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ORP Food Safety 011719

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Which stores make the grade for getting toxic chemicals off the shelves?

Out of the 40 largest retailers in North America, 19 lack any public policy to address toxic chemicals in the products found on their shelves.

> Keep Reading

Blog Post

In wake of 'fake account' scandal, Wells Fargo must pay $575 million fine to all 50 states

Wells Fargo is paying for its misdeeds.

> Keep Reading

Blog Post | Antibiotics

And then there were none: Sanderson Farms joins other big chicken producers in curbing antibiotic use

For the past year or so, there was only one holdout among the largest chicken producers in the U.S. on action to keep life-saving antibiotics working. Now there are none.

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Blog Post

Congressional investigation concludes that Equifax breach was 'entirely preventable'

The worst data breach in history could have been prevented with some basic security measures.

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News Release | OSPIRG Foundation | Tax

Study: Offshore Tax Havens Cost Oregon $175 million annually

Portland, OR - Oregon loses $175 million in tax revenue each year due to corporate tax avoidance, largely through abuse of offshore tax havens, according to a new report. The report by OSPIRG Foundation and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, “A Simple Fix for a $17 Billion Loophole,” comes as the state legislature convenes with eyes towards closing an estimated $623 million budget shortfall. According to the report, adopting worldwide combined report, or “Complete Reporting” would allow the state to recapture lost revenue from corporate tax avoidance, which would account for more than half of the anticipated shortfall in the 2019-2020 budget cycle.

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News Release | OSPIRG Foundation | Tax

Study: Offshore Tax Havens Cost Oregon $175 million annually

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News Release | U.S. PIRG | Financial Reform

U.S. PIRG and Leading Groups Demand Real Privacy Protection and Digital Rights

Today, U.S. PIRG joined leading consumer, privacy and civil rights groups to issue a Privacy Protection and Digital Rights Framework that must form the basis of any new federal privacy law. The release comes as a phalanx of big tech firms and their allies is urging Congress to instead enact a new law that serves them, but preempts stronger state laws and allows all current intrusive industry data collection, sharing and surveillance practices to continue unfettered by any aspect of consumer control or rights.

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News Release | U.S. PIRG Education Fund | Consumer Protection

Fiat Chrysler Settlement Fails to Protect Consumers

While we are glad that Fiat Chrysler is paying something for damaging the health of Americans and deceiving customers, this settlement does not go far enough. It neither ensures these violations of the public trust won’t happen again nor makes consumers whole.

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News Release | OSPIRG

New Guide Helps Consumers Get Great Deals on Refurbished Electronics

This holiday season, you can pay even less than you would on Black Friday for electronics, if you buy them used and refurbished. “Fixed for the Holidays” helps consumers purchase used items with confidence -- detailing what to buy, how to know if you are getting a good deal and where to shop.

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

McDonald’s Takes Step to Protect Public Health, Commits to Reduce Medically Important Antibiotic Use in Beef Supply

McDonald's Commits to Reducing Medically Important Antibiotic Use in its Beef Supply Chain

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Result | Tax

No tax giveaway for Comcast

The Oregon Department of Revenue has denied Comcast a big payday at taxpayer expense, following a public outcry and petitions from thousands of Oregonians across the state opposing a tax giveaway for the internet giant.

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Result | Health Care

Health Insurance Legislation Passed

In 2015, with OSPIRG’s strong support, the Oregon Legislature passed the state’s first comprehensive consumer protections in health insurance networks. Until now, Oregon law provided few protections to ensure that health plans offer a network that can provide covered services in a timely fashion. The new law requires insurers to provide accurate, actionable provider network information to consumers.

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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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Report | OSPIRG Foundation | Tax

A Simple Fix for a $17 Billion Loophole

Every year, corporations use complicated schemes to shift U.S. earnings to subsidiaries in offshore tax havens—countries with minimal or no taxes—in order to reduce their state and federal income tax liability by billions of dollars.

Meanwhile, smaller, wholly-domestic U.S. businesses cannot game the system in the same way. The result is that large multinational businesses compete on an uneven playing field, avoiding taxes that their small competitors must pay. Innovation in the marketplace is replaced by innovation in the tax code.

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Report | U.S. PIRG Education Fund

A Citizen's Guide to Reducing Energy Waste

The future is here—but we’re living in the past.

Clean energy from the sun and wind can provide for our energy needs without the global consequences of pollution, yet we’re still producing and consuming virtually all of our energy in ways that do lasting damage to our environment, our health and our climate. To make matters worse, much of the dirty energy we produce goes to waste.

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Report | OSPIRG Foundation

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.

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Report | OSPIRG Foundation | Health Care

OSPIRG FOUNDATION COMMENTS ON THE PROVIDENCE HEALTH PLAN PROPOSAL FOR INDIVIDUAL HEALTH RATES EFFECTIVE JANUARY 2019

Providence Health Plan’s 91,425 members with individual health insurance plans will see rate hikes of 13.6% on average, and as high as 24.1%, if the premium increase proposed by Providence goes forward.

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Report | OSPIRG Foundation | 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 often do little to reduce congestion or address real transportation challenges, while diverting scarce funding from infrastructure repairs and 21st century transportation priorities.

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Blog Post | Public Health

Which stores make the grade for getting toxic chemicals off the shelves?

Out of the 40 largest retailers in North America, 19 lack any public policy to address toxic chemicals in the products found on their shelves.

> Keep Reading

Blog Post

In wake of 'fake account' scandal, Wells Fargo must pay $575 million fine to all 50 states

Wells Fargo is paying for its misdeeds.

> Keep Reading

Blog Post | Antibiotics

And then there were none: Sanderson Farms joins other big chicken producers in curbing antibiotic use

For the past year or so, there was only one holdout among the largest chicken producers in the U.S. on action to keep life-saving antibiotics working. Now there are none.

> Keep Reading

Blog Post

Congressional investigation concludes that Equifax breach was 'entirely preventable'

The worst data breach in history could have been prevented with some basic security measures.

> Keep Reading

Blog Post | Financial Reform

Mulvaney Lobs One Last Softball To Industry Opponents of CFPB | Ed Mierzwinski

As the year 2018 came to an end, U.S. PIRG, Americans for Financial Reform and AFR members filed the last in in a seemingly interminable series of Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Requests for Information. Although there was no clear intent to this "Data Collection" RFI, we, and allied academic scholars who filed a separate comment, both inferred it as another opportunity for industry opponents of the CFPB to attack the Bureau's consumer protection mission -- this time by challenging its collection and use of data to evaluate and respond to financial marketplace problems that harm consumers.

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Pages

Blog Post | Public Health

Which stores make the grade for getting toxic chemicals off the shelves?

Out of the 40 largest retailers in North America, 19 lack any public policy to address toxic chemicals in the products found on their shelves.

> Keep Reading

Blog Post

In wake of 'fake account' scandal, Wells Fargo must pay $575 million fine to all 50 states

Wells Fargo is paying for its misdeeds.

> Keep Reading

Blog Post | Antibiotics

And then there were none: Sanderson Farms joins other big chicken producers in curbing antibiotic use

For the past year or so, there was only one holdout among the largest chicken producers in the U.S. on action to keep life-saving antibiotics working. Now there are none.

> Keep Reading

Blog Post