[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 13]
[House]
[Page 17289]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                    DUE PROCESS FOR OREGON'S FARMERS

  (Mr. WALDEN asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. WALDEN. Mr. Speaker, over 2 weeks ago, I came to this floor to 
ask for answers from the Department of Labor on behalf of Oregon 
farmers. Well, yesterday, I did get a letter from the Secretary, which 
I appreciated, but it was not answering our questions from the 
delegation. It was congratulating me on my reelection.
  122 days ago, nearly every member of the Oregon delegation, 
Republicans and Democrats, wrote the Labor Secretary after hearing 
reports of so-called ``hot goods'' enforcement tactics that stopped 
shipments of highly perishable berries with little opportunity for 
appeal.
  One farmer was told verbally that a shipment was on hold because the 
inspector determined it was impossible for an individual picker to pick 
as much as records showed. But to lift the hold, the farm was directed 
to pay an undetermined amount in fines and back wages and sign a 
consent judgment requiring the farm to ``waive further findings of 
fact''--without even getting an explanation of alleged violations.
  The farm was left with the choice of paying the fine and signing the 
consent judgment or allowing a few hundred thousand dollars of 
perishable produce to spoil. In the end, the farm felt it had little 
choice but to pay the $170,000 and sign the consent judgment so that 
the fruit could be shipped.
  In light of these and other complaints, our delegation asked the 
Department for detail on its policies and procedures for making these 
decisions; 122 days later, we've yet to get an answer. That's not 
right.

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