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Blog Post | Financial Reform

SEC mostly ignores us, proposal weakens investor protections | Ed Mierzwinski

Yesterday, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued a proposed rule implementing the controversial JOBS Act that fails to protect small investors from a likely onslaught of sales pitches online and on the phone -- including from private equity and hedge funds. Positively, it's only a proposed rule, at least nominally subject to amendment, not an interim final rule.

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Media Hit | Higher Ed

Wall Street Journal: Prepaid Cards Go to School

For some students, a prepaid card offered through a college may be the fastest way to receive student-loan funds, says Rich Williams, higher education advocate with the U.S. Public Interest Research Group. But the cards can carry fees that eat into your balance, says Mr. Williams, including ones for buying or reloading the card and withdrawing money from ATMs.

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Blog Post | Consumer Protection

FTC recovers over $500 million from "get rich" and "lose weight in 3 minute abs workout" scammers | Ed Mierzwinski

The FTC today announced a $25 million settlement with the marketers of the Ab Circle Pro, an exercise machine that promises you can lose weight and get ripped abs in "just 3 minutes a day;" meanwhile, a federal judge has also approved a $478 million settlement in the FTC's case against a "get rich quick" infomercial king. A good day for consumers.

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Blog Post | Financial Reform

More credit card banks quit evil ways | Ed Mierzwinski

In July, the CFPB slammed Capital One for tricking consumers into buying over-priced, under-performing credit monitoring and debt-cancellation subscription products. More good news: the Wall Street Journal is reporting that Bank of America has stopped selling debt cancellation products and that Citibank is in some sort of timeout.

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Media Hit | Consumer Protection

New York Times: Secret E-Scores Chart Consumers’ Buying Power

Ed Mierzwinski, consumer program director at the United States Public Interest Research Group in Washington, worries that federal laws haven’t kept pace with change in the digital age. “There’s a nontransparent, opaque scoring system that collects information about you to generate a score — and what your score is results in the offers you get on the Internet,” he says. “In most cases, you don’t know who is collecting the information, you don’t know what predictions they have made about you, or the potential for being denied choice or paying too much.”

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News Release | U.S. PIRG | Democracy

U.S.PIRG urges Senate to ban insider trading

In his State of the Union address, President Obama asked congress to help him clean up the government by sending him a bill that bans the practice of insider trading based on congressional knowledge. Today, U.S. PIRG and other reform groups sent a letter to members of the U.S. Senate urging them to pass the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge act when it comes to the floor next week.

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News Release | U.S. PIRG Education Fund | Safe Energy

Nuclear Power Plants Threaten Drinking Water for 49 Million Americans

The drinking water for 49 million Americans could be at risk of radioactive contamination from a leak or accident at a local nuclear power plant, according to a new study released today by Environment America Research & Policy Center and the US Public Interest Research Group Education Fund.

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Media Hit | Safe Energy

KPBS Public Broadcasting: Concern Raised About Calif. Nuke Plants And Water Supply

"For nearly 2.3 million residents of the Southern California region drinking-water supplies are located within 50 of the San Onofre Nuclear Power Plant," said Emily Rusch, CALPIRG's Education Fund State Director. "That's a concern because, as we learned from last year in Fukushima, Japan, drinking water sources can become contaminated in the event of an accident or underground leak."

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Media Hit | Democracy

The Daily Show mentions U.S.PIRG Report: Representation Without Taxation

Massachusetts Senate hopeful Elizabeth Warren and Jon Stewart discussed U.S. PIRG and Citizens for Tax Justice's new report, Representation Without Taxation, on the January 24th edition of the Daily Show. The report outlines the "Dirty 30", corporations that spent more money lobbying congress than they paid in taxes between 2008-2010. U.S. PIRG and CTJ released the report to mark the two-year anniversary of the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, which opened the floodgates for corporate influence in our government, as well as to highlight the need to fix the tax code to force corporations to pay their fair share.

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News Release | U.S. PIRG | Higher Ed

SOTU: Obama Pushes Low Interest Rates, More Work-Study

In the annual State of the Union Address, President Obama proposed measures to bring relief to almost 8 million students who will see their student loan interest rates double on new loans starting July 1st, 2012.

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Blog Post | Safe Energy

Maine Approves Historic Law To Reduce Oil Use (Really!) | Phineas Baxandall

The politics of Maine's leadership has shifted dramatically in the past few years. The new Tea Party Governor and Republican-dominated legislature have made waves rolling back energy-efficiency rules, making it easier for insurance companies to raise premiums, and making it harder to register to vote. But just in time for Independence Day, Maine has passed legislation putting the state at the cutting-edge for reducing America's unhealthy dependence on oil. This important tool can reduce global-warming pollution and encourage more efficient alternatives to driving.

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Blog Post | Transportation

Needed: Sane Rule About the Privatization of Infrastructure | Phineas Baxandall

You'd think the only reason American infrastructure lacks funding was rules preventing private businesses from throwing money at it. Last week Congress introduced a couple of bills to solve this imaginary problem and one that would set some ground rules to protect the public.

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Blog Post | Budget

How Much Did You Pay for Tax Dodging Corporations? | Phineas Baxandall

Yesterday, millions of Americans rushed to the post office to file their federal income tax returns. For all of us, the checks we wrote were an average of $434 higher because of the burden we are forced to shoulder for major corporations and wealthy individuals who use offshore tax havens to avoid paying their share.

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Blog Post | Safe Energy

A Disaster's Eerie Echoes | Gary Kalman

An unexpected series of events leads to an unimaginable environmental disaster. Government and industry officials minimize the threat, saying initially that matters are under control. As events cascade, engineers and officials are forced to resort to increasingly desperate measures to prevent further harm. It is uncanny how closely the script of the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan mimics that of the BP oil spill last spring in the Gulf of Mexico.

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Tools & Resources

  • FIGHT HIGH Rx Costs
    Prescription drugs cost too much. Brand-name drug companies have been paying off generic drug makers to delay competition and keep prices high, and it's costing us billions. Together, we can stop them.
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  • YOUR TAX DOLLARS BECOME CORN SYRUP
    At a time when one-in-three kids is overweight or obese, over a billion taxpayer dollars go to high-fructose corn syrup and junk food ingredients.
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  • STOP TAX DODGERS
    Corporate tax avoidance cost taxpayers $100 billion last year. We're working to close the loopholes that allow companies to avoid paying the taxes they owe.
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  • Reclaim Democracy
    The Supreme Court's Citizens United decision ushered in an era of unprecedented spending by big money in our elections, but we're working to return our democracy back to the principle of "one person, one vote."
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