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Blog Post | Consumer Protection

USPIRG Offers Consumer Tips in Wake of Hurricane Florence | Deirdre Cummings

Consumer tips offered to those impacted by Hurricane Florence

 

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Blog Post | Financial Reform

Ten Years After Lehman, Lessons of Financial Collapse Ignored, Not Forgotten | Ed Mierzwinski

Ten years ago this weekend the collapse of investment bank Lehman Brothers marked the massive financial collapse of 2008. Millions of Americans lost homes, jobs and trillions of dollars in retirement savings. Today, the financial collapse hasn't been forgotten, it's being ignored by Congress and Wall Street.

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Report | Public Health, Consumer Protection

Safer School Supplies: Shopping Guide

With this Safer School Supplies: Shopping Guide, parents, teachers, and students can make more informed decisions while shopping for school supplies this Back to School season. We want to give parents and teachers the option to choose school supplies that do not contain toxic chemicals. This Shopping Guide should serve as a handy tool for finding products free of several types of toxic chemicals.

 

> Keep Reading
Blog Post | Financial Reform

Latest Trojan Horse Data Breach Bill (HR6743-Luetkemeyer) Could Be Called "Equifax Protection Act" | Ed Mierzwinski

On Thursday, 13 September, the House Financial Services Committee is to consider the latest in a long series of data security and data breach bills that Congress takes up at the request of the banks. These Trojan Horse bills come riding in with few, if any, protections riding in the saddle, but massive elimination of stronger state laws hidden in the belly of the beasts. The proposal, HR6743, the Consumer Information Notification Requirement Act (Luetkemeyer (MO)), might also be called the “Equifax Protection Act.”

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News Release | MASSPIRG | Democracy

MASSPIRG Testifies for More Transparency and Accessibility of Government

Joint Testimony of ACLU of Massachusetts,

Common Cause Massachusetts, MASSPIRG,

and Massachusetts Newspaper Publishers Association

 

Transparency in government is the cornerstone of a strong democracy. Government transparency checks corruption, promotes fiscal responsibility and efficiency, and allows for greater, more meaningful participation in our democratic system.

Our organizations have each worked to promote transparency in government for decades. As leaders of the Massachusetts Freedom of Information Alliance (MassFOIA), we collaborated to advocate for the legislation to update the public records law which included this Special Legislative Commission, and we offer this testimony together.

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News Release | MASSPIRG | Democracy

MASSPIRG Testifies for More Transparency and Accessibility of Government

Joint Testimony of ACLU of Massachusetts,

Common Cause Massachusetts, MASSPIRG,

and Massachusetts Newspaper Publishers Association

 

Transparency in government is the cornerstone of a strong democracy. Government transparency checks corruption, promotes fiscal responsibility and efficiency, and allows for greater, more meaningful participation in our democratic system.

Our organizations have each worked to promote transparency in government for decades. As leaders of the Massachusetts Freedom of Information Alliance (MassFOIA), we collaborated to advocate for the legislation to update the public records law which included this Special Legislative Commission, and we offer this testimony together.

> Keep Reading
News Release | MASSPIRG | Consumer Protection

New Report: How Massachusetts Can Protect Consumers 1 Year After Equifax Breach

A year ago, Equifax announced that hackers had breached its system and accessed the data of nearly 150 million U.S. consumers. To mark the anniversary of that notorious announcement, MASSPIRG called on state lawmakers to pass the pending Security Breach Bill, H4806 and released a new report containing suggestions on how lawmakers, regulators, and consumers can safeguard personal information.

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News Release | U.S. PIRG | Public Health, Consumer Protection, Health Care

Second recall of King Bio’s homeopathic drugs in the past month

King Bio Inc. issued the second significant voluntary recall since late July of their homeopathic drugs on Wednesday. Safety concerns over homeopathic drugs extend beyond King Bio as over the past several years, the FDA has issued recalls to several companies for a variety of health products from zinc-containing intranasal medicine to asthma drugs with toxic ingredients. 

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News Release | MASSPIRG | Solid Waste

Environment America and state PIRGs Praise Kroger’s Plan To Phase Out Single-Use Plastic Bags by 2025

Kroger Co, America’s largest grocery chain, announced plan to phase out single-use plastic bags.

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Result | Democracy

Winning voter reforms in Massachusetts

MASSPIRG helped win two important reforms to engage new voters and give all citizens an equal opportunity to vote. We fought for and won online voter registration, which allows residents with state IDs or driver’s licenses to register to vote online. We also won early voting, which allows residents to vote 11 business days before Election Day.   

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Result | Democracy

Delivering one million petitions to President Obama on dark money

U.S. PIRG joined a broad coalition to deliver one million petitions from Americans, including U.S. PIRG members and supporters, calling on President Obama to shine a light on dark money, or secret political spending.

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Result | Consumer Protection

30 years of toy safety

For the past thirty years, our sister organization U.S. PIRG Education Fund has taken a close look at the safety of toys sold in stores. Their reports have led to more than 150 regulatory actions. In November 2015, they released our 30th annual Trouble in Toyland report.

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Result | Democracy

Giving more Americans a greater voice in our elections

In our democracy, the size of your wallet shouldn’t determine the volume of your voice. In 2015, we helped win reforms in Maine and Seattle to ensure that more Americans have a greater say in our elections. Seattle’s Initiative-122 empowers small donors with “democracy vouchers” that can be donated to local candidates and lowers the cap on contributions. In Maine, the state’s Clean Elections Act was improved by strengthening campaign finance disclosure laws and offering qualifying candidates increased public funding.

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Result | Public Health

Convincing McDonald’s and Subway to protect public health

In 2015, bolstered by the support of more than 100,000 members and supporters, we convinced both McDonald’s and Subway to take action to protect public health. In March, just two days after we delivered more than 30,000 petitions to McDonald’s headquarters, the company announced that they would stop serving chicken raised on medically-important antibiotics. And in October, after more than 100,000 called on the chain to take action, Subway announced a similar policy for all the meat they serve.

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Report | Public Health, Consumer Protection

Safer School Supplies: Shopping Guide

With this Safer School Supplies: Shopping Guide, parents, teachers, and students can make more informed decisions while shopping for school supplies this Back to School season. We want to give parents and teachers the option to choose school supplies that do not contain toxic chemicals. This Shopping Guide should serve as a handy tool for finding products free of several types of toxic chemicals.

 

> Keep Reading
Report | MASSPIRG Education Fund | Consumer Protection

Equifax Breach: 1 Year Later

A year ago, Equifax announced that hackers had breached its system and accessed the data of nearly 150 million U.S. consumers. To mark the anniversary of that notorious announcement, MASSPIRG called on state lawmakers to pass the pending Security Breach Bill, H4806,  and released a new report containing suggestions on how lawmakers, regulators, and consumers can safeguard personal information.

> Keep Reading
Report | MASSPIRG Education Fund | Solid Waste

Trash in Massachusetts: State of the State

After decades of focusing on the 'recycling' part of reduce, reuse, recycle, it's time to step back and truly consider the first mandate in that mantra: Reduce. We cannot recycle our way out of all the waste we create. As the attached national report chronicles, we are trashing our health and our environment by producing too much stuff, most of which ends up in landfills, incinerators, or as litter.

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Report | Public Health, Consumer Protection

Safer School Supplies: Shopping Guide

With this Safer School Supplies: Shopping Guide, parents, teachers, and students can make more informed decisions while shopping for school supplies this Back to School season. We want to give parents and teachers the option to choose school supplies that do not contain toxic chemicals. This Shopping Guide should serve as a handy tool for finding products free of several types of toxic chemicals.

 

> Keep Reading
Report | U.S. PIRG Education Fund | Transportation

Highway Boondoggles 4

America's infrastructure is in rough shape. Many of our roads, bridges, and transit systems are aging and in need of repair. Yet, year after year, state and local governments propose billions of dollars' worth of new and expanded highways that do little to reduce congestion or address real transportation challenges, while diverting scarce funding from repairs and 21st century priorities. This report profiles nine highway projects that epitomize the need for a fresh approach to transportation spending.

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Blog Post | Consumer Protection

USPIRG Offers Consumer Tips in Wake of Hurricane Florence | Deirdre Cummings

Consumer tips offered to those impacted by Hurricane Florence

 

> Keep Reading
Blog Post | Financial Reform

Ten Years After Lehman, Lessons of Financial Collapse Ignored, Not Forgotten | Ed Mierzwinski

Ten years ago this weekend the collapse of investment bank Lehman Brothers marked the massive financial collapse of 2008. Millions of Americans lost homes, jobs and trillions of dollars in retirement savings. Today, the financial collapse hasn't been forgotten, it's being ignored by Congress and Wall Street.

> Keep Reading
Blog Post | Financial Reform

Latest Trojan Horse Data Breach Bill (HR6743-Luetkemeyer) Could Be Called "Equifax Protection Act" | Ed Mierzwinski

On Thursday, 13 September, the House Financial Services Committee is to consider the latest in a long series of data security and data breach bills that Congress takes up at the request of the banks. These Trojan Horse bills come riding in with few, if any, protections riding in the saddle, but massive elimination of stronger state laws hidden in the belly of the beasts. The proposal, HR6743, the Consumer Information Notification Requirement Act (Luetkemeyer (MO)), might also be called the “Equifax Protection Act.”

> Keep Reading
Blog Post | Health Care, Solid Waste

Right to Repair is a simple way to cut health care costs | Nathan Proctor

Cost containment is is a critical first step in addressing the deep faults in our health care system - it's hard to image fixing problems of access if we continue to be charged $15 for a Tylenol pill or $1,000 for a toothbrush. It turns out that overpriced equipment repair helps add to those inflated costs.

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Blog Post | Solid Waste

Making our devices more fixable with ecodesign | Nathan Proctor

A conversation with Restart Project Co-Founder Ugo Vallauri about progress around ecodesign in Europe and how that connects to Right to Repair in the United States

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  • How Is This Even Possible?
    One year after Equifax announced the worst data breach in history, a U.S. House committee has recommended weakening data breach laws. Tell Congress to protect Americans, not Equifax.
    TAKE ACTION
  • TELL MCDONALD’S: HOLD THE ANTIBIOTICS
    It’s time the country’s most iconic burger chain stopped serving beef and pork raised on our life-saving medicines.
    TAKE ACTION
  • Protect Bees And Our Food Supply
    Millions of the bees that pollinate our food are dying off every year, and scientists say a widely-used class of pesticides is one of the causes. Let's ban bee-killing pesticides.
    TAKE ACTION
  • JOIN THE CALL FOR CLEANER BUSES
    All-electric buses are here, and they’re cleaner, healthier and often cheaper in the long run. Tell our governor to invest in clean, all-electric buses.
    TAKE ACTION

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