crossed the border faces a “pending” deportation proceeding but also repeated recent administration talking points about looking at ways to “create additional options.”
“There’s deportation proceeding pending against everybody coming illegally across the border,” he said, while also repeating the administration’s argument about dealing with a 2008 law that gives some protection to illegal immigrants from non-bordering countries.
Johnson also dismissed questions about not having enough resources at the border and expressed optimism the U.S. will stop the flow of illegals into the country, estimated in the hundreds of thousands since spring.
“Our border is not open for illegal immigration,” he told NBC. “And we will stem the tide.”
He also suggested that America’s first obligation is to the incoming children, over sovereignty.
“We have to do right by the children,” Johnson said.
His remarks were sharply criticized by Idaho GOP Rep. Raul Labrador, who called the administration’s public response to the crisis “shameful.”
“The administration needs to deport these families and children,” said Labrador, who appeared on the show after Johnson. “I know it sounds harsh and difficult, but it's better for the children. Send these children back in a humanitarian way. We can do it safely and efficiently.”
He also dismissed the narrative that the children are being sent unaccompanied to the U.S. border as a result of violence in their own countries.  
“The violence has existed for a long time,” Labrador said. “It's over the last two years that you've seen an increase in the children.”
While some of the children are living with relatives in this country, others remain in the custody of the U.S. Border Patrol and the Department of Health and Human Services.
Johnson declined to say whether Obama will visit the border while in Texas this week.
"The president can't be every place he'd like to be or should be," he said. Johnson also said he didn’t think the protests in Murrieta, Calif., about illegal immigrants being bussed from Texas to be housed in their city was representative of how fellow residents and the rest of America feel.
On Thursday, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest was asked by a reporter whether he could say “without ambiguity” if the children will be deported.
“What I can say without ambiguity is that the law will be applied and there is going to be a due process that they’ll all be subjected to,” Earnest replied. “So I wouldn’t stand here and say how those claims will be processed; it wouldn’t be appropriate for me to do so. But the law will be rigorously applied.”
He also said the administration is seeking “additional authority” from Congress.

US increases security at foreign airports, focus on cellphone, other electronic devices

Passengers taking international flights into the United States now must have their cell phones and other electronic devices pass additional inspection before boarding planes, as part of the Transportation Security Administration’s most recent strategy to protect against the threat of a new type of terror attack.
The TSA said Sunday it is requiring only some overseas airports to conduct the additional inspections. The agency also said devices that fail to power up won't be allowed on planes and that their owners might have to undergo extra screening before boarding.
“As the traveling public knows, all electronic devices are (already) screened by security officers,” the agency said in a release.
Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson on Wednesday ordered the TSA to put extra security measures in place at some international airports with direct flights to the U.S., based on intelligence that suggests new Al Qaeda efforts to produce a bomb that would go undetected through airport security.
Some experts have suggested such a device would be planted in a laptop or other such electronic devices.
“Our job is to try to anticipate the next attack, not simply react to the last one,” Johnson said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “So we continually evaluate the world situation. And we know that there remains a terrorist threat to the United States. And aviation security is a large part of that.”
Johnson said he and others in the Obama administration would continue to evaluate whether the increased security will be applied to U.S. domestic flights.
The beefed up security is almost certainly a response to recent intelligence reports suggesting that Al Qaeda-linked terrorists in Syria are working with members of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula to blow up a commercial aircraft headed to the U.S. or Europe, as reported first by ABC News.
Americans and others from the West have traveled to Syria over the past year to join Al Nusra Front's fight against the Syrian government.
One fear is fighters with a U.S. or Western passport -- and therefore subject to less stringent security screening -- could carry such a bomb onto an American plane.
Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has long been fixated on bringing down airplanes with hidden explosives. It was behind failed and thwarted plots involving suicide bombers with explosives designed to hide inside underwear and explosives hidden inside printer cartridges shipped on cargo planes.
An American Airlines spokesman said last week that the company has been in contact with U.S. officials about the new requirements but declined to comment further.
The United Kingdom also said it is increasing security measures “in conjunction with international partners and the aviation industry.” Officials also said they don’t anticipate significant disruptions for passengers and that they will not raise the terror-threat level.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Nonprofits' contraceptive cases next for justices

WASHINGTON (AP) — How much distance from an immoral act is enough?
That's the difficult question behind the next legal dispute over religion, birth control and the health law that is likely to be resolved by the Supreme Court.
The issue in more than four dozen lawsuits from faith-affiliated charities, colleges and hospitals that oppose some or all contraception as immoral is how far the Obama administration must go to accommodate them.
The justices on June 30 relieved businesses with religious objections of their obligation to pay for women's contraceptives among a range of preventive services the new law calls for in their health plans.
Religious-oriented nonprofit groups already could opt out of covering the contraceptives. But the organizations say the accommodation provided by the administration does not go far enough because, though they are not on the hook financially, they remain complicit in the provision of government-approved contraceptives to women covered by their plans.
"Anything that forces unwilling religious believers to be part of the system is not going to pass the test," said Mark Rienzi, senior counsel for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which represents many of the faith-affiliated nonprofits. Hobby Lobby Inc., winner of its Supreme Court case last month, also is a Becket Fund client.
The high court will be asked to take on the issue in its term that begins in October. A challenge from the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana, probably will be the first case to reach the court.
The Obama administration argues that the accommodation creates a generous moral and financial buffer between religious objectors and funding birth control. The nonprofit groups just have to raise their hands and say that paying for any or all of the 20 devices and methods approved by government regulators would violate their religious beliefs.
To do so, they must fill out a government document known as Form 700 that enables their insurers or third-party administrators to take on the responsibility of paying for the birth control. The employer does not have to arrange the coverage or pay for it. Insurers get reimbursed by the government through credits against fees owed under other parts of the health law.
Houses of worship and other religious institutions whose primary purpose is to spread the faith are exempt from the requirement to offer birth control.
The objections by religious nonprofits are rooted in teachings against facilitating sin.
Roman Catholic bishops and other religious plaintiffs argue that filling out the government form that registers opposition to contraceptives, then sending the document to the insurer or third-party administrator, is akin to signing a permission slip to engage in evil.
In the Hobby Lobby case, the justices rejected the government argument that there was no violation of conscience because the link between birth control coverage and the outcome the employer considers morally wrong was slight.
Just hours after the Hobby Lobby decision, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta granted a temporary reprieve to the Alabama-based Eternal Word Television Network. Judge William H. Pryor Jr. said in a separate opinion in that case that the administration "turns a blind eye to the undisputed evidence that delivering Form 700 would violate the Network's religious beliefs."
But the Supreme Court could draw a distinction between subsidizing birth control and signing a document to deputize a third-party to do so, said Robin Fretwell Wilson, a family law specialist at the University of Illinois College of Law.
"Think about how thinned down that objection is," Fretwell Wilson said. "The court might say that is a bridge too far."
Judge Karen Nelson Moore of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati said the document is a reasonable way for objecting organizations to inform the insurer, but that the obligation to cover contraception is in the health law, not the form.
"Self-certification allows the eligible organization to tell the insurance issuer and third-party administrator, 'We're excused from the new federal obligation relating to contraception,' and in turn, the government tells those insurance companies, 'But you're not,'" the judge wrote.
People on both sides of this argument are looking to the Hobby Lobby case for clues about how the justices might come out in this next round.
In a Supreme Court filing, the Justice Department said the outcome strongly suggested that the court would rule in its favor when considering the nonprofits' challenge.
"The decision in Hobby Lobby rested on the premise that these accommodations 'achieve all of the Government's aims' underlying the preventive-health services coverage requirement 'while providing greater respect for religious liberty,'" the Justice Department wrote, quoting from Justice Samuel Alito's majority opinion. The legal filing was in opposition to an emergency plea from Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois, to avoid having to fill out Form 700. Wheaton is one of only a few nonprofits not to have won temporary relief in its court fight.
Rienzi, who also represents Wheaton, wrote in reply that the government is wrong to assume that the Hobby Lobby decision "blessed the accommodation." He noted that Alito specifically said the court was not deciding whether the administration's workaround for nonprofits adequately addressed their concerns.
On Thursday, the court, with three justices dissenting, allowed Wheaton to avoid using the form while its case remains on appeal. Instead, the college can send written notice of its objections directly to the Health and Human Services Department rather than the insurer or the third-party administrator. At the same time, the government can take steps to ensure that women covered by Wheaton's health plan can get emergency contraception the college won't pay for.
Several legal experts said that perhaps a simple revision to the government document at the center of the dispute could resolve matters.
"I think the question will come down to does the government really need them to tell the insurance companies or can you reword the form," said Marc Stern, a religious liberty specialist and general counsel for the American Jewish Committee. The faith-affiliated charities "might win a redrafting of the form. I don't think they can win an argument that says we can do absolutely nothing," Stern said.
___
Zoll reported from New York.