More details in the principles letter (same link as above).

In some good (and non-Wall Street bailout-related) news, Public Citizen attorney Brian Wolfman explains over at the Consumer Law and Policy blog that consumer groups have prevailed over the Bush administration in federal court. Public Citizen, Consumers for Auto Reliability and Safety, and Consumer Action sued the Department of Justice over its 15-year unlawful delay in establishing a used vehicle database.

The purpose of the database is to enable consumers to check the validity of a car's title and odometer reading and learn whether the car has been stolen or severely damaged.

[Updated; letter has more sign-ons 9/26.] We have joined leading consumer, civil rights, community and civic organizations in a letter -- updated with numerous new sign-on groups -- formally urging Congressional leaders to add a provision to the Wall Street rescue. The provision would simply allow bankruptcy judges to modify certain subprime loans so homeowners can avoid foreclosure proceedings and stay in their houses (and keep their neighborhoods strong). With all that Wall Street is getting in this proposed open-ended bailout, why do the banks continue to oppose this modest provision for Main Street, and, further, what moral ground do they have to stand on? See also previous blog on the bailout. Excerpt from our letter signed by (so far) 34 groups:

We cannot support, and urge you to oppose, legislation that fails to help the millions of families in danger of losing their homes, while spending hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer money to bail out those who caused the problem. Ever since the mortgage foreclosure crisis erupted into the public eye last year, our organizations have advocated Chapter 13 judicial modification relief as the most effective way, at no cost to taxpayers, to keep homeowners from losing their homes. We do not believe that this crisis can be resolved solely through voluntary efforts on the part of the financial services industry. It is no longer possible to trust the industry to dictate the terms of the public policy discussion about the mortgage foreclosure crisis. First, the industry insisted that there would be no mortgage foreclosure crisis.

Update: Here are latest versions of the Treasury proposal and the Senate and House counter-proposals. We understand that the House proposal will have the Senate's consumer bankruptcy modification proposal added. It must. Any final Wall Street bailout law must include this Main Street provision. By the way, there's quite a bit of analysis of the proposals and the debacle over at Dean Baker's and Credit Slips and Consumer Law and Policy blogs.

Earlier post: On the last day for Yankee Stadium (The House that Babe Ruth built, AP photo, 1948), the last remaining Wall Street self-proclaimed so-called "masters of the universe" -- the Wall Street investment houses that Goldman and Morgan built -- announced plans (New York Times) to become regulated bank holding companies, giving themselves more regulation in return for more access to government capital at low rates. While the Yankees had a downturn this year, they never collapsed like failed masters of the universe Bear, Lehman and Merrill, along with the bailout kids at AIG and others. Based on the scenes at the Stadium last night, there is more fan confidence in a Yankee return to masters of the universe greatness than investor or consumer or taxpayer confidence in the Paulson "blank-check-bigger-than-the-Iraq-war" plan. It is critical that Congress add prudential safeguards to the proposal, including greater GAO and Congressional oversight and transparency. Congress must also insist on the following:

On the New York Times' op-ed page, in his column Cash for Trash, economist Paul Krugman explains some of the problems with the Paulson proposal.

I've received what appears to be a discussion draft of the proposed legislation to establish the $700 billion bailout authority. I cannot find this on the Treasury website but it looks accurate based on press reports. It certainly needs work over the next few days (it is supposed to pass into law by Friday) to meet the oversight principles I expect that the Congress will demand, and the public interest principles to protect homeowners, depositors and taxpayers that consumer and community groups are calling for, as I outlined in my previous blog entry. Below is the language. Sorry I don't have pdf-making software here on my home laptop.

Broad grant of authority to Secretary

LEGISLATIVE PROPOSAL FOR TREASURY AUTHORITY TO PURCHASE MORTGAGE-RELATED ASSETS
Section 1. Short Title.
This Act may be cited as ____________________.
Sec. 2. Purchases of Mortgage-Related Assets.
(a) Authority to Purchase.--The Secretary is authorized to purchase, and to make and fund commitments to purchase, on such terms and conditions as determined by the Secretary, mortgage-related assets from any financial institution having its headquarters in the United States.
(b) Necessary Actions.--The Secretary is authorized to take such actions as the Secretary deems necessary to carry out the authorities in this Act, including, without limitation:
(1) appointing such employees as may be required to carry out the authorities in this Act and defining their duties;
(2) entering into contracts, including contracts for services authorized by section 3109 of title 5, United States Code, without regard to any other provision of law regarding public contracts;
(3) designating financial institutions as financial agents of the Government, and they shall perform all such reasonable duties related to this Act as financial agents of the Government as may be required of them;
(4) establishing vehicles that are authorized, subject to supervision by the Secretary, to purchase mortgage-related assets and issue obligations; and
(5) issuing such regulations and other guidance as may be necessary or appropriate to define terms or carry out the authorities of this Act.
Sec. 3. Considerations.
In exercising the authorities granted in this Act, the Secretary shall take into consideration means for--
(1) providing stability or preventing disruption to the financial markets or banking system; and (2) protecting the taxpayer.
Sec. 4. Reports to Congress.
Within three months of the first exercise of the authority granted in section 2(a), and semiannually thereafter, the Secretary shall report to the Committees on the Budget, Financial Services, and Ways and Means of the House of Representatives and the Committees on the Budget, Finance, and Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs of the Senate with respect to the authorities exercised under this Act and the considerations required by section 3.
Sec. 5. Rights; Management; Sale of Mortgage-Related Assets.
(a) Exercise of Rights.--The Secretary may, at any time, exercise any rights received in connection with mortgage-related assets purchased under this Act.
(b) Management of Mortgage-Related Assets.--The Secretary shall have authority to manage mortgage-related assets purchased under this Act, including revenues and portfolio risks therefrom.
(c) Sale of Mortgage-Related Assets.--The Secretary may, at any time, upon terms and conditions and at prices determined by the Secretary, sell, or enter into securities loans, repurchase transactions or other financial transactions in regard to, any mortgage-related asset purchased under this Act.
(d) Application of Sunset to Mortgage-Related Assets.--The authority of the Secretary to hold any mortgage-related asset purchased under this Act before the termination date in section 9, or to purchase or fund the purchase of a mortgage-related asset under a commitment entered into before the termination date in section 9, is not subject to the provisions of section 9.
Sec. 6. Maximum Amount of Authorized Purchases.
The Secretary’s authority to purchase mortgage-related assets under this Act shall be limited to $700,000,000,000 outstanding at any one time
Sec. 7. Funding.
For the purpose of the authorities granted in this Act, and for the costs of administering those authorities, the Secretary may use the proceeds of the sale of any securities issued under chapter 31 of title 31, United States Code, and the purposes for which securities may be issued under chapter 31 of title 31, United States Code, are extended to include actions authorized by this Act, including the payment of administrative expenses. Any funds expended for actions authorized by this Act, including the payment of administrative expenses, shall be deemed appropriated at the time of such expenditure.
Sec. 8. Review.
Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency
Sec. 9. Termination of Authority
The authorities under this Act, with the exception of authorities granted in sections 2(b)(5), 5 and 7, shall terminate two years from the date of enactment of this Act.
Sec. 10. Increase in Statutory Limit on the Public Debt.
Subsection (b) of section 3101 of title 31, United States Code, is amended by striking out the dollar limitation contained in such subsection and inserting in lieu thereof $11,315,000,000,000.
Sec. 11. Credit Reform.
The costs of purchases of mortgage-related assets made under section 2(a) of this Act shall be determined as provided under the Federal Credit Reform Act of 1990, as applicable.
Sec. 12. Definitions.
For purposes of this section, the following definitions shall apply:
(1) Mortgage-Related Assets.--The term “mortgage-related assets” means residential or commercial mortgages and any securities, obligations, or other instruments that are based on or related to such mortgages, that in each case was originated or issued on or before September 17, 2008.
(2) Secretary.--The term “Secretary” means the Secretary of the Treasury.
(3) United States.--The term “United States” means the States, territories, and possessions of the United States and the District of Columbia.

The New York Times reports in a story by David Herszenhorn on its website on Saturday: Rescue Plan Seeks $700 Billion to Buy Bad Mortgages. The amount is staggering as the story points out:

A $700 billion expenditure on distressed mortgage-related assets would be roughly what the country has spent in direct costs on the Iraq war and more than the Pentagon’s total yearly budget appropriation. It represents more than $2,000 for every man, woman and child in the United States.

Most of the assets in the S.& L. crisis were real estate — which are always going to have value. And the government didn’t have to acquire them; it simply took them over and, over time, sold them. This time, the assets are complex derivatives of uncertain value that the big firms will actually be selling to the government. But how is the government going to assess these securities — and what price will it pay for them? In many cases, these securities aren’t being sold because they are still overvalued on a firms’ books.

UPDATE: Despite DOJ's absurd, deplorable opposition, the Senate Judiciary Committee just approved on a voice vote S. 2838 (Martinez (R-FL) to ban pre-dispute mandatory arbitration clauses in nursing home contracts. Over 100 public interest, consumer, labor and civil rights support the bill.

Original post: Check out Paul Bland's blog entry over at Consumer Law and Policy blog concerning PIRG-backed legislation to reform the nursing home industry:

(excerpt)The United States Justice Department has completely disgraced itself. On July 30, 2008, Keith Nelson, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General of the United States, wrote a letter to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee in which he attacked S. 2838, a bill that would ban the use of pre-dispute mandatory arbitration clauses in nursing home contracts.

As expected (my previous blog explaining our opposition) the FCC on Saturday issued an order granting AT&T and other telco companies their forbearance requests to provide significantly less information about consumer complaints, infrastructure buildouts and other matters of public concern to the commission. In his statement, Commissioner Michael Copps explains some of what he and Commissioner Adelstein (his statement) were able to salvage for consumer protection:

Rather than having certain ARMIS data that is currently submitted to the FCC disappear into the abyss via forbearance, we reached a compromise with regard to the ARMIS reporting requirements which can keep us from plunging off a cliff. First, the Commission grants covered carriers forbearance from certain ARMIS reporting requirements. Second, forbearance is conditioned on carriers continuing to collect and publicly make available their data on service quality and customer satisfaction for two years. They also must continue to collect infrastructure and operating data for the next two years. Third, we launch a Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to, hopefully, accomplish what we have avoided all these years—a reasoned, rational and relevant approach to ensuring that the data necessary for consumers and for state and federal regulators will be available going-forward.[...] For these reasons, I approve in part, concur in part, and dissent in part – a messy vote for a truly messy item.

i did a short blog last weekend explaining the weaknesses of FINRA-run securities arbitration. Over at the Huffington Post, consumer attorney Dan Solin's post FINRA Puts Lipstick On A Pig explains all the stuff I left out. Worth a look.

In response to eleventh hour efforts by a phalanx of special interest lobbyists demanding that Congress completely eliminate any state authority over product safety as an additional condition of their so-called support for the CPSC Reform Act, we've joined other advocates in a detailed letter urging rejection of the proposal for additional preemption. Previous blog has details on the state of play of the conference.

The new Business Week is out with a cover story Banks vs. Consumers (Guess Who Wins). The story is about how big credit card banks use the arbitration firm known as the National Arbitration Forum to collect debts, even from consumers such as identity theft victims, who never owed the bank money. The lede:

What if a judge solicited cases from big corporations by offering them a business-friendly venue in which to pursue consumers who are behind on their bills? What if the judge tried to make this pitch more appealing by teaming up with the corporations' outside lawyers? And what if the same corporations helped pay the judge's salary?

This week, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), Chair of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, held an important hearing on Whether FDA Regulation Should Bar Liability Claims. Among the witnesses in opposition to FDA rules preempting state common law rights were actor Dennis Quaid and Kimberly Quaid, former FDA commissioner David Kessler and law professor David Vladeck. From Dennis and Kimberly Quaid's testimony:

Thank you for inviting my wife, Kimberly, and me here today to share our experience as parents of two infants harmed by the negligence of a prescription drug manufacturer. As I’ll explain, our newborn twins nearly died because of a drug company’s failure to put safety first....A federal ban on lawsuits against drug companies would not just deny victims compensation for the harm they experience. It would also relieve drug companies of their responsibility to make products as safe as possible, and especially to correct drug problems when they are most often discovered – years after their drugs are on the market.

Lawsuit limits have been included in 51 rules proposed or adopted since 2005 by agency bureaucrats governing just about everything Americans use: drugs, cars, railroads, medical devices and food.

A federal judge has ruled (AP story) that Jamie Leigh Jones, who was allegedly drugged and gang-raped by fellow Halliburton/KBR contractors at Camp Hope in Baghdad, "can take her claims to trial" rather than, as Halliburton lawyers claimed her employment contract required, going through often-biased third-party arbitration. Our previous blog on Jones' plight. Our previous blog on arbitration reform.

In an unrelated AP story today Defense contractor creates a Caribbean tax haven on how government contractors including KBR use off-shore tax havens to avoid paying income and even payroll taxes, U.S. PIRG staff attorney John Krieger notes the practice is both unpatriotic and unfair to employees:

Krieger ... said companies with overseas outposts have lower overall expenses and therefore an unfair advantage when competing for work against American businesses that don't. "It's purely disgraceful for them to pretend to be foreign companies to avoid their very basic responsibilities like Medicare and Social Security," Krieger says. "The whole spirit of open competition has been completely lost."

Years ago, the federal government foolishly deregulated interstate moving companies, leaving consumers whose goods are held hostage for punitive additional fees, or delayed weeks or even broken in transit with little recourse. With the arrival of mover advertising on the Internet, as the story Keeping 'Furniture Ransom' Off Your Moving Bill by Kristina Shevory in the New York Times notes, things have only gotten worse. The story does note a few sites where you can get information, at least, including the federal government site protectyourmove.gov and the bad mover warning and consumer advice site movingscam.com. The story notes that Florida and Maryland are among states with strong intrastate moving protections.

On Thursday, during consideration of mortgage meltdown response legislation, the House overwhelmingly passed on a 256-160 vote (Pro-consumer vote is AYE) the bi-partisan Miller-(D-NC)-LaTourette-(R-OH) amendment. This previous blog has details. Over at the Credit Slips blog, Professors Elizabeth Warren and Adam Levitin discuss the vote. Professor Warren (after noting that even the national bank regulator known as the OCC has previously ceded foreclosure law to the states) makes the following points:

There are no federal foreclosure laws. Any mortgage holder--including a national bank or thrift--must abide by the terms of the state's foreclosure laws. But in the past few weeks, national banks have started making a new argument: state laws are pre-empted whenever a national bank holds the mortgage, so the states can't make them follow the local rules.[...] The scope of this argument is stunning. Because there is no federal foreclosure law, would the banks be free to do whatever they wanted? Could they simply order families out of their homes? Would federally-charted banks start buying up troubled loans from other banks, then doing their own vigilante expulsions?

I would only add that for those who believe that we need a legal and policy marketplace with 51 or more -- not just one -- innovation centers, it's nice when we win, even when it appears that the correctness of our position is obvious to anyone with knowledge of the subject. But wherever they can, powerful interests are seeking to make it harder for consumers to obtain justice in the state courts, for state attorneys general to exercise their traditional police powers to protect their citizens and for state legislatures to act as laboratories of innovation. More than a few of the powerful interest efforts can be characterized as vigilante policy power plays, but the current courts and administration players are largely with them. We must exercise eternal vigilance to hold their efforts back.

Note that our letter refers to Miller-LaTourette as an amendment to HR 5830, the American Housing Rescue and Foreclosure Prevention Act. HR 5830 became part of a floor package known as HR 3221, which after consideration of a variety of amendments, passed the full House but faces a complicated road, as noted in today's New York Times story Housing Bailout Bill Seems to Be on Shaky Ground by Stephen Labaton and Steven Weisman.

As for the OCC, I have previously and variously referred to it as not just a regulator but as a regulator-cheerleader-preemptor-in-chief.

(Update: hearing links corrected.) On behalf of several leading groups, we testified today in support of the "Protecting Americans from Unsafe Foreign Products Act," H.R. 5913, in the Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law of the House Judiciary Committee. My testimony here; full hearing link. The bill deals with the difficulties injured victims -- such as victims of dangerous toys or other Chinese products -- have in bringing lawsuits against foreign companies. Here is an excerpt from my testimony:

U.S. PIRG believes that for consumers to be assured that products that they buy are safe, we must ensure at least three levels of defense above and beyond any market notions of the supposed adequacy of competition or voluntary standards to protect consumers.

First, federal laws should provide a strong floor of protection and federal regulatory agencies should enforce those laws to both deter wrongdoing and hold wrongdoers accountable.

Second, states should be allowed to enact and enforce stronger laws and state attorneys general -- often the toughest cops on the consumer beat -- should be allowed to enforce both state and federal laws to the greatest extent possible, with full authority to impose penalties, recover damages and restitution as well as to obtain injunctive relief.

Third, consumers should have the right to adequate redress -- without roadblocks -- to bring private actions against wrongdoers to obtain compensation for their injuries or damages and to deter further wrongdoing.

A combination of these three pillars of consumer protection--strong federal enforcement, strong state enforcement and strong private enforcement -- is the best protection against unsafe products.

The CPSC proposals before Congress largely address the first, and somewhat the second, pillars. The proposed legislation by Chairwoman Linda Sanchez (D-CA) addresses the third. It makes it easier for consumers to obtain justice. My testimony was on behalf of U.S. PIRG, Consumer Federation of America, Consumers Union and Public Citizen.

The Washington Post editorial board has generally taken the big business, powerful interests position on consumer legal rights-- take them away, now! The Post supports caps on damages, it supported weakening the class action laws, the list is endless. Even when it sort-of, kind-of admits that consumers have a problem, as it does Saturday in its editorial A Good Arbiter -- its solution is pro-business. Consumers don't need better disclosure of mandatory arbitration, and the other meaningless provisions of the Post-backed Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) proposal, S.1135, the Fair Arbitration Act of 2007. Consumers need a law that reinstates their right to go to court, and the right to choose arbitration only after a dispute has arisen, not as a condition of obtaining a cell phone or a credit card or a health insurance policy or even a nursing home for a parent. (On this last, the Post admits an "exception" to its pro-business rule may be appropriate: "Allowing residents or their families to sue may be the only way to prod nursing homes to improve care.") Previous blog explains real solutions.

Recently, a Tennessee legislator labeled a proposal backed by the nursing home industry the "Kill Old People Cheap Act" (Knoxville News Sentinel). The bill would cap damages and force consumers into binding mandatory arbitration to resolve disputes, as a condition of admission.

Today's Wall Street Journal has a page one story by Nathan Koppel called Nursing Homes, in Bid to Cut Costs, Prod Patients to Forgo Lawsuits (pd. subs. req'd) explaining how nursing homes are among the leading users of arbitration, but that all the other corporations on the block are doing it, too. Excerpt:

The nursing-home industry's arbitration strategy is part of a much broader response by U.S. companies to consumer lawsuits. Businesses from restaurants to banks have ramped up their use of arbitration agreements in recent years to reduce litigation costs and sidestep emotion-laden juries, often requiring employees or consumers to give up rights to a trial as a condition of receiving services. Studies have suggested about a third of businesses are requiring arbitration for consumer disputes, and about one-fifth of employers are requiring it for complaints by employees.

We had a tough loss in the appellate courts last week, when New York State's pioneering airline passenger bill of rights was struck down under the usual weak judicial analysis: vague preemption precedents trump a state's traditional and well-established police powers to protect its citizens, even when no federal law exists. The New York Times editorial Board Blog has an entry Bad News for Airline Passengers, with 71 comments.

Meanwhile, you may be wondering why all your flights are being canceled for inspections. It's because the inspections weren't done on schedule. Why not? Well, it appears that the FAA let the airlines slack off.

So the FAA came under harsh Congressional scrutiny this week for its apparently cozy relationship with its "customer" airlines as the Congress drilled down at the question: "Why did FAA inspectors let Southwest Airlines fly un-inspected planes then found to have cracks in the skin (and still allowed to fly) and why is United all-of-a-sudden grounding flights?" Chairman James Oberstar (D-MN) of the House Committee on Infrastructure and Transportation led the hearing. From Mathew Wald's story Inspectors Say FAA Inspectors Ignored Violations in the New York Times:

"You’re looking at safety as a system, and the system itself has cracks," he said. The F.A.A. now refers to airlines as its customers, he said. "We can’t have a situation in which the customer calls the F.A.A. to complain about their service person, Mr. Boutris, to get him removed,” said Mr. Oberstar.

The FAA's reliance on airlines to voluntarily disclose safety issues "promotes a pattern of excessive leniency at the expense of effective oversight and appropriate enforcement," Inspector General Calvin L. Scovel told the House Transportation Committee yesterday.

Over at the New York Times, Charles Duhigg reports that Papers Show Wachovia Knew of Thefts. The papers were released in a lawsuit concerning a long-running telemarketing fraud scheme targeting the elderly. It's a followup to his 2007 expose Bilking the Elderly, With a Corporate Assist. In today's story, he reports that internal papers show that while some Wachovia Bank executives were saying "Yikes, Double Yikes," -- others were counting profits from the fees that the fraudsters had to pay the bank after charges were reversed following consumer complaints:

"YIKES!!!!" wrote one Wachovia executive in 2005, warning colleagues that an account used by telemarketers had drawn 4,500 complaints in just two months. "DOUBLE YIKES!!!!" she added. "There is more, but nothing more that I want to put into a note." However, Wachovia continued processing fraudulent transactions for that account and others, partly because the bank charged fraud artists a large fee every time a victim spotted a bogus transaction and demanded their money back. One company alone paid Wachovia about $1.5 million over 11 months, according to investigators.

The story goes on to point out that Wachovia looked the other way while internal fraud investigators, credit unions and even other banks sent it warnings about fraudulent accounts. Meanwhile, I ask: Where was Wachovia's chief regulator, the little-seen regulator known as the OCC (our site OCCWatch) that spends more time preempting state regulators than supervising big banks? It hasn't issued a public civil penalty of note in many years. While Duhigg reports that Wachovia announced some changes last summer, any unreported, private regulatory sanction that may have been imposed by the OCC to inspire such unfettered altruism is simply not enough to reassure this consumer advocate, or the Congress, that enough has been done to deter shabby bank practices that lead to crime against consumers. Public sanctions, including civil penalties, would reassure us that vulnerable populations have the full force of the federal government protecting them from unsavory practices that deplete their life savings.

Over at the Consumer Law and Policy Center blog, Brian Wolfman has posted an entry with links to the press release and the two complaints in this important effort by the state. Our previous blog is here.

The Supreme Court has accepted petitions on two more product liability cases. The cases reflect a "concerted effort" by powerful interests to eliminate lawsuits under state laws for consumer harm, as Linda Greenhouse notes in her New York Times story Justices to Hear Cases on Product Liability:

"The proliferation of pre-emption cases on the court's docket in part reflects the considerable turmoil in the lower courts over the complex issues involved. It also reflects a concerted effort by the business community to push for federal pre-emption as a shield against state courts."

The new cases concern whether the federal tobacco warning label law preempts state law claims that "low-tar and nicotine" promises are deceptive and whether an FDA-approved drug company label immunizes the firm from lawsuits by victims of side-effects. This case, according to Greenhouse, concerns

"a guitar player who suffered the career-ending amputation of her right arm after being injected in a hospital with an anti-nausea drug."

According to a horrific story on the ABC News website, Victim: Gang-Rape Cover-Up by U.S., Halliburton/KBR, not only are the U.S. government and its military contractor Halliburton attempting to cover up the alleged brutal Baghdad gang-rape of Jamie Leigh Jones by her co-workers, but Halliburton is blocking her efforts to sue the firm and instead attempting to force her into private arbitration. The story explains:

In arbitration, there is no public record nor transcript of the proceedings, meaning that Jones' claims would not be heard before a judge and jury. Rather, a private arbitrator would decide Jones' case. In recent testimony before Congress, employment lawyer Cathy Ventrell-Monsees said that Halliburton won more than 80 percent of arbitration proceedings brought against it.

We are co-amici, with AARP and other leading groups, in an important case before the Supreme Court today, Riegel vs. Medtronic. The case against the medical device manufacturer is being argued by Allison Zieve of Public Citizen Litigation Group. Over at the Consumer Law and Policy blog, her colleague Brian Wolfman has posted an entry linking to key resources on the case, including this previous post.

That's the key finding of a new Public Citizen report A Self-Inflicted "Crisis:" New York's Medical Malpractice Insurance Troubles Caused by Flawed State Rating Setting and Raid on Rainy Day Fund, written with assistance from NYPIRG and the New York-based Center for Medical Consumers. Excerpt from the release:

The report urges Gov. Eliot Spitzer and a task force studying malpractice to focus on ways to improve patient safety and to resist pleas from the insurance industry and the state's doctors to pare back patients' legal rights.[...]The report debunks claims that a recent 14 percent hike in medical malpractice rates was caused by an increase in litigation.[...]Claims that increased rates have caused a doctor shortage in New York are patently false, Public Citizen researchers determined. The state's population of doctors --and of most types of specialists -- is the highest it has been in at least a decade.

Update: Now, Stephanie has added an intriguing followup on her blog: DaimlerChrysler Financial Forces Army Reservist to Fight Car Rip-Off From Iraq.

Nice piece online in Mother Jones by reporter Stephanie Mencimer: Suckers Wanted: How Car Dealers and Other Businesses are Taking Away Your Right to Sue.

Mandatory arbitration provisions, forcing people to waive their legal rights, have become standard fare in consumer contracts. Now, Congress is beginning to push back--and the business community is mobilizing for a fight.

It's illegal to impersonate a police officer. But dress up like a prosecutor so you can better threaten consumers into paying off small debts? Heck, the prosecutors actually let debt collectors do this-- why? In return for kickbacks of course! The debt collectors "rent out a prosecutor's name and authority."

Do the debt collectors then gain the right to break the debt collection laws, by arguing that the sovereign immunity of the government official extends to them? Over at Consumer Law & Policy Blog, Deepak Gupta, a Public Citizen consumer attorney who has been fighting these tawdry arrangements (which have even been legitimized by Congress) reports that important progress is being made in the courts.

Sovereign immunity, the court said, "has never been held to apply simply because an independent contractor performs some government function." The decision has potentially far-reaching implications for holding all sorts of government contractors--from private prisons to Blackwater--accountable in the federal courts.

titled "Prisoners of Debt," by reporters Robert Berner and Brian Grow. The piece focuses on how big lenders and credit card companies keep squeezing money out of consumers whose debts have been discharged in bankruptcy, and on the selling and buying of those discharged debts.

[Update: Paul Bland of Public Justice has posted a detailed entry on the hearing over at Consumer Law & Policy blog.) A number of consumer, employee, small business and small farmer advocates, including Laura MacCleery of Public Citizen, along with victims, provided testimony before the House Judiciary Committee's hearing on the PIRG-backed Arbitration Fairness Act, HR 3010 (Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA) and 36 co-sponsors), yesterday. Bob Sullivan of MSNBC's Red Tape Chronicles has a story. And the Annapolis (MD) Capital Gazette reports on committee witness Deborah Williams in its story Annapolis couple brings tale of financial ruin to Congress.

A first-of-its-kind analysis of data available only in California has lifted the veil on the results of cases before arbitrators adjudicating disputes between consumers and credit card companies. Most of the cases were brought by the companies seeking to collect alleged debt, even from identity theft victims who never had accounts. From Public Citizen:

Consumers who seek justice in disputes with their credit card companies shouldn't expect to find it in binding mandatory arbitration (BMA); in cases decided in California by a major arbitration firm over a four-year period, consumers lost 95 percent of the time, a new Public Citizen report shows.[...] "People shouldn't have to give up their legal rights just to get a credit card," said Public Citizen President Joan Claybrook.

The report focuses on the National Arbitration Forum (NAF), the go-to arbitration forum for the credit card industry and a major player in the California arbitration business. Between Jan. 1, 2003, and March 31, 2007, arbitrators working for the Minneapolis-based NAF ruled for businesses in 95 percent of the California cases examined. In fact, 90 percent of the NAF cases were handled by just 28 arbitrators, who awarded businesses $185 million. One arbitrator handled 68 cases in a single day -- an average of one every seven minutes, assuming an eight-hour day -- and ruled for the business in every case, awarding 100 percent of the money requested. The same arbitrator is an attorney with his own practice serving business and corporate clients.

Speaking (last post) of unfair arbitration imposed by corporations seeking to prevent consumers from fighting their unfair practices, Montgomery County, Maryland officials have issued a news release warning citizens about adverse arbitration changes being imposed on customers by the cable guys at Comcast. The Washington Post's Daniel De Vise reports today in Md. Officials Oppose New Legal Policy At Comcast that:

Lawyers for both Montgomery and Howard counties reviewed the arbitration notice from Comcast and concluded that it restricts customers to resolving disputes through arbitration rather than the courts.

Whoa! Todd Zywicki of George Mason University Law School and a co-author, Professor Gail Heriot of San Diego Law, take a fairly weak, and certainly cheap ("junk," "long-discredited" and "one of the most misleading pieces of research ever placed before Congress -- no small dishonor") shot at two leading scholars in an opinion-editorial called Junk social science index that appears in today's Washington Times. The op-ed attacks recent testimony on bankruptcy and medical debt by Professor Elizabeth Warren (testimony) of Harvard Law School and Professor David Himmelstein, M.D. of Harvard Medical School, based on research they'd done together.

Professor Bob Lawless has a rebuttal posted on the Credit Slips blog he, Professor Warren and others write. And over at her personal blog, Professor Warren comments. Zywicki's a long-time apologist for the draconian industry-backed 2005 bankruptcy law, and so his own testimony's views are to be expected, so why pile-on with the cheap, unscholarly op-ed? Could the industry-funded Mercatus Center at GMU need a press clip for its next grant proposal? And in her own blog, The Right Coast, Professor Heriot complains that through a "cheap trick," Zywicki didn't get to speak last. Dang!

This page at Sourcewatch explains the birth of the industry funded campaign to attack pro-consumer, pro-health and safety research as "junk science." Its parents? The tobacco industry.

Along with other members of the Givemebackmyrights.org campaign, U.S. PIRG joined U.S. Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) and Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA) as they introduced the Arbitration Fairness Act today. The bill amends the Federal Arbitration Act to make mandatory, binding pre-dispute agreements to arbitrate employment, consumer, franchise, or civil rights disputes unenforceable. Five years ago, Congress said that car manufacturers could not force car dealers into arbitration. The Feingold-Johnson bill simply extends that reasonable protection to consumers, employees not subject to collective bargaining, small farmers and franchisees. Members of all these groups have been routinely forced to sign away their right to a day in court and instead forced to accept arbitration as the only way to resolve any dispute. This Hobson's choice of agreeing to expensive, secret, one-sided corporate-controlled arbitration occurs in nearly every "contract of adhesion" including when you sign up for health insurance, credit cards, bank accounts, pet boarding kennels, health clubs, payday loans, car purchases, jobs or virtually any other "take-it-or-leave-it" transaction. If a powerful corporation sits on one side of the table and a consumer, prospective employee or small farmer or franchisee sits on the other, arbitration is forced on them. It's time for a change.

Along with the Consumer Federation of America and others, we've issued a news release in support of new legislation from Reps. Tom Udall (D-NM), Luis Gutierrez (D-IL), Keith Ellison (D-MN) and Jan Schakowsky (D-IL). The Payday Loan Reform Act of 2007 prohibits lending based on checks or debits drawn on depository institutions. Last year Congress enacted this protection for Service members and their families.

In today's New York Times, Steve Labaton's story Supreme Court to Weigh Limits on Cases Involving Medical Devices highlights the growing efforts of Bush Administration agencies to overstep Congressional authority. They assert in rules that compliance with their weak, industry-endorsed rule-makings somehow immunizes industry wrongdoers from victim lawsuits brought under state consumer protection laws (previous blog). Meanwhile, the latest of a series of stories -- Chinese Tires Are Ordered Recalled -- about the abject failure of China to regulate any of its dangerous products that U.S. regulators haven't stopped from being dumped into the U.S. marketplace points out the need to put more consumer cops on the beat. Neither the market nor federal laws have ever provided adequate health and safety protections; more state consumer cops and strong state consumer laws provide a critical line of defense.

On Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed lower courts that had stupidly given the Phillip Morris tobacco company essentially the same powers as a federal officer to "remove" cases brought against them in state courts to federal courts, under the legal theory that because PM was somewhat regulated, it must be "acting under" a federal officer. We had joined a merits amicus brief to the court prepared by Public Citizen and AARP. Over at the