Category Archives: Uncategorized

Congress considers bill to make protecting consumers more difficult

Mother Jones reports; Earlier this year, White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon said the Trump administration will be fighting regulations at every turn through "the deconstruction of the administrative state." The Regulatory Accountability Act, dubbed the "License to Kill bill" by some environmental groups, may kick off that trend by making reining in the industry […]

Senate Committee Approves REINS Act That Would Block Major Regs Unless Congress Votes to Approves Them

The House passed the bill in January.  The bill provides that regulations imposing more than $100 million in costs would not take effect unless Congress affirmatively voted to approve them. The bill passed the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on a vote of 8 to 6.  More here from Reason.

Report finds that 9 in 10 of the highest-risk student loan borrowers were not enrolled in affordable repayment plans

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau issued a report yesterday analyzing student loan industry data. The report shows that 9 in 10 of the highest-risk borrowers were not enrolled in federal affordable repayment plans. The analysis looks at hundreds of thousands of the highest-risk borrowers who are exiting default and may be eligible for federal programs […]

Times Headline on Acting Head of OCC: Lawyer Is Now Regulating Banking Industry He Spent His Career Protecting

Here. Excerpt: [L]ast week’s appointment of the lawyer, Keith A. Noreika, to run the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency is unusual because it does not require him to sign the ethics pledge that President Trump is forcing on other appointees. * * * [T]he White House used an administrative quirk to appoint Mr. […]

CFPB’s prepaid-card rule survives Congress challenge

In October 2016, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau issued a rule requiring greater disclosures for and imposing overdraft limits on prepaid cards, which are frequently used in place of paychecks by people without bank accounts. The timing made the rule eligible for Congress to repeal it under the Congressional Review Act, but lawmakers only had […]

Public Citizen and Other Organizations Ask Facebook to Disclose Information About Research on Young Users

Public Citizen and 25 other U.S. and international groups concerned with consumer rights and electronic privacy have sent a letter to Facebook asking it to release documents about whether it has collected and analyzed psychological information about its youthful users for marketing purposes. The claim that Facebook had engaged in such analysis and hyped it to […]

Can New York Publish President Trump’s State Tax Returns?

That's the name of this article by law prof Daniel Hemel. Here's the abstract: Breaking from a decades-old norm of presidential tax transparency, Donald Trump has refused to make his federal income tax returns available for public inspection. Congressional leaders have blocked bipartisan legislation that would compel the President to disclose his returns. New York State, however, […]