Other LanguagesOLYMPIA — A panel of federal judges, including a Trump appointee, today blocked the Trump Administration’s effort to repeal the Clean Power Plan and replace it with the so-called “Affordable Clean Energy” rule, which would not require significant carbon emission reductions. The ruling came in a challenge brought by Attorney General Bob Ferguson and a coalition of 22 states and seven local governments.
Attorney General Bob Ferguson today announced that a sham veterans’ charity is legally required to pay $95,000 to Washington state. Healing Heroes Network Inc. deceived donors into believing most of their donations would help provide medical care for wounded veterans. In fact, it spent less than one percent of individuals’ donations on veterans’ medical care. For example, in 2016, the charity received $2.7 million in donations nationwide, yet spent only $1,128 to fund veterans’ medical care.
TACOMA — As a result of Attorney General Bob Ferguson’s lawsuit, non-profit organization Veterans Independent Enterprises of Washington (VIEW) has received $1 million — the maximum allowed under its insurance policy — to pay its creditors, including 74 veterans who are owed wages. The employees’ claims range from $192 to $48,925 in unpaid wages, totaling $310,489.37.
TACOMA — A Tacoma judge has ordered over $41,000 in penalties and mandatory training for a FedEx contractor and its owner for firing a pregnant employee immediately after she asked for an accommodation. An accommodation is a reasonable change to the working environment to accommodate the pregnancy and the health conditions after the birth of the baby. The judge’s decision came in the first case brought to trial by the Attorney General’s Office under the 2017 “Healthy Starts Act.”
SEATTLE — Attorney General Bob Ferguson and a legal coalition of 40 tribes, states, and community organizations filed a motion late yesterday for preliminary injunction to halt the federal government’s planned sale of the National Archives building in Seattle. The motion includes 586 pages of declarations from tribal officials, heads of community organizations and historians from across the Pacific Northwest and Alaska. The 79 declarations include deeply personal stories of connection to the archives and statements of outrage against "cultural erasure."
SEATTLE — Attorney General Bob Ferguson announced today that his office filed a lawsuit against the federal government for illegally proceeding with the sale of the National Archives and Records Administration’s (NARA) building in Seattle. The government plans to ship the National Archives building’s irreplaceable, un-digitized records more than a thousand miles away to archive centers in Kansas City, Missouri and Riverside, California. This will effectively eliminate public access to the records. Twenty-nine federally recognized tribes, Alaskan tribal entities, and tribal communities from Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Alaska, as well as nine community organizations, historical preservation societies and museums and the state of Oregon joined Ferguson’s lawsuit.
Attorney General Bob Ferguson today announced that music travel company Voyageurs International must pay more than $464,000 for full refunds to 235 Washington students who signed up for the company’s 2020 European tours.
SEATTLE — Attorney General Bob Ferguson today announced he will host a remote public meeting on Tuesday, Jan. 19, 2021, so the public can share their comments on plans by the federal government to sell Seattle’s National Archives building and move the records thousands of miles away.
OLYMPIA — Attorney General Bob Ferguson today announced a Pennsylvania online tobacco retailer, Smoker’s Outlet Online, will pay $65,885 after it illegally sent tobacco products to Washington state. The payment will go toward continued enforcement of state tobacco laws. Smoker’s Outlet Online made this payment to avoid a lawsuit from the Attorney General’s Office.
Attorney General Bob Ferguson today partnered with a bipartisan coalition of 38 attorneys general to file a federal antitrust lawsuit against Google. The lawsuit asserts that the technology giant illegally leverages its dominance in the online search and search advertising markets to stifle competing platforms, drive advertisers away from rival search engines, and limit competing specialized sellers’ ability to bring customers directly to their sites from general Google search results.