Home

U.S. PIRG Ban Roundup & CFPB Homepage 2017

What's New

All
News
Milestones
Reports
Blog

Blog Post | Public Health, Antibiotics

If It Looks Like a Chicken and Walks Like a Chicken | Steve Blackledge

Earlier this week, Tyson Foods announced another big step toward stopping the overuse of antibiotics on industrial farms. The announcement underscores a larger trend that’s been happening for a few years now; consumer pressure is helping to drive important public health changes in the marketplace. To be sure, there are laggards on the antibiotics front (see our recent blog on KFC), but perhaps no company has lagged as aggressively and proudly as Sanderson Farms.

Blog Post | Public Health, Antibiotics

Chicken Industry Moves Further Away From Antibiotics, but KFC Still Chickens Out | Matthew Wellington

Bravo, Tyson Foods! Today the company announced its plan to eliminate antibiotics in the chickens raised for its brand name chicken offerings (breasts, wings, and nuggets). This move by the largest U.S. meat company (in revenue), is indicative of a larger paradigm shift in the chicken industry.

Blog Post | Public Health

Lead: the sneaky ingredient in your lipstick and lotion | Anna Low-Beer

Late last year, the Food and Drug Administration announced new guidelines for the level of lead allowed in lipstick and other cosmetics. I know what you’re thinking: isn’t there already a rule that says that lead -- a toxic heavy metal -- is not permitted in the products we apply to our bodies? Sadly, because of weak and outdated federal regulations, the FDA does not currently limit lead levels in cosmetics. And it’s not a small problem -- the FDA tested hundreds of lipsticks from popular brands in 2012, and found lead in every single one.

News Release | U.S. PIRG | Democracy

Chicago Board of Ethics Enforces Strong Lobbying Disclosure Laws

David Plouffe, a former campaign manager for President Obama, was fined $90,000 Thursday for failing to register as a lobbyist after reaching out to Mayor Rahm Emanuel on behalf of the ride-sharing company Uber. The fine, the largest ever imposed by the Chicago Board of Ethics, stands in stark contrast to federal lobbying disclosure laws that allow special interests to legally influence elected officials without reporting their work. Congress can follow the lead of this strong local example to pass ethics reforms that require transparency of all lobbying activity.

Blog Post | Higher Ed

Consumer, Student Education Groups Defend CFPB To Congress | Chris Lindstrom

Nearly 60 student, consumer, and education groups signed on to this letter that was sent up to the Hill on Monday, February 13. It calls for the CFPB to remain a strong, independent agency, so it can protect student loan borrowers (and taxpayers) from predatory lending tactics.

Pages

News Release | U.S. PIRG | Democracy

Chicago Board of Ethics Enforces Strong Lobbying Disclosure Laws

David Plouffe, a former campaign manager for President Obama, was fined $90,000 Thursday for failing to register as a lobbyist after reaching out to Mayor Rahm Emanuel on behalf of the ride-sharing company Uber. The fine, the largest ever imposed by the Chicago Board of Ethics, stands in stark contrast to federal lobbying disclosure laws that allow special interests to legally influence elected officials without reporting their work. Congress can follow the lead of this strong local example to pass ethics reforms that require transparency of all lobbying activity.

News Release | U.S. PIRG | Consumer Protection

Court to Rehear CFPB’s Constitutionality

Statement by Mike Landis, Litigation Director at U.S. PIRG, about today’s decision by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to rehear en banc the panel ruling against the CFPB’s independent leadership.

News Release | U.S. PIRG | Consumer Protection

Unilever: Go Toxic-Free

On Valentine’s Day, consumer groups thank Unilever for great first step in disclosing fragrance ingredients and call on personal care giant to go toxic-free.

News Release | U.S. PIRG | Democracy

Track Rep. Price’s Unethical Investment in Real Time

Following an outcry from good government organizations over Rep. Tom Price’s suspect stock trades, U.S. PIRG has released a new online tool at InvestigatePrice.com, tracking money made by Rep. Price through unethical investments in Innate Immunotherapeutics Ltd.

News Release | U.S. PIRG | Democracy

Responding to Ethics Concerns, Good Gov. Groups Urge Delay on Price Vote

Good government groups urge Senate leadership to delay voting on Mr. Price’s nomination until the SEC has had the opportunity to fully investigate suspect stock activity.

Pages

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Pages

Report | U.S. PIRG | Financial Reform

Student, Education, and Consumer Groups Defend CFPB To Congress

On February 13, nearly 60 local, state and national student advocacy, professional, consumer, educational, faith and other organizations sent a letter to Congressional leaders expressing "strong support for the crucial work the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) does on behalf of student loan borrowers." The "borrower-focused" letter also urged Congress "to ensure the agency remains well-positioned to solve borrowers’ problems, which includes protecting the Bureau’s single-Director structure and its independent funding, and maintaining Director Richard Cordray until his term ends.

Report | U.S. PIRG Education Fund and Environment America Research & Policy Center | Public Health

Get the Lead Out

Our children need safe drinking water — especially at school where they go to learn and play each day. Unfortunately, lead is contaminating drinking water at schools and pre-schools across the country. That’s why we’re working to Get the Lead Out.

Report | U.S. PIRG | Democracy

Good Government Leaders Call on Senate to Postpone Price Vote

Following reports of privileged and discounted stock trading by Rep. Tom Price (GA-06), good government groups joined together Tuesday urging the Senate to delay any vote on Mr. Price’s nomination for Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS).

Report | U.S. PIRG | Financial Reform

PIRG, Consumer Advocates Join Fight to Protect CFPB in Court

Here is a copy of the motion filed today by U.S. PIRG and other groups in the DC Circuit, U.S. Court of Appeals, seeking to intervene in defense of the CFPB in the case PHH vs. CFPB.

Report | U.S. PIRG Education Fund and Frontier Group | Financial Reform

Big Banks, Big Overdraft Fees

Overdraft fees are a major source of consumer pain, since they are borne disproportionately by Americans with few financial resources. Through the first three quarters of 2016, 626 large banks reported collecting $8.4 billion in revenue from overdraft and NSF fees, an increase of 3.6 percent over the same period in 2015. American consumers should look to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), which has already enforced overdraft regulations and returned millions of dollars to consumers, to take new action to prevent unfair overdraft fees.

Pages

Blog Post | Public Health, Antibiotics

If It Looks Like a Chicken and Walks Like a Chicken | Steve Blackledge

Earlier this week, Tyson Foods announced another big step toward stopping the overuse of antibiotics on industrial farms. The announcement underscores a larger trend that’s been happening for a few years now; consumer pressure is helping to drive important public health changes in the marketplace. To be sure, there are laggards on the antibiotics front (see our recent blog on KFC), but perhaps no company has lagged as aggressively and proudly as Sanderson Farms.

Blog Post | Public Health, Antibiotics

Chicken Industry Moves Further Away From Antibiotics, but KFC Still Chickens Out | Matthew Wellington

Bravo, Tyson Foods! Today the company announced its plan to eliminate antibiotics in the chickens raised for its brand name chicken offerings (breasts, wings, and nuggets). This move by the largest U.S. meat company (in revenue), is indicative of a larger paradigm shift in the chicken industry.

Blog Post | Public Health

Lead: the sneaky ingredient in your lipstick and lotion | Anna Low-Beer

Late last year, the Food and Drug Administration announced new guidelines for the level of lead allowed in lipstick and other cosmetics. I know what you’re thinking: isn’t there already a rule that says that lead -- a toxic heavy metal -- is not permitted in the products we apply to our bodies? Sadly, because of weak and outdated federal regulations, the FDA does not currently limit lead levels in cosmetics. And it’s not a small problem -- the FDA tested hundreds of lipsticks from popular brands in 2012, and found lead in every single one.

Blog Post | Higher Ed

Consumer, Student Education Groups Defend CFPB To Congress | Chris Lindstrom

Nearly 60 student, consumer, and education groups signed on to this letter that was sent up to the Hill on Monday, February 13. It calls for the CFPB to remain a strong, independent agency, so it can protect student loan borrowers (and taxpayers) from predatory lending tactics.

Blog Post | Health Care

PIRG applauds decisions blocking health insurance mega-mergers | Jesse Ellis O'Brien

This week, in a big win for consumers, a district court took action to block the proposed merger between health insurance giants Anthem and Cigna. This decision follows a ruling last month that blocked the proposed merger of two more of the nation’s biggest for-profit health insurers, Aetna and Humana. These decisions come after months of work by U.S. PIRG and a broad coalition of consumer and health care groups, urging close scrutiny of the mergers from state and federal regulators and raising questions and concerns about the potential impact of the mergers.

Pages

Don't Weaken Consumer Protections

A watchdog on Wall Street? Safety and security in our financial lives? These aren't controversial ideas — they’re ideas worth protecting.

Take a Stand
Ban Roundup

Why should we allow Monsanto's Roundup to contaminate more of our food, water and land when evidence keeps growing that it threatens our health?

ACT NOW
Antibiotics in our food supply?

The routine use of antibiotics has no place in our food supply, yet 70% of antibiotics sold in the U.S. are for livestock and poultry. Tell KFC: Stop serving meat raised on routine antibiotics.

Take Action
How do we get big money out?

Super PACs and mega-donors are drowning out the voices of regular Americans, but together we can overturn Citizens United and put voters back into the driver's seat of our elections.

Raise your voice

Take Action
Donate
Join Us

Priority Action

We're calling on big restaurant chains to stop the overuse of antibiotics on factory farms. Tell KFC to stop serving meat raised on routine antibiotics.

Support Us

Your donation supports U.S. PIRG’s work to stand up for consumers on the issues that matter, especially when powerful interests are blocking progress.

Consumer Alerts

Join our network and stay up to date on our campaigns, get important consumer updates and take action on critical issues.