Will Trump suppress his government's climate change report?

The New York Times has gotten a hold of a draft of the federal government's climate science special report. The draft report is slated to be part of the National Climate Assessment, which is required by Congress every 4 years. The draft report represents the collective judgment of scientists from, among other places, 13 federal agencies. Read the executive summary, at pages 11-31, which presents the report's findings in layperson's terms. 

The accompanying Times' article, by Lisa Friedman, is worth reading. Among other things, it addresses whether Trump will suppress official release of the report. Some excerpts:

The average temperature in the United States has risen rapidly and drastically since 1980, and recent decades have been the warmest of the past 1,500 years, according to a sweeping federal climate change report awaiting approval by the Trump administration. The draft report by scientists from 13 federal agencies, which has not yet been made public, concludes that Americans are feeling the effects of climate change right now. It directly contradicts claims by President Trump and members of his cabinet who say that the human contribution to climate change is uncertain, and that the ability to predict the effects is limited. * * * 

Another Conservative Strongly Supports CFPB Arb Rule

Chuck Muth has written If Congress Won’t Protect Us from Wells Fargo, then at Least Get Out of the Way. Here's an excerpt:

Now, as a conservative I fully support the right of private individuals to freely and voluntarily contract with each other * * *

But to require someone to sign away a CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT (now I’m shouting!) for the privilege of opening a checking account or obtaining a Visa card is obscene.  Especially when your rights are taken away from you by a fine-print clause in a 7,927-word (yes, I counted them for you) “adhesion contract.”

* * *

Unfortunately, Congress – in the pockets of the Big Bank swamp monster – has chosen to go AWOL on this issue.  Which has left a vacuum that the despised (rightfully so) Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has stepped in to fill.

* * * I don’t like the CFPB.  I think Congress should eliminate it.  * * * And like the proverbial broken clock that gets it right twice a day, CFPB has gotten it right on this issue. * * *

I detest abuses of class action lawsuits.  With a passion.  I’ve championed lawsuit abuse reform legislation for two decades.

But class action lawsuits do have a rightful and legitimate place in American jurisprudence in some cases – like when a giant national bank like Wells Fargo fraudulently opens an estimated 1.5 MILLION fake checking accounts and issues an estimated 565,000 fake credit cards to customers without their knowledge or permission.

No Wonder Bankers Oppose the CFPB; FT: Bankers’ pay closely tied to deregulation

Here.  The graph in the article is mind-boggling.

 

"For Cosmetics, Let the Buyer Beware"

From the New York Times:

When you wash your hair, clean or moisturize your skin, polish your nails, or put on makeup, deodorant or sunscreen, do you ever think about whether the product you’re using may do more harm than good?

Maybe you should. Thanks to a lack of federal regulations, the watchword for consumers of cosmetics and personal care products should be caveat emptor: Let the buyer beware.

To be sure, these products are not nearly as worrisome as drugs, which require extensive testing and premarket approval by the Food and Drug Administration. Still, disasters can and sometimes do occur from the use of cosmetics and personal care products, and the government is powerless to act until a slew of consumer complaints raise a red flag about a product.

The full article is here.

WSJ: GOP Effort to Overturn Arbitration Rule at Risk From Republican Defectors

Here.  Excerpt:

[S]upport [to overturn the rule] in the Senate is uncertain. No Democrats are likely to back the effort, and Republicans, with their slim majority, can’t afford to lose more than two GOP votes. Several Republican senators have expressed reservations about voting to overturn the regulation, worried they may be portrayed as siding with banks and against consumers.Analysts with Compass Point Research & Trading LLC and Keefe, Bruyette & Woods have put the odds of the rule remaining in place at over 50%.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) in an interview said he opposed the resolution, saying arbitration is “a windfall for the companies in terms of how you settle their cheating.”

“You’ve had banks and credit-card companies nickel-and-diming consumers, and one of the things that makes them think twice is the idea of a massive lawsuit,” Mr. Graham said. “Nobody is going to get a lawyer over a $10 overcharge, but when you overcharge millions of people $10, the bank or the credit-card company makes out like a bandit” in arbitration.

Other Republicans, including Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and John Kennedy of Louisiana, have said they are undecided. And Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.) may be unavailable to vote as he undergoes treatment for brain cancer.

Jean Sternlight Article: Consumer Arbitration as a Poster Child for Regulation

Jean R. Sternlight of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas has written Hurrah for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau: Consumer Arbitration As a Poster Child for Regulation, 48 St. Mary's Law Journal 343 (2016).  Here is the abstract:

Drawing on economic, psychological and philosophical considerations, this Essay considers whether consumers should be "free" to "agree" to contractually trade their opportunity to litigate in a class action for the opportunity to bring an arbitration claim against a company. The Essay suggests that by looking at the CFPB's regulation through these three lenses, one sees that the regulation is desirable—even a poster child—for the potential value of regulation when market forces are not sufficient to protect individual or public interests.

Some Think Draining the Swamp Means Reducing Consumer Protection

by Jeff Sovern

According to Politico, President Trump first used the phrase "drain the swamp" in a speech on October 17, 2016, in which he announced an ethics plan to, in fact, drain the swamp. Here's the Washington Post's quote of what he said draining the swamp meant:

First: I am going to re-institute a 5-year ban on all executive branch officials lobbying the government for 5 years after they leave government service. I am going to ask Congress to pass this ban into law so that it cannot be lifted by executive order. Second: I am going to ask Congress to institute its own 5-year ban on lobbying by former members of Congress and their staffs.Third: I am going to expand the definition of lobbyist so we close all the loopholes that former government officials use by labeling themselves consultants and advisors when we all know they are lobbyists. Fourth: I am going to issue a lifetime ban against senior executive branch officials lobbying on behalf of a foreign government. Fifth: I am going to ask Congress to pass a campaign finance reform that prevents registered foreign lobbyists from raising money in American elections.

After reading that, you might think that draining the swamp would be good for consumer protection because according to OpenSecrets.org, in 2016, the Finance, Insurance & Real Estate Industries ranked second in lobbying spending at 486,122,908 (I subtracted the money spent by accountants, who are for some reason included in the total), and reported 2,078 lobbyists (again, dropping the accountants), or nearly four for every member of Congress. Spending last year worked out to more than $900,000 per member of Congress, or more than $1.3 million per day.  But some seem to think the president meant something else when he spoke about draining the swamp. For example, House Financial Services Committee Chair Jeb Hensarling refers to the CFPB as a "bureaucratic swamp," while the Wall Street Journal just published an essay titled Before You Leave The Swamp... about holding CFPB Director Richard Cordray in contempt. 

(By the way, for those wondering, OpenSecrets.org lists lobbying spending for lawyers and law firms as 14,863,270 (about 3% of the number for the finance et al. industry) and the number of their lobbyists as 188 (about 9% of the number for the finance, et al lobbyists). Some of the contributors include entities unlikely to oppose predispute arbitration, such as large law firms that represent financial institutions, but maybe that's fair as the finance et al, industry  lobbies for many things that don't affect people in their role as consumers.

CFPB issues prototype overdraft fee disclosures

Banks and credit unions may give their customers the option of overdraft "protection," which allows the customer to overdraw when (for instance) using a debit card in exchange for paying a overdraft fee. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is concerned that the fees can burden consumers and wants to ensure that overdraft fees are adequately disclosed to consumers. The CFPB has therefore issued these prototype disclosures for use by banks and credit unions. The agency also issued a study showing that consumers who opt for overdraft protection often pay considerable fees. The CFPB's comprehensive press release is here.

"Wells Fargo faces lawsuits, angry lawmakers over car lending"

The Washington Post reports:

The heat on Wells Fargo over its auto lending business has intensified, with customers filing at least three lawsuits, politicians calling for hearings and a bank regulator issuing a subpoena for records.

Wells Fargo, still trying to recover from a fake accounts scandal, said last week that roughly 570,000 customers were signed up for and billed for car insurance that they didn’t need or necessarily know about. Many couldn’t afford the extra costs and fell behind in their payments. In about 20,000 cases, cars were repossessed.

The bank has agreed to pay $80 million in refunds and account adjustments to customers, with checks starting to go out this month.

But on Wednesday, the New York Department of Financial Services, a banking regulator with an outsized role in overseeing the industry because of the number of banks based in New York, sent a subpoena to Wells Fargo.

It wants to see copies of loan contracts with borrowers, agreements with its dealer network, and any outside vendors who may have played a role.

That follows two customer lawsuits filed in California and one in New York. One lawsuit said the bank’s “abusive” practices caused “significant stress, hardship and financial losses” for customers.

The full article is here.

"Congress should crack down on predatory ‘pyramid schemes,’ not look away"

Lots of editorials and op-eds on consumer issues lately. In The Hill today:

Congress this summer is considering whether to pass legislation that would fundamentally damage the ability of the Federal Trade Commission to protect consumers from pyramid schemes. As one of the commissioners of the FTC, I have a much different view. Americans lose millions of dollars to certain deceptive, unfair, and illegal multi-level marketing (MLM) opportunities each year. These deceptive and unfair schemes have affected people across America and, in many tragic cases, have ripped away a family’s entire life savings.

The FTC’s 40-year enforcement history shows that deceptive companies act illegally and cause enormous economic harm. In some cases, companies’ deceptive and misleading advertisements entice consumers with promises of high salaries, flexible working hours, and the chance to sell attractive products or services to customers.

The full op-ed is here.