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Over 70 Groups Encourage FHFA to Finish Review of Credit Scores, Regardless of S.2155's Expected Passage | Mike Litt

Today, we sent a letter to FHFA Director Mel Watt on behalf of 77 organizations, ahead of his hearing before Congress and an expected vote on S.2155 in the House this week.

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News Release | U.S. PIRG | Public Health

Anti-public health Farm Bill fails in House

The U.S. House of Representatives has voted down the Farm Bill (H.R. 2) by a vote of 198-213. The bill was loaded with provisions that would have put public health at risk and increased the use of toxic chemicals and pesticides. House Speaker Paul Ryan (WI) has called for a motion to reconsider.

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Blog Post | Solid Waste

Why Banning Plastics Is The Solution to our Plastic Problem | Alex Truelove

Banning single-use plastics is a better solution that taxing them or trying to recycle them. Doing so is more effective and feasible in reducing plastic pollution.

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News Release | U.S. PIRG | Consumer Protection

Congress Affirms Need to Stop Debt Trap; Mick Mulvaney Should Follow Suit

Here is our statement on Congress allowing the deadline to pass without repealing the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's payday lending rule.

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News Release | U.S. PIRG | Consumer Protection

U.S. PIRG Statement Supporting Wednesday’s Senate Vote To Reinstate Net Neutrality

The Senate has voted in favor of every Internet-using American. By a vote of 52-47, senators approved Sen. Ed Markey’s (MA) Resolution to repeal the Federal Communications Commission’s February 2018 action that rescinded the 2015 Open Internet Order.

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News Release | U.S. PIRG | Public Health

Anti-public health Farm Bill fails in House

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News Release | U.S. PIRG | Consumer Protection

Congress Affirms Need to Stop Debt Trap; Mick Mulvaney Should Follow Suit

Here is our statement on Congress allowing the deadline to pass without repealing the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's payday lending rule.

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News Release | U.S. PIRG | Consumer Protection

U.S. PIRG Statement Supporting Wednesday’s Senate Vote To Reinstate Net Neutrality

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News Release | U.S. PIRG | Public Health

House Farm Bill Is Bad For Public Health

Today, Congress is considering a bill that would allow large agrichemical companies to dump toxic pesticides and chemicals into our rivers, lakes, and drinking water. It would undermine efforts by farmers who want to use better farming practices to produce healthier food with less chemicals. We are calling on Congress to vote against this bill that would be bad for public health.

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News Release | U.S. PIRG | Consumer Protection

U.S. PIRG Statement In Support of Wednesday’s Senate Vote To Reinstate Net Neutrality

On Wednesday, May 16, the Senate will vote on an issue that affects every Internet-using American: net neutrality. Sen. Ed Markey (MA) has proposed a Resolution of Disapproval, SJR52, under the Congressional Review Act, to repeal the current Federal Communications Commission’s February 2018 action rescinding the 2015 Open Internet Order.

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Result | Transportation

66 Mayors Sign Letter to U.S. DOT Urging Action to Reduce Carbon Emissions from Transportation

By 2050, nearly 70 percent of the world’s population will live in cities. While strong urban centers provide many important benefits, cities also face unique challenges. Despite accounting for just 2 percent of landmass, cities produce 70 percent of the world’s CO2 emissions. This sad reality jeopardizes the health of urban residents and the health of our planet. That's why today, U.S. PIRG is proud to announce the support of 66 mayors, representing an estimated combined total 6.4 million people, in calling on the United States Department of Transportation to move forward with new rules that could require localities to track, measure, and take steps to reduce carbon emissions from transportation sources.

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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 | U.S. PIRG Education Fund | Transportation

Electric Buses: Clean Transportation for Healthier Neighborhoods and Cleaner Air

Buses play a key role in in our nation’s transportation system, carrying millions of children daily to and from school and moving millions of Americans each day around our cities. Buses reduce the number of individual cars on our roads, make our communities more livable and sustainable, and provide transportation options for people of all ages and abilities. Yet, the majority of America’s buses remain dirty – burning fossil fuels like diesel that put the health of our children and communities at risk and contribute to global warming.

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Report | U.S. PIRG Education Fund | Public Health

Accidents Waiting to Happen: Coal Ash Ponds Put Our Waterways at Risk

Clean water is essential to America’s health and welfare. Our lakes, rivers, streams and creeks provide us with water to drink, add character to our most beautiful natural places, and give us places to fish and swim. Unfortunately, our waterways are under constant threat of pollution from dangerous facilities located along their banks. These facilities are accidents waiting to happen.

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Report | US PIRG Education Fund and Frontier Group | Budget

Following the Money 2018

One of our primary causes throughout the decades has been holding government officials accountable for responsible stewardship of our tax dollars. To that end, U.S. PIRG Education Fund released its annual "Following the Money" report, which ranks each state on the transparency of its government spending database website.

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Report | U.S. PIRG Education Fund | Public Health

In Your Face

The negative health effects of asbestos are well-known. Most people may associate asbestos contamination with the workplace or decades-old construction material, but alarmingly, recent media reports have found asbestos contamination in kids' makeup from popular stores. U.S. PIRG Education Fund (PIRG) decided to do its own asbestos testing at an accredited laboratory.

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Report | U.S. PIRG Education Fund | Transportation

Plugging In

The adoption of large numbers of electric vehicles (EVs) offers many benefits for cities, including cleaner air and the opportunity to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Electric vehicles are far cleaner than gasoline-powered cars, with lower greenhouse gas emissions and lower emissions of the pollutants that contribute to smog and particulate matter.

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Blog Post | Consumer Protection

Over 70 Groups Encourage FHFA to Finish Review of Credit Scores, Regardless of S.2155's Expected Passage | Mike Litt

Today, we sent a letter to FHFA Director Mel Watt on behalf of 77 organizations, ahead of his hearing before Congress and an expected vote on S.2155 in the House this week.

> Keep Reading

Blog Post | Solid Waste

Why Banning Plastics Is The Solution to our Plastic Problem | Alex Truelove

Banning single-use plastics is a better solution that taxing them or trying to recycle them. Doing so is more effective and feasible in reducing plastic pollution.

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Blog Post | Public Health

L’Oreal: This Mother’s Day, make it toxic-free because moms are worth it! | Dev Gowda

With Mother’s Day coming up on May 13, picking the perfect gift for Mom is on the minds of millions of Americans. Many of us will be giving our moms perfumes, bath bombs and beauty products as gifts this Mother’s Day. But we are probably not thinking about whether the perfume we buy Mom is potentially dangerous.

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Blog Post | Democracy

Happy Birthday Citizens United; May It Be Your Last | Joe Ready

This month, the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision turns eight. With all that’s going on in politics, it’s easy to focus on the latest scandal or hot take. But we should take the opportunity on this anniversary to focus on what I would argue is at the root of our political quagmire.

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Blog Post | Democracy

It’s Time to Invest in Our Democracy | Joe Ready

We’ve seen a lot of politicians talking about “infrastructure” recently. While everyone seems to have a slightly different vision of what that catch-all term means, we have transpartisan agreement that we need to do something about our most critical infrastructure. But while our roads, bridges and sewers certainly need work, I’d argue that the infrastructure we most urgently need to invest in isn’t so concrete — it’s our democracy.

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