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News Release | U.S. PIRG Education Fund | Transportation

Ditching diesel isn’t just good for public health and the environment -- it’s affordable

Getting rid of that black cloud of exhaust behind our buses, and the negative health and environmental effects that come along with it, is easier than it may seem. According to a new report from U.S. PIRG Education Fund and Environment America Research and Policy Center, electric buses are not only cleaner and healthier than diesel buses, but transit agencies and school districts have many affordable options at their disposal to adopt them.

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Report | U.S. PIRG Education Fund | Transportation

Paying for Electric Buses

Most of America’s school and transit buses run on diesel, a highly-polluting fuel, but there is a better option. All-electric buses are here, and they’re cleaner, healthier and save money for transit agencies, school districts and bus contractors to run in the long-term. 

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Blog Post | Solid Waste

Samsung, Apple fined for software updates that slowed phones | Nathan Proctor

Have you ever received an update on your phone or device, and afterward found that phone ran significantly slower? Well, an Italian court ruled on Wednesday that sometimes that can amount to a violation of consumer rights, and fined two offending cell phone manufacturers. 

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News Release | U.S. PIRG | Financial Reform

Fifty Groups Ask FTC, CFPB To Investigate Experian Over Security Flaw

This week, fifty leading state and national consumer, civil rights, military family, faith and other groups joined U.S. PIRG (letter to regulators) in urging the FTC and CFPB to investigate a security flaw (apparently fixed) at the credit bureau Experian. As originally reported by Nerdwallet, whose findings were confirmed by U.S. PIRG, access to "secret" PINs to temporarily lift credit freezes was left available to anyone who answered "none of the above" to security questions. 

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News Release | U.S. PIRG | Public Health, Antibiotics

Antibiotic-Resistant Salmonella outbreak comes from unknown source

On Wednesday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced an outbreak of Salmonella from an unknown source, which has so far infected 92 people in 29 states. This strain, Salmonella Infantis, which can be fatal, is resistant to multiple antibiotic treatments. And antibiotic resistance, hastened by the routine overuse of antibiotics on industrial farms, makes treating dangerous foodborne disease outbreaks more difficult. 

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Media Hit | Tax

How Much of Its Record Settlement Will S&P Write Off at Tax Time?

First comes the settlement. Next comes the tax write-off?

Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services on Tuesday announced a record $1.5 billion payout to resolve crisis-era lawsuits with the Justice Department, states and a pension fund over inflated residential mortgage deals. Collectively, the settlement total is 10 times larger than any other previously involving a credit-rating firm.

But how much of the unprecedented round of settlements could end up being written off?

Michelle Surka, a program associate with the nonpartisan consumer advocacy group U.S. Public Interest Research Group, said she thinks she has an answer based on an early analysis: about $290 million.

That’s about a $50 million break on state taxes but also the potential to write down $240 million of federal taxes owed in the more than dozen states involved in the settlement, Ms. Surka said.

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Media Hit | Tax

When Company Is Fined, Taxpayers Often Share Bill

U.S. PIRG analysis and quotes featured in the New York Times Business Day section.

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News Release | U.S. PIRG Education Fund | Transportation

New Report Ranks 70 Major American Cities’ Tech Transportation Options

A new report from the U.S. PIRG Education Fund and Frontier Group shows how well American cities are using technology-enabled services and tools for their transportation needs. It ranks major American cities on the number of different types of new transportation technology options in the city.

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News Release | U.S. PIRG | Budget, Tax, Transportation

Obama Budget Closes Tax Loopholes, Cuts Wasteful Spending, but Falls Short of Ending Offshore Tax Dodging

"President Obama’s budget deserves praise for closing egregious offshore tax loopholes and preventing companies with enough lawyers from using tax havens to get their tax bill down to zero. Unfortunately it fails to end the incentive for wealthy multinationals to take advantage of tax havens, and would fall short of putting an end to offshore tax dodging.

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Blog Post | Tax

What Do Jon Stewart, Elizabeth Warren, and Barack Obama Have In Common? | Dan Smith

All three of them spoke out this week against corporate tax dodging.

In his State of the Union speech, President Obama called for an economy where “everyone plays by the same set of rules” and where companies can’t avoid taxes by shifting profits overseas. That same night, Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren went on the Daily Show and called out 30 corporations that a recent U.S. PIRG and Citizens for Tax Justice study found paid more to lobby Congress than they did in federal income taxes. When Warren told this to John Stewart on the Daily Show, it made the usually unflappable comedian’s jaw drop.

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Blog Post | Ed's Blog

Rich Cordray of CFPB to testify today on consumer protection | Ed Mierzwinski

The newly Presidentially-confirmed director of the CFPB, the nation's first financial regulator with just one job -- protecting consumers -- goes before a House Oversight and Government Affairs subcommittee today at 1:30 pm (live video).

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Blog Post | Ed's Blog

Supreme Court GPS search decision suggests possibility of greater privacy rights, even on the Internet | Ed Mierzwinski

Today's unanimous Supreme Court decision in United States v. Jones (docket 10-1259), read most narrowly, merely says: "We hold that the Government’s installation of a GPS device on a target’s vehicle, and its use of that device to monitor the vehicle’s movements, constitutes a “search.” That means the government should be careful to obtain valid warrants and comply with the Constitution's 4th Amendment limits on "unreasonable searches and seizures. But the Court offered tantalizing clues to its thinking that, in the modern electronic age, reasonable expectations of privacy warrant a review of Government -- and even third party -- collection of information.

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Blog Post | Ed's Blog

"Dirty Thirty" corporations spend more on lobbying than they pay in taxes; Meanwhile, does Mitt Romney join them in hiding money in offshore tax havens? | Ed Mierzwinski

Yesterday, U.S. PIRG Education Fund released a report identifying a "Dirty Thirty" of Fortune 500 companies that paid more to lobby Congress than they did in Federal Income Taxes. Here is the release.

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Blog Post | Ed's Blog

SOPA and PIPA stop innovation and freedom and harm consumers without stopping online piracy | Ed Mierzwinski

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and powerful music, film and publishing titans have gone too far in demanding that the Internet as we know it -- an engine of innovation, freedom, democracy, commerce, idea-sharing and entrepreneurship -- be throttled down so that their legitimate problems with offshore pirates can supposedly be solved. They think every problem is a nail but their only tool is a hammer, a sledgehammer. Their bills won't hammer the nail, but they will hammer you, me and the Internet.

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Blog Post

Right to Repair shows no signs of slowing down

From a win in the New York Senate, to a new bill in Congress: A roundup of news on Right to Repair

News Release | U.S. PIRG

Broad Right to Repair bill introduced in Congress

Consumer, environmental, repair advocates cheer Rep. Morelle’s new bill to help Americans fix modern products 

Report | PIRG Education Fund

Blocking Rooftop Solar

Solar power is helping move the United States toward a future of 100% renewable energy, while reducing global warming pollution, cleaning up the air in our communities, and empowering homeowners and business owners to generate their own electricity. And increasingly, solar power can do all that at a lower cost than electricity produced from fossil fuels. Utilities increasingly fear that the falling prices and rising availability of clean solar power will threaten their business model, which ties profits to the amount of capital investment they make in the grid, and sometimes to the amount of electricity sold. Consequently, in states across the country, utilities are using their money and clout to push policymakers to undercut solar power.

Blog Post

Man lost $124,000 in Amazon scam. Here are 10 ways to keep it from happening to you

In light of some of these newer cons, here is actionable information to help you avoid the aggravation, time and financial losses that come with sophisticated scams.

Blog Post

What’s it going to cost? Wide variation in prices for hospital care in Boston.

How one person "shopped around" for surgery in Boston using the new hospital price tools required by the federal government. 

Blocking Rooftop Solar

The companies, lobbyists and front groups undermining local clean energy

 

Farmers need to fix their equipment. Repair restrictions continue to get in the way.

Without access to digital repair software, farmers are too often forced to send their machines to authorized dealers for fixes they otherwise could have made themselves, leading to lengthy delays and inflated repair bills.

 

Public Health

PIRG backs Get the Lead Out Act to protect children's health

Lead exposure is particularly harmul for kids. The bipartisan Get the Lead Out Act would set aside $46.5 billion to replace the approximately 9 million lead service lines still in use today within 10 years.

 

Solid Waste

Shareholder advocacy wins plastic commitment from Target

In response to a shareholder proposal filed by Green Century and As You Sow, Target agreed on May 5 to set a goal for eliminating virgin plastic from its private brand packaging for fast-moving goods. Green Century is, like PIRG, a member of The Public Interest Network.

 

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U.S. PIRG is part of The Public Interest Network, which operates and supports organizations committed to a shared vision of a better world and a strategic approach to social change.