Health Care & Prescription Drugs, Financial Privacy & Security
Background
Laura Etherton is OSPIRG's Advocate. She is responsible for
coordinating the organization’s policy development, research and
legislative advocacy. She led OSPIRG’s efforts to reduce prescription
drug costs through expansion of a purchasing pool, the Oregon
Prescription Drug Program. She also led OSPIRG’s efforts to enact
payday loan consumer protections at the local and state levels, and
authored the 2006 study Predatory Lending in Lane County. Laura joined
OSPIRG staff in 1995 as campus organizer, and served as Administrative
Director beginning in 1996. As Field Director from 2001-2005, Laura led
the organization’s field efforts to stop the rollbacks of the nation’s
landmark environmental laws, including fighting proposals to open up
the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling and defending the
Roadless Area Conservation Rule to protect nearly 2 million acres of
national forests in Oregon. She is a 1993 graduate of Macalester
College.
