South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham charged on Monday that the Obama administration’s plan to reimburse defense contractors for severance costs due to canceled contracts under sequestration was “patently illegal.”
“I will do everything in my power to make sure not one taxpayer dollar is spent reimbursing companies for failure to comply with WARN Act,” the GOP senator told
The Hill. “That is so beyond the pale. I think it’s patently illegal.”
On Friday, the White House said that costs would be covered if defense companies do not send layoff notices to workers before sequestration occurs on Jan. 2 – or before the Nov. 6 election.
Otherwise, notices would have come four days before the election, The Hill reports.
The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act requires employers to provide 60 days’ notice for plant closings and mass layoffs. The law was passed in 1988 and took effect the next year.
As a result of the Obama move, Lockheed Martin said it would not send out notices this year to its 123,000 employees likely to be affected by the across-the-board budget cuts, The Hill reports.
Graham and other Capitol Hill Republicans were infuriated by the White House action, The Hill reports.
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