NPR reports today on a Michigan State student who protested a tar sands pipeline by using a bike lock to secure himself to a truck involved in the construction. At the end of the 90-minute protest, the student (ironically named Tarr) was arrested for trespassing, which he expected. But the company responsible for the project, […]
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As an eye-opening op-ed in the Baltimore Sun pointed out last week, there are places in the U.S., even densely populated places, where access to essential medications is quite difficult. Acutely, pharmacies remained closed in Baltimore in the aftermath of the Freddie Gray riots. But there is a larger, more systemic problem, as the op-ed […]
…but is having trouble finding allies even on her own side of the aisle, reports Politico. The reason? Although loans from car dealers "are often the largest kind of unregulated debt consumers have" (part of the reason Sen. Warren is seeking greater regulation), the auto dealer industry is powerful: The $730 billion auto-dealer industry enjoys […]
Under a consent order between the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and Bank of America, BoA will pay a $30 million fine and increase oversight of servicemembers' accounts to prevent further violations of the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act. Among the violations found by the OCC here were improper debt collection procedures using affidavits […]
The Hill reports on a proposal in the Senate to create a committee to go after "regulatory overreach." (Read the story here.) But as Public Citizen explains, in the wake of the Amtrak crash, oil train derailments, and massive auto safety recalls, "The last thing Congress should be doing is creating more delays for new […]
On Tuesday, the IRS announced that hackers had breached the agency's website and gained access to old tax returns of more than 100,000 taxpayers. Hackers apparently used personal information obtained elsewhere to access old returns contained on the IRS website. The activity occurred from February through mid-May. (Story here.) On Wednesday, the Senate Finance Committee […]
The Justice Department and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau have filed a consent order to resolve allegations that Provident Funding Associates engaged in a pattern or practice of discrimination. The consent order resolves allegations that Provident increased loan prices for African-American and Hispanic borrowers who obtained residential mortgages between 2006 and 2011 from Provident’s nationwide network […]
by Paul Alan Levy In a ruling issued this morning in Davis v. Cox, the Washington Supreme Court unanimously struck down that state's anti-SLAPP statute because of a provision, not contained in most other state anti-SLAPP statutes, under which once a case is found to over a matter of free speech or petition within the law's […]
Yesterday, DOL proposed guidance and regulations that would protect workers in two important ways. First, corporations would be prevented from receiving federal contracts if they have bad worker safety records or histories of wage theft. Second, federal contractors would not be permitted to use employment contracts that impose forced arbitration on their workers. In a […]
The Volcker Alliance, a nonprofit public policy organization headed by Mr. Volcker, has released a report proposing broad changes to the U.S. financial regulatory system. The Alliance suggests a three-pronged approach to reform, calling for updated oversight and surveillance, streamlined supervision and regulation, and stronger market integrity and investor protection. The report is here. Just […]