Consumer Activists Get Chance to `Play Offense' on Obama-Era Legislation

[marmar]

Obama, New Congress Face Legislative Push by Consumer Advocates
By Jeff Plungis


Jan. 9 (Bloomberg) -- Consumer advocates say the incoming administration of President-elect Barack Obama and a new Congress may be their best chance in years to pursue reforms from credit cards to health care.

“We’re hoping to play offense rather than being backed up on the goal line all the time,” said Ed Mierzwinski, consumer program director at the U.S. Public Interest Research Group in Washington. In the capital, there is an entire industry devoted to “crushing consumer protection,” he said.

Restoring a consumer affairs office in the White House which was closed during the Clinton administration tops a to-do list published in December by U.S.PIRG, the Consumer Federation of America, the National Consumers League and four other groups. Other priorities are reining in “Wall Street excesses,” on predatory lending, protecting consumers from price-gouging in energy markets and enhancing legal options for consumer complaints.

A lot of ideas on the table now were “absolutely” non- starters over the last eight years, said Joan Claybrook, president of Public Citizen, a group co-founded by activist and former presidential candidate Ralph Nader.

“We ought to push all the issues on our list,” Claybrook said. “This is an opportunity we haven’t had for a long, long time.”

Business lobbyists say the way may have become easier for consumer groups, but they will work to show the high cost of some proposed rule changes. .......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601213&sid=aI8q03Y7NHK4&refer=home

[Cronopio]

1. I agree with Ed Krenik in the article.

“It certainly is true that consumer groups will have the ear of the Obama administration and in Congress,” Krenik said. “However, the last thing the new administration or Congress will want to do is to impose onerous, unnecessary rules and regulations that burden U.S. retailers and manufacturers in these tough economic times.”

That's why a whole host of workable and necessary regulations will be imposed.