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News Release | CALPIRG Education Fund | Budget, Democracy, Tax

California Cities Are Nation’s Best & Worst for Spending Transparency

New report reviews and grades the nation’s thirty largest cities on how effectively they allow the public to track budgets, contracting, subsidies, grants and requests for quality-of-life services.

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Report | CALPIRG Education Fund | Budget, Democracy

Transparency in City Spending

New Report Compares California Cities to Other Major Cities Across America

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Blog Post | Consumer Protection

Public Utility De-Regulation: A Losing Game for Consumers | Jon Fox

San Francisco Chronicle reportes that state de-regulation of copper-wire phone lines leads to skyrocketing price hikes for consumers.

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News Release | CALPIRG Education Fund | Consumer Protection

CALPIRG Applauds AG’s New Privacy Guidelines for Online Apps

New guidelines urge mobile app developers to be judicious in the data they collect while being mindful of user privacy - shining the spotlight on consumer privacy.

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News Release | CALPIRG Education Fund | Health Care

Aetna reduces rate following CALPIRG Ed Fund's review

 This week, Aetna Life Insurance Company announced plans to reduce its proposed increase in health insurance premiums. In November, CALPIRG Education Fund completed a review of the rate hike and recommended that the California Department of Insurance declare it unreasonable. Now, 68,000 small business employees impacted by the rate hike will see a significantly smaller increase in their health insurance premiums.

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News Release | CALPIRG Education Fund | Consumer Protection

Higher Bank Fees Now the Norm for Consumers

New report confirms what consumers already know – bank fees are increasing and free checking accounts are harder to find.

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News Release | CALPIRG Education Fund | Democracy

Starting Today, Californians Can Register to Vote Online

Statement by Daniela Uribe, CALPIRG New Voters’ Project Fellow Regarding Online Voter Registrations for Californians.

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News Release | CALPIRG Education Fund | Higher Ed

As Fall Financial Aid is Disbursed, Senator Issues Urgent Warning to Students Using Campus Debit Cards

Financial aid distributed in the next weeks can quickly be lost to predatory bank fees .

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News Release | CALPIRG Education Fund | Consumer Protection, Higher Ed

As Fall Financial Aid is Disbursed, Senator Issues Urgent Warning to Students Using Campus Debit Cards

Financial aid distributed in the next weeks can quickly be lost to predatory bank fees .

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News Release | CALPIRG Education Fund | Consumer Protection

CALPIRG Helps Parents & Consumers’ breathe easier sending their kids back to school

CALPIRG highlights ways to create safer and healthier learning environments by eliminating indoor air pollution caused by toxic chemicals.

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Report | CALPIRG | Consumer Protection, Financial Reform

10 Reasons We Need The CFPB Now

This report outlines predatory financial practices that hurt consumers and helped collapse the economy, costing us eight million jobs, millions of foreclosed homes and trillions of dollars in lost home and retirement values. It explains these and other emerging problems as “10 Reasons We Need The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Now.”

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Report | CALPIRG | Transportation

High-Speed Rail: Public, Private or Both?

Private sector companies are likely to play a major role in the construction of high-speed rail lines in the United States. Even as California nears construction of the nation’s first high-speed rail line, however, it remains unclear just how the private sector will participate in building out the nation’s high-speed rail network.

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Report | CALPIRG Education Fund | Health Care

Building a Better Health Care Marketplace

The creation of a new health insurance exchange offers our state the chance to build a better marketplace for health care.  The exchange can help individuals and small businesses by increasing competition and improving choices in the state’s insurance market.  By providing better options and better information, and negotiating on behalf of its enrollees, the exchange can level the playing field for consumers.

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Report | Americans for Financial Reform (AFR) & University of Massachusetts, Amherst | Consumer Protection

How Wall Street Speculation is Driving Up Gasoline Prices Today

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Report | CALPIRG Education Fund | Health Care

Building a Better Health Care Marketplace Brief #7

The exchange is a store where consumers can buy health insurance products – and anyone who’s worked retail knows that however much work has gone into crafting strong policies and building an efficient back-office, if customers  can’t understand, compare and choose the products that are right for them, it just won’t work.  

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Blog Post | Consumer Protection

WH urges privacy rights, industry promises "Do Not Track Sometimes" while states investigate Google | Ed Mierzwinski

As web giants amass more and more information about consumers for behavioral targeting and even "social discrimination" -- which can include differential pricing for the same product or the use of web tracking data and falsely-flagged websites to promote certain brandname drug use -- the White House has called for a privacy bill of rights. Companies and powerful industry lobbies seeking to keep those rights weak simultaneously rolled out their own "Do Not Track Us Sometimes" button.

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Blog Post | Consumer Protection

Today, CFPB to announce overdraft fee investigation, unveil "penalty box" disclosure, possibly end $39 lattes. | Ed Mierzwinski

At a news conference in NYC today, Director Richard Cordray of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) will announce a major investigation of bank overdraft fee practices and propose a model "penalty box" disclosure to appear on bank statements. The investigation could end the $39 latte-- $4 bucks for the coffee, $35 for the debit card overdraft fee.

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Blog Post | Consumer Protection

Audit Uncovers Extensive Flaws in Foreclosures | Jon Fox

An audit by San Francisco county officials of about 400 recent foreclosures there determined that almost all involved either legal violations or suspicious documentation.

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Blog Post | Consumer Protection

Consumer groups call on CPSC to take action on Bumbo Baby Seat | Jon Fox

CALPIRG urges CPSC to remove Bumbo International’s Baby Seat from the market and to allow the manufacturer to address the serious safety concerns in the future.  

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Blog Post | Higher Ed

Testimony of Lucas Zucker on textbook affordability

Testimony of Lucas Zucker, UC Berkeley CALPIRG student at the California State Legislative Joint Committee Oversight Hearing

Affordability of College Textbooks: Factors for Rising Costs and Strategies to Control Costs for Students

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

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  • Apples To Twinkies
    Find out how government subsidies disproportionately benefit junk food over fresh fruit and vegetables.
    Get the report
  • Bigger Banks, Bigger Fees
    Our survey found that more than half of banks are not entirely upfront about their fees. Some even broke the law.
    Get the report
  • DANGEROUS TOYS ON STORE SHELVES?
    Find out what to watch out for — from toxic chemicals to choking hazards — in our “Trouble In Toyland” report.
    Get the report

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