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16 AGs Push Congress to Pass Federal Ban on Price Gouging
"During and after a crisis, it is unfair—and harmful to our economy—for companies to reap higher profits for selling goods and services that families need to survive."
Oct 30, 2024
The attorneys general of 15 states and the District of Columbia on Wednesday wrote to the top Democrats and Republicans in Congress to advocate for a federal prohibition on price gouging.
"Businesses should never be able to hike prices during an emergency just to increase their profits," said New York Attorney General Letitia James, who led the letter. "When companies take advantage of major disruptions and raise prices of food and supplies that New Yorkers rely on, my office holds them accountable, getting people their money back and protecting their wallets."
"Our federal government should have the same power to protect Americans when disaster strikes and stop price gouging at the national level that threatens both hardworking families and small businesses," asserted James, a Democrat.
The letter points out that "over 40 states across the country make price gouging unlawful, reflecting the widespread national consensus that exists, across ideological and regional differences, that in the immediate run-up to and aftermath of a crisis, it is unfair—and harmful to our economy long-term—to reap higher profits for selling goods and services people need to survive."
"As crises, whether natural or human in origin, become more common... now is the time to work constructively in a bipartisan fashion to create federal price gouging protections."
"Despite that consensus, there is currently no federal price gouging prohibition—and individual states face heightened challenges when protecting consumers from price gouging when so many product supply chains are nationwide," it continues. "A federal price gouging prohibition would provide critical partnership to state enforcement and protect consumers and small businesses alike."
The letter—addressed to House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) as well as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.)—lays out how price gouging bans address market failures and strengthen the economy, explaining that "they act like 'circuit breakers' in a stock market: They put a pause on panic-driven price changes and give everyone a chance to make sure they are making the right pricing choices for the long-term."
Price gouging prohibitions also "prevent inefficient pricing overreactions in the heat of a crisis" and "help to prevent hoarding," the letter adds. Further, they "can restrain inefficiently high prices for products where there is very little competition."
"A federal price gouging prohibition that complemented state prohibitions would allow federal enforcement agencies, such as the Federal Trade Commission, to identify and restrain unjustified and irrational price increases throughout the entire supply chain, unconstrained by the complications of state-by-state enforcement," the attorneys general wrote. "Such a prohibition should not preempt state laws, but complement and strengthen them by focusing federal enforcement on price gouging that cannot practicably be stopped by a single state."
"Our states provide many different models for how such a price gouging statute might be framed," the coalition noted. "But as crises, whether natural or human in origin, become more common and the cost of living continues to be too high for working families, we believe now is the time to work constructively in a bipartisan fashion to create federal price gouging protections to complement price gouging protections that already exist in almost every state."
In addition to the D.C. attorney general, James was joined by the AGs in Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Oregon, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Pennsylvania, and Vermont.
"During and after a crisis, it is unfair—and harmful to our economy—for companies to reap higher profits for selling goods and services that families need to survive," said California Attorney General Rob Bonta. "That is why California's price gouging law protects Californians during and after wildfires, severe weather storms, and other emergencies."
"A federal price gouging prohibition that complements state law would build on successful partnerships between states and the federal government to protect consumers by making it easier to enforce price gouging prohibitions nationally, up the supply chain," the Democrat added. "This would benefit California consumers and small businesses who currently bear the brunt of their suppliers' price setting."
The letter comes amid a fossil fuel-driven climate emergency featuring extreme weather that is increasingly impacting U.S. communities and less than a week away from Election Day, when Americans will choose the next Congress and President. In the race for the White House, former Republican President Donald Trump faces Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris. In August, the Democrat proposed a federal ban on price gouging by food supplies and grocery stores.
"I still remember our mother sitting at that yellow formica table late at night, cup of tea in hand, a pile of bills in front of her, trying to make it all work. And I've heard from so many of you who are facing even greater financial pressures," Harris said in a Tuesday campaign speech. "I will enact the first-ever federal ban on price gouging on groceries, cap the price of insulin, and limit out-of-pocket prescription costs for all Americans. I will fight to make sure that hardworking Americans can actually afford a place to live."
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State AGs Launch Lawsuit Against TikTok for Harming Children
"We are suing TikTok to protect young people and help combat the nationwide youth mental health crisis," explained New York Attorney General Letitia James.
Oct 08, 2024
Attorneys general from over a dozen states and the District of Columbia on Tuesday announced lawsuits against TikTok, accusing the company behind the popular social media platform of deliberately making the site addictive for children and deceiving the public about its dangers.
"We're suing the social media giant TikTok for exploiting young users and deceiving the public about the dangers the platform poses to our youth," Democratic California Attorney General Rob Bonta
explained Tuesday morning in San Francisco. "Together, with my fellow state AGs, we will hold TikTok to account, stop its exploitation of our young people, and end its deceit."
New York Attorney General Letitia James, also a Democrat, said in a
statement that "young people are struggling with their mental health because of addictive social media platforms like TikTok."
"TikTok claims that their platform is safe for young people, but that is far from true," she continued. "In New York and across the country, young people have died or gotten injured doing dangerous TikTok challenges and many more are feeling more sad, anxious, and depressed because of TikTok's addictive features."
"Today, we are suing TikTok to protect young people and help combat the nationwide youth mental health crisis," James added. "Kids and families across the country are desperate for help to address this crisis, and we are doing everything in our power to protect them."
James' office said in a
statement:
TikTok uses a variety of addictive features to keep users on its platform longer, which leads to poorer mental health outcomes. Multiple studies have found a link between excessive social media use, poor sleep quality, and poor mental health among young people. According to the U.S. surgeon general, young people who spend more than three hours per day on social media face double the risk of experiencing poor mental health outcomes, including symptoms of depression and anxiety.
According to James' office, TikTok's addictive features include:
- Around-the-clock notifications that can lead to poor sleep patterns for young users;
- Autoplay of an endless stream of videos that manipulates users into compulsively spending more time on the platform with no option to disable;
- Attention-grabbing content that keeps young users on the platform longer;
- TikTok "stories" and TikTok live content that is only available temporarily to entice users to tune in immediately or lose the opportunity to interact;
- A highlighted "likes" and comments section as a form of social validation, which can impact young users' self-esteem; and
- Beauty filters that alter one's appearance and can lower young users' self-esteem.
The attorneys general also accuse TikTok of violating the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, which is meant to shield children's online data; of falsely claiming that its platform is safe for children; and of lying about the effectiveness of its so-called safety tools meant to mitigate harms to youth.
In addition to California and New York, the following states are part of the new lawsuit: Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Mississippi, North Carolina, New Jersey, Oregon, South Carolina, Vermont, and Washington. So is the District of Columbia.
All told, 23 states have now filed lawsuits targeting TikTok's harms to children.
However, the issue is by no means limited to TikTok. Last October, dozens of U.S. states
sued Meta—which owns the social media sites Facebook and Instagram—for allegedly violating consumer protection laws by designing their apps to be addictive, especially to minors.
Twitter, the social platform known as X since shortly after it was
purchased by Elon Musk in 2022 for $44 billion, was sued in 2021 by child sex trafficking victims for allowing the publication of sexually explicit images of minors and refusing to remove them as requested by the plaintiffs and their parents.
Last month, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission
published a report detailing how social media and streaming companies endanger children and teens who use their platforms. The report's publication sparked renewed calls for Congress to pass legislation including the Children and Teens' Online Privacy Protection Act and Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) to better safeguard minors against the companies' predatory practices.
However, rights groups including the ACLU condemned KOSA, which the civil liberties organization
warned "would violate the First Amendment by enabling the federal government to dictate what information people can access online and encourage social media platforms to censor protected speech."
The two bills—which were
overwhelmingly passed by the U.S. Senate in July—were last month approved for advancement in the House of Representatives.
In May 2023, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy issued an advisory on "the growing concerns about the effects of social media on youth mental health."
The White House simultaneously announced the creation of a federal task force "to advance the health, safety, and privacy of minors online with particular attention to preventing and mitigating the adverse health effects of online platforms."
Murthy has also called for tobacco-like warning labels on social media to address the platform's possible harms to children and teens.
Some critics are wary of singling out TikTok—which is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance—for political or xenophobic purposes.
Earlier this year, U.S. President Joe Biden signed into law a $95 billion foreign aid package containing a possible nationwide TikTok ban. The legislation requires ByteDance to sell TikTok to a non-Chinese company within a year or face a federal ban. TikTok subsequently sued the federal government over the potential ban.
Approximately 170 million Americans use TikTok, which is especially popular among members of Gen-Z and small-to-medium-sized businesses, and contributes tens of billions of dollars to the U.S. economy annually.
Evan Greer, who heads the digital rights group Fight for the Future, slammed the law as "one of the stupidest and most authoritarian pieces of tech legislation we've seen in years."
However, children's advocates welcomed the new lawsuits.
"We are pleased to see so many state attorneys general holding TikTok accountable for deliberately causing harms to young people," said Josh Golin, executive director of Fairplay. "Between state and private lawsuits, state legislation, and Federal Trade Commission enforcement actions, the tide is turning against Big Tech, and it's clear the status quo of social media companies harming kids cannot and will not continue."
"Now we need leaders in the House to join their Senate counterparts in passing the Kids Online Safety Act and the Children and Teens' Online Privacy Protection Act so that all platforms, not just those involved in legal settlements, will have to be safe by design for children from day one," Golin added.
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'A Watershed Moment': California Sues Big Oil Over Decades of Climate Destruction
"California's move is an unmistakable sign that the wave of climate lawsuits against Big Oil will keep growing and that these polluters' days of escaping accountability for their lies are numbered."
Sep 16, 2023
The state of California on Friday filed suit against ExxonMobil, Shell, BP, ConocoPhillips, and Chevron, accusing the five oil and gas giants of a decadeslong campaign to mislead the public about the threat fossil fuels pose to the climate.
The lawsuit makes California the largest economy on the planet to take legal action against fossil fuel companies over their efforts to deceive the world about their destructive—and immensely profitable—business model. California is also a major producer of oil and gas.
"This has been a multi-decade, ongoing campaign to seek endless profits at the expense of our planet, our people, and the greedy corporations and individuals need to be held accountable," California Attorney General Rob Bonta toldThe New York Times in an interview on Friday. "That's where we come in."
With its new civil lawsuit, filed in a San Francisco court, California joins Rhode Island, Minnesota, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, and other states that have sued the fossil fuel industry over its role in massive climate damages. Dozens of municipalities, including several in California, have also filed lawsuits against oil giants.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the U.S. has experienced a record-breaking 23 billion-dollar extreme weather disasters this year, from deadly flooding in California to the catastrophic wildfire that killed nearly 100 people in Maui, Hawaii—which is also suing Big Oil.
Cities and states representing 25% of the U.S. population are currently taking part in some kind of climate-related legal action against the fossil fuel industry, according to Fossil Free Media, and the Biden Justice Department is facing growing pressure to join the fight.
In an effort to improve their chances of winning the mounting legal battles, fossil fuel giants have tried to move climate liability lawsuits from state to federal court—but the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear their appeals earlier this year.
"Just like tobacco and opioid companies, the oil and gas industry will have to face the evidence of its deception in court."
Richard Wiles, the president of the Center for Climate Integrity, said in a statement Saturday that "California's decision to take Big Oil companies to court is a watershed moment in the rapidly expanding legal fight to hold major polluters accountable for decades of climate lies."
"Whether it's fires, droughts, extreme heat, or sea-level rise, Californians have been living in a climate emergency caused by the fossil fuel industry, and now the state is taking decisive action to make those polluters pay," said Wiles. "As similar cases proceed toward trial, California's move is an unmistakable sign that the wave of climate lawsuits against Big Oil will keep growing and that these polluters' days of escaping accountability for their lies are numbered. Just like tobacco and opioid companies, the oil and gas industry will have to face the evidence of its deception in court."
California's lawsuit, which also names the American Petroleum Institute as a defendant, comes days after The Wall Street Journalpublished a front-page story based on previously unreported documents that detail Exxon's behind-closed-doors effort to cast doubt on climate science after 2006, when the company publicly acknowledged the link between fossil fuels and climate change for the first time.
Exxon and other oil companies have been aware of the connection since the 1970s.
"For more than 50 years, Big Oil has been lying to us—covering up the fact that they've long known how dangerous the fossil fuels they produce are for our planet," California Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a statement. "It has been decades of damage and deception."
"Wildfires wiping out entire communities, toxic smoke clogging our air, deadly heatwaves, record-breaking droughts parching our wells," Newsom continued. "California taxpayers shouldn't have to foot the bill. California is taking action to hold big polluters accountable."
The Times noted Friday that California's lawsuit aims to establish "a fund that would be used to pay for recovery from extreme weather events and mitigation and adaptation efforts across the state."
"The lawsuit claims that California has already spent tens of billions of dollars paying for climate disasters, and expects costs to rise significantly in the years ahead," the Times added.
Jamie Henn, the director of Fossil Free Media, said Saturday that with its lawsuit, "California just kicked open the door for every city and state in America to sue the fossil fuel industry for climate damages."
"After this summer of brutal heat waves and climate disasters, I think the public is hungry for a way to hold the fossil fuel industry accountable for the damage they've done," said Henn. "Big Oil knew, they lied, and now it's time to make them pay."
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