Three Senate Democrats have directed a letter to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) insisting it fully enforce its “Made in the USA” labeling standards in the aftermath of recent agency decisions to settle with companies that allegedly marketed foreign-made goods as domestically produced.
Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut and Sen. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin drafted a memorandum to the FTC on Monday stating they were concerned about recent agency decisions to reach “no-fault, no-money” settlements with companies alleged to have sold imported equipment under a “Made in the USA” label, instead of pursuing fines and admissions of guilt from the firms involved.
Protect your Marijuana Strain and Brand using Blockchain and (UPC) Universal Product Code.
With Marijuana listed as a Schedule 1 drug in the United States, business owners and growers face strict Federal restrictions. These governmental commerce restrictions pose issues to brand owners and growers wishing to protect their personal Marijuana brands (strains) with trademarks Albeit, some states have begun adopting their own policies regarding Marijuana commerce and trade, the United States Patent and Trade Office (USPTO) presumes ultimate control in distributing trademarks and brand protection. A trademark is a word, phrase, symbol, or design, or combination of words, phrases, symbols, or designs, that identifies and distinguishes the source of goods of one party from those of others1. Ultimately, a trademark offers an incredible value-add to brand owners using a brand name that is recognized by consumers which therefore drives customers to their business. Business owners/growers seeking to protect their personalized crops or bring legitimacy to commonly known strains face issues in providing customers with strain and crop assurance due to these strict regulations on Marijuana commerce.Read more of this post
Nearly eight months after President Donald J. Trump signed his executive order “Buy American and Hire American,” an expert on certifying whether goods are made in the United States shared with Big League Politics the challenges in certification and enforcing Trump’s intentions.
Adam Reiser, the CEO and founder of Certified, Inc., told Big League Politics he is seeing no action in the executive branch to move the president’s executive order forward.
A source familiar with how the White House drafted the executive order told Big League Politics: “There are zero teeth in it, you know? Let’s of fanfare, lots of publicity, back-slapping and hand-shaking with Trump–and now, it is getting resisted, like as if it meant nothing.”
According to the president’s directive, all agencies were supposed to have turned into both the Department of Commerce and the Office of Management and Budget how they plan to comply. These plans are to include, searchable databases of certified vendors, storage arrangements for the documents and simplifications of their internal procurement procedures.
Reiser said Trump’s executive order was the president’s attempt to bring federal procurement back in synch with the law.
Byrne’s idea was that given support by the Hearst newspapers and by Hoover’s Commissioner of Customs Francis F.A. Eble, who would go on to start the Buy American Club.
“The law says that the U.S. government has to show preferential treatment to U.S. manufacturers,” Reiser said. “It is so the government has to buy from its own.”
Reiser said that from the 1970s, the federal government has been providing waivers to the 1933 law. “In the 1980s and 1990s, it has picked up big-time.”
President Donald J. Trump holding his Executive Order 13788 at the April 18, 2017 Kenosha, Wis., signing ceremony. (White House photo)
A senior administration official speaking on background on Easter Monday, the day before the executive order was signed in the headquarters of the tool company Snap-On in Kenosha, Wisconsin, said the executive order would correct the abuse of the Buy American Act waiver process.
“Okay, so the culture immediately changes across the agencies. We have a lax enforcement, lax monitoring, lax compliance,” the official said. Read more of this post
The auto industry has warned that significant changes to the so-called rules of origin could undercut the president’s America-first goals.
Top executives from Detroit automakers met Monday with Vice President Mike Pence and other administration officials and aired their concerns about changes the Trump administration is seeking to the North American Free Trade Agreement.
Trump has pushed for companies to construct more auto assembly plants in the U.S., while also pushing for major changes to NAFTA that the automakers oppose. U.S. negotiators have proposed significant changes to the so-called rules of origin for autos in a bid to ensure more U.S.-made parts are used in vehicles assembled in North America, a change that the auto industry has warned could undercut Trump’s America-first goals.
“We view the modernization of NAFTA as an important opportunity to update the 23-year-old agreement and set the stage for an expansion of U.S. auto exports,” Matt Blunt, a former Missouri governor who leads the American Automotive Policy Council, a trade association representing Ford Motor Co., General Motors Co., and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV said in a statement. “We also appreciate the opportunity to directly address the industry’s concerns with the administration’s rule of origin proposal.”
Blunt said there are other things the group would like to have added to NAFTA, including a provision to guard against currency manipulation by Mexico and Canada.
Fiat Chrysler Chief Executive Officer Sergio Marchionne, GM CEO Mary Barra and Joe Hinrichs, Ford’s president of global operations, attended the White House meeting. U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn were also scheduled to attend the meeting, Pence’s office said earlier on Monday.
Pence’s office issued a statement confirming the meeting and saying he emphasized “Trump’s commitment to enact historic tax cuts” and commitment to grow manufacturing in the U.S., reduce trade deficits and aid the car-making industry.
Fort Lauderdale, Florida, the “Yachting Capital of the World” will host the 58th Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show on Nov 1- Nov 5, 2017. Show exhibits range from yacht builders and designers to exotic cars and brokerage yachts. A wide variety of boats will be on display including runabouts, sportfishers, high-performance boats, center consoles, cabin cruisers, flats boats, skiffs, express cruisers, sailing yachts, motor yachts, bowriders, catamarans, ski boats, jet boats, trawlers, inflatables, canoes, and extraordinary superyachts. FLIBS is exactly where you want to be!
According to the OIA Industry 2017 report, the outdoor recreation industry contributes $887 billion in consumer spending annually, provides 7.6 million jobs, generates $65.3 billion in federal tax revenue and $59.2 billion in state and local tax revenue.
The country’s largest organic milk producer has allegedly been operating illegally, according to an exposé that appeared in the Washington Post Monday. Aurora Organic Dairy, which supplies store-brand organic milk to such retailers as Walmart, Costco, and Target, was accused in the exposé of failing to graze its cattle according to USDA organic standards.
A formal legal complaint was filed Tuesday against the dairy and its organic certifier, the Colorado Department of Agriculture, by organic watchdog group The Cornucopia Institute.
“The rigorous investigative work by Peter Whoriskey at The Washington Post clearly illustrates a pattern of long-term corruption by both Aurora Dairy and the USDA’s National Organic Program,” Mark Kastel, Cornucopia’s co-director, said in a press release. “Our organic regulators have turned a blind eye as giant industrial operations place ethical family-scale dairy farmers at a distinct competitive disadvantage.”
According to the Washington Post, the High Plains operation in Colorado, which is run by Aurora Organic Dairy, has been keeping almost all of its 15,000 cows in dirt- and manure-covered pens instead of in pasture, as organic regulations require. Reporters visited the farm several times across eight days last year, and each time they never found more than ten percent of the herd grazing. This was confirmed by a high-resolution satellite photo taken in mid-July by DigitalGlobe, the Post reports.
Walmart issued a major recall of frozen pizza after its brand announced a potential listeria contamination.
The company issued the recall for its frozen pizzas sold under the Marketside brand – to be exact, 21,220 pounds of the brand’s extra large Supreme pizza were recalled. The food safety inspection Service detailed the recall on its website.
The products subject to recall bear establishment number “EST. 1821” inside the USDA mark of inspection. These items were shipped to retail distribution centers in California, Nevada, Utah and Washington.
The problem was discovered during routine sampling by the firm. There have been no confirmed reports of adverse reactions due to consumption of these products.
Consumption of food contaminated with L. monocytogenes can cause listeriosis, a serious infection that primarily affects older adults, persons with weakened immune systems, and pregnant women and their newborns. Less commonly, persons outside these risk groups are affected.
According to the National Fisheries Institute, Americans consumed more than 700 million pounds of canned tuna in 2015. That equates to 2.2 pounds per person annually.
The food remains among the top three seafood items Americans consume each year– and it’s held that ranking for more than 10 years.
But now retailers are saying that there’s something pretty fishy going on in the canned tuna industry and, as is the trend with many other foods, there’s been a renewed focus on how the fish is caught and processed– and where it comes from.
To that effect, on Whole Foods Market recently announced that by next January, all of the canned tuna sold in stores or used in its prepared foods departments will be sourced only from fishers that exclusively use pole-and-line, troll or hand line catch methods. These methods theoretically eliminate the issue of bycatch or the unintentional harvest of other fish, birds or mammals. With Whole Foods’ protocols in place, their fisherman will be catching tuna individually to prevent overfishing.
The chain’s new policy also mandates canned tuna products to originate from fisheries certified by the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) or be sourced from fisheries rated green (best choice) or yellow (good alternative) by the Monterey Bay Aquarium and The Safina Center.
While the Trump administration prepares to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, is warning against any reconsideration of country-of-origin labeling (COOL).
COOL is reportedly among the administration’s “key elements of a model trade agreement” that it aims to address in renegotiating NAFTA and other trade deals. But in a committee hearing last week Roberts told Robert Lighthizer, Trump’s nominee for U.S. Trade Representative ambassador, to scrap that idea.
“We’ve been down this road before,” Roberts said. “We fixed the issue of COOL in 2015. We don’t need to go down that road again. We narrowly escaped about $4 billion … in retaliatory tariffs against the United States. I do not think we need a constantly changing list of key elements of a model trade agreement … what we need is a U.S. Trade Representative confirmed … and in place who will embark on a robust trade policy.”
The fake merchandise, consisting of 1,200 boxes falsely branded with the labels Chanel, Christian Dior, Estée Lauder, and L’Oréal SA’s Lancôme, was seized in a series of seven separate raids. Fifteen people were arrested, and 13 of them have been charged with crimes.
The ongoing operation began last year, when reports surfaced that an online store was selling cosmetics falsely labeled with the Amway brand name. Chinese police investigated and eventually raided the online store’s warehouse, confiscating 100 boxes of counterfeit Amway cosmetics worth $30,000. That raid led to information that allowed police to identify the seven other operations that were recently raided.
A major industry
According to police, the counterfeit cosmetics ring was distributing fake products nationwide. The fake products were sold for a 900 percent profit. The counterfeiters had a policy of quickly responding to any complaints with a full refund, in the hopes of avoiding calls to the police.
One man has allegedly confessed to running the manufacturing end of the ring. He says that he bought the ingredients online, then purchased the packaging from Guangdong province to the south. The bar codes on the boxes were copied from authentic products. Read more of this post
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Nearly eight months after President Donald J. Trump signed his executive order “
