Essential oils come from exotic plants all over the world, but do the companies selling these oils have the proper permits to import and sell the products made from them? The company Young Living has been sentenced for importing rosewood oil and spikenard oil without permission, and must pay $760,000 for importing the products without permits. [More]
lacey act
Lumber Liquidators Pleads Guilty To Selling Hardwood From Endangered Big Cat Habitats
By 10.22.15
Lumber Liquidators has officially pleaded guilty to violations of the Lacey Act, a law that bans illegally-harvested animal and plant products, including trees, from sale in the United States. It turns out that the offending hardwoods were illegally harvested because they were in forests in eastern Russia that are home to two species of endangered wild cats: the Amur leopard and the Siberian tiger. [More]
Lumber Liquidators Settles With Federal Government
By 10.8.15
Discount flooring superstore Lumber Liquidators has found itself under two separate federal investigations this year: one alleging that some of their products give off potentially dangerous chemicals, and another alleging that the company illegally imported hardwoods. They’ve now settled the latter charge by pleading guilty, and will pay $10 million to the federal government and a wildlife charity. [More]
Lumber Liquidators Faces Federal Charges Of Selling Illegally Sourced Wood
By 4.29.15
Things are not going particularly well at Lumber Liquidators right now. Not only is the company facing more than 100 customer lawsuits and a federal consumer safety investigation over flooring it sold that may be releasing dangerous levels of formaldehyde, but the company is also facing criminal charges for selling wood that suppliers may have harvested illegally. [More]
Buy Your Giant Snakes While They're Still Affordable
By 1.21.10
Wired reports that the government is considering a ban on the import of Burmese pythons and eight other “injurious species” of snake, because loser pet owners in Florida keep releasing them into the wild where they breed and take over. If enacted, the ban would only affect imports, not sales by breeders in the US, but prices will probably shoot up. [More]
