Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden, D-Ore., requested in a new letter that Lear Co., the nation’s largest car seat manufacturer, explain how it oversees leather supply chains in Brazil to prevent the illegal importation of goods made with forced labor or deforestation. Environmental groups and journalists have documented widespread forced labor and human rights abuses at ranches sited on illegally cleared Amazon rainforest.
“These ranches evade supply chain monitoring by moving cattle repeatedly over their lifetimes from illegal to legal ranches in a process known as ‘cattle laundering,’” Wyden wrote. “In addition to encouraging deforestation, illegal ranching in the Amazon drives violent land-grabs and human rights abuses, subject to weak oversight by Brazilian law enforcement, which often fails to enforce environmental and human rights laws.”
The letter comes as part of Wyden’s ongoing inquiry into forced labor in auto supply chains. Wyden has written to major automakers and their tier 1 suppliers regarding evidence of parts made with forced labor in Xinjiang, China, as part of his investigation into the effectiveness of customs enforcement regarding forced labor. In June, he held a Finance Committee hearing investigating how cattle supply chains contribute to Amazon deforestation.
“The information I am requesting from Lear will aid the Senate Finance Committee’s investigation of the effectiveness of trade-based efforts by the United States to combat forced labor and environmental abuses in the supply chains of products sold in the United States,” Wyden wrote.
The full letter to Lear is available here.
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