From an EarthJustice press release issued this morning: Today, a broad coalition of health, firefighter, consumer and science groups filed a petition asking the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) to ban four categories of consumer products—children’s products, furniture, mattresses and the casings around electronics—if they contain any flame retardant in the chemical class known as […]
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The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau yesterday announced that has initiated enforcement action against a nationwide debt collector National Corrective Group and its chief executive officer for using deceptive threats of criminal prosecution and jail time to intimidate consumers into paying debts for bounced checks. The company also misled consumers into believing that they must enroll in […]
Two editorials yesterday about the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau proposal to regulate payday lenders. (Our post about the proposal, with a link to it, is here.) A New York Times editorial gives strong support for the proposed rule: The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau took the most important step in its brief four-year history this week when […]
The Hill reports that on a party-line vote, "[t]he Senate Budget Committee added an amendment to the GOP budget that would subject the agency’s budget to the congressional appropriations process. Currently, the CFPB receives its funding directly from the Federal Reserve, and bureau advocates argue that giving appropriators control would allow Republicans to starve the […]
Seeking to help consumers avoid becoming trapped in a cycle of debt, the CFPB announced today that it is considering new rules that would require payday lenders to take steps to make sure that borrowers can repay their loans. The Bureau's press release explains the problem: For consumers living paycheck to paycheck, the short timeframe […]
Two weeks ago, we flagged an NPR piece about the dangers of transporting oil by rail. Very glad to see that we're not the only ones concerned. Today, Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington will introduce federal legislation to prevent oil train disasters. From the Public Citizen release on the bill: The U.S. Department of Transportation […]
Commentator Nicholas Kristof has never been a fan of unions, but in this New York Times op-ed, he explains, he’s changed his mind about them. Why? In Kristof’s words: I’m as appalled as anyone by silly work rules and $400,000 [salaries for] stagehands [at Carnegie Hall], or teachers’ unions shielding the incompetent. But unions also […]
Last week the Department of Health and Human Services (which includes the Food and Drug Administration) announced it would curtail the controversial practice of including "lost pleasure" as a "cost" of health regulations when it does a cost/benefit analysis of the regulations. Including "lost pleasure" in the analysis artificially reduced the projected health benefits of […]
Last month, we told you about the CFPB's settlement with Corinthian Colleges over its debt-collection practices and advertising practices, among other things. Last week, NPR's "Here and Now" reported on a debt strike by fifteen students of Corinthian Colleges who are refusing to pay back their federal student loans because of Corinthian's misleading advertising about […]
The agency announced yesterday that it would enable consumers to share their issues regarding financial products and services directly with the public, via the CFPB's Consumer Complaint Database. The database has accepted complaints for almost three years, but under the new policy, consumers who submit to the database will have the option to share their […]