A new report by Demos and AKPIRG finds that Alaskans’ lives, health and livelihoods would be at risk if so-called “regulatory reform” proposals were to become law, slowing or stopping the regulatory process. The new report details the number of Alaskans harmed by just a one-year delay in the creation of three popular upcoming rulemakings.

Key findings from “Alaska Lives at Risk:”
–As many as 20,000 preventable illnesses from contaminated food for each year the government fails to enact new rules to avoid produce contamination.
–3,090 cancer patients at risk of being denied health insurance for each year of delay in creating rules prohibiting health insurance companies from refusing to issue insurance to people with pre-existing conditions.

“This report demonstrates that the ‘regulatory reform’ proposals being considered by Congress are a serious threat to Alaskans,” explained Matt Wallace, Executive Director at AKPIRG. “Policymakers should resist efforts by powerful special interests to weaken public health and consumer safety rules. The need for consumer safety should not be a political question or a partisan issue.”

“The negative consequences of the industry-backed ‘regulatory reform’ proposals should they become law are difficult to overstate,” said Ben Peck, Demos Senior Legislative and Policy Associate. “These proposals would have a profound impact on our daily lives—from our first breath in the morning to the food we eat throughout the day. Without government safeguards, experience has shown that industry will cut corners in pursuit of short-term profit. Electric utilities will foul our air, and food processors will neglect the safety procedures needed to keep our food free of contamination. Proponents of ‘regulatory reform’ minimize the real-world impact of the years added to the basic regulatory process because of the new red tape these proposals would create. Our analysis shows how every year of delay costs American lives.”

READ THE FULL REPORT HERE

# # #
AKPIRG, the Alaska Public Interest Research Group, takes on powerful interests on behalf of its members, working to win concrete results for our health and our well-being.

A multi-issue national organization, Demos combines research, policy development and advocacy to influence public debate and catalyze change.

SB 28 would make it illegal for gas producers to charge “unconscionable” prices, and give the Attorney General the authority to investigate refiners and extract penalties.

AKPIRG strongly supports the bill, and we had an opportunity to testify in Juneau yesterday. You can check out the video here (Discussion on the price gouging bill starts at the 32:13 mark).

You can also check out the latest media coverage of the bill by the Juneau Empire here.

Check your phone bills for bogus charges from scam artists

It’s not just the telephone company that can charge you money through a telephone bill. Through a little known phone company policy that allows third-party charges, scam artists regularly bilk consumers with unauthorized charges that are poorly disclosed or buried in small print. The companies profit by charging fees to the third parties (and scam artists), generating substantial revenue. The practice is called “cramming,” and it’s a $2 billion industry nationwide.

In Alaska, we can nip this problem in the bud. Sen. Bill Wielechowski has introduced legislation, SB138, that would help end “cramming” unauthorized third party fees onto telephone bills for landlines, and for wireless companies over which the Regulatory Commission of Alaska has authority. Tell your legislator to vote yes on SB 138.

Read your phone bill carefully — and if you see a charge that you can’t identify, call your phone company and demand that it be explained or removed altogether. Then call us. We are compiling reports on this practice from consumers. You can email us at info@akpirg.org or call 907-278-3661.

– Matt Wallace
AKPIRG Executive Director
Anchorage

One of the problems with these scams is that it is often difficult for consumers to even know if they’ve been victimized. Here are some tips from the FCC and some more background on the issue:

How to Protect Yourself and Save Money

-Carefully review your telephone bill every month. Treat your telephone service like any other major consumer purchase or service. Review your monthly bills just as closely as you review your monthly credit card and bank statements.

-Ask yourself the following questions as you review your telephone bill:
Do I recognize the names of all the companies listed on my bill?
What services were provided by the listed companies?
Does my bill include charges for calls I did not place and services I did not authorize?
Are the rates and line items consistent with the rates and line items that the company quoted to me?

-You may be billed for a call you placed or a service you used, but the description listed on your telephone bill for the call or service may be unclear. If you don’t know what service was provided for a charge listed on your bill, ask the company that billed the charge to explain the service provided before paying the charge.

-Make sure you know what service was provided, even for small charges. Crammers often try to go undetected by submitting $2.00 or $3.00 charges to thousands of consumers.

-Keep a record of the telephone services you have authorized and used – including calls placed to 900 numbers and other types of telephone information services. These records can be helpful when billing descriptions are unclear.
Carefully read all forms and promotional materials – including the fine print – before signing up for telephone or other services to be billed on your phone bill.

-Companies compete for your telephone business. Use your buying power wisely and shop around. If you think that a company’s charges are too high or that its services do not meet your needs, contact other companies and try to get a better deal.

By RUSSELL STIGALL
JUNEAU EMPIRE
Senators from across the state have signed on to a bill written to offer protection to Alaska telecommunications customers from unauthorized third party charges on their phone bills.

Called “cramming,” unscrupulous operations can add charges to the phone bills of consumers either fraudulently or through abusive marketing techniques. The charges may be small, but unnoticed they add up. Only one in 20 victims of cramming are aware they are being cheated.

Addressing the cramming issue, Senate Bill 138 had its first hearing in Senate Labor and Commerce Committee on Thursday. Bill co-sponsor Sen. Bill Wielechowski, D-Anchorage, and his staff presented the bill to the committee. Sen. Dennis Egan, D-Juneau, is another co-sponsor.

“Many people don’t know about this,” Wielechowski said, “I didn’t know about this until it was brought to my attention.

“This is a multi-billion dollar industry that harms small businesses, it harms governments, it harms individuals. This is a consumer protection bill to try to protect people from unauthorized cramming of charges on their telephone bills.”

The bill lets customers know where the charges come from and where customers’ payments go. It also lets customers prevent unauthorized charges by only allowing charges through express authorization.

The industry for unauthorized charges is large, Wielechowski said.

“There are billions of dollars slushing around in this industry,” Wielechowski said. However, he said the bill is not meant to harm legitimate third-party billing companies.

The process that determines phone charges is complex and can make disputes difficult, he said. One company can have hundreds of front companies to throw off victims.

Victims of the fraud have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to get the fraudulent charges removed. It results in loss of time and money, he said.

It’s not currently as big a problem in Alaska as in the nation as a whole, so the bill is more of a preventive measure, Wielechowski said. But, he said, it is probably happening in Alaska.

“People should go home after the hearing and check their phone bills,” Wielechowski said.

The Association for the Advancement of Retired Persons supports the bill. AARP Coordinator Marie Darlin said consumer protection is an issue with which her organization takes particular concern.

A lot of the fraud is “directed toward seniors and retirees,” Darlin said. “After hearing all this I’m going home to check (my phone bill).”

Darlin said there are so many scams going around and new scams all the time. “They keep mounting up,” Darlin said, “so getting ahead of this is a good idea.”

Norman Phipps, CEO of Billings Services Group called in to testify against the bill. He said the bill could threaten small businesses, that third-party billing entities should be allowed to police their own services for crammers.

While Phipps agreed the industry has its share of unscrupulous actors, he said he would prefer his industry adopt proven best practices to protect its customers instead of doing so through legislation.

Third-party billing companies have not shown they are willing or able to police themselves through voluntary action, Wielechowski said. He said the federal government already suggested the industry adopt best practices.

“And unfortunately that has not worked,” Wielechowski said. “If industry can’t solve this problem on their own, we can step in to do that.”

Matt Wallace of the Alaska Public Interest Research Group said his organization roots out the “tricks, traps and hidden fees in the market place.” He said often, fraudulent third-party charges are often poorly disclosed and often are for services that arguably don’t give any value to the consumer.

Vermont, New York, Virginia and Minnesota have already adopted similar legislation.

In Support of SB 138:
Protect Consumers from Tricks, Traps, and Hidden Fees

Unbeknownst to most consumers, it’s not just the telephone company that can charge money through a telephone bill. What’s more, most charges made by third-parties on telephone bills are scams—unauthorized charges tacked on and hidden in the small print in a practice often referred to as “cramming”.

Across the nation, the practice nets about $2 billion each year in largely unauthorized or fraudulent fees, often through fly-by-night operations created solely to exploit the system, operating out of P.O. Boxes or non-existent offices.

Unfortunately, the systems set-up by telephone companies have failed to solve the problem. In fact, telephone companies profit from cramming by charging fees to the third-parties, generating substantial revenue.

Here in Alaska, we have an opportunity to nip this problem in the bud. SB 138 would help end the practice of “cramming” unauthorized third party fees onto telephone bills for landlines, and for those wireless companies over which the Regulatory Commission of Alaska has authority.

Tricks, traps, and hidden fees harm consumers and do nothing to support Alaska’s economy. On behalf of our members, we strongly urge your support.

The report, released this morning, reveals the results of laboratory testing on toys for lead and phthalates, both of which have been proven to have serious adverse health impacts on the development of young children. The survey also found toys that pose either choking or noise hazards.

“Choking on small parts, small balls and balloons is still a leading cause of toy-related injury. Between 1990 and 2009 over 200 children have died,” said Matt Wallace, AKPIRG Executive Director. “While most toys are safe, our researchers still found toys on the shelves that pose choking hazards and other toys that contain hazardous levels of toxic chemicals including lead,” he explained.

For 26 years, the AKPIRG Trouble in Toyland report has offered safety guidelines for purchasing toys for small children and provided examples of toys currently on store shelves that pose potential safety hazards. The group also provides an interactive website with tips for safe toy shopping that consumers can access on their smart phones at www.toysafety.mobi

Key findings from the report include:

Toys with high levels of toxic substances are still on store shelves. Two toys contain levels of phthalates – a chemical that poses development hazards for small children — at 40 and 70 times allowable limits. Several toys violate current allowable lead limits (300ppm). Lead has negative health effects on almost every organ and system in the human body.
Despite a ban on small parts in toys for children under three, we found toys available in stores that still pose choking hazards.
We also found toys that are potentially harmful to children’s ears and exceed the hearing standards recommended by the National Institute of Deafness and Other Communication Disorders.

In 2008, Congress placed strict limits on concentrations of lead and phthalates in toys and children articles in a law that also gave greater authority and funding to the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). Wallace noted that the CPSC has a new database of both potential hazards and recalled products at saferproducts.gov.

While federal action has moved the ball forward, there are still potential toxic hazards not addressed in federal law. The Alaska legislature is considering several bills that would significantly reduce toxic chemicals in toys and other consumer goods.

“There is no good reason to have toxic chemicals linked to cancer and learning disabilities in toys with which our children play, especially as we see these rates of disease on the rise in the US.” Representative Scott Kawasaki said. “Alaska must do all it can to protect healthy children and families and prevent our state from becoming a dumping ground for these toxic toys.”

“Parents and toy givers need to remember that while the CPSC is doing a good job, it doesn’t test all toys on the shelves. Consumers should also remember that toys that are not on our list of examples could also pose hazards,” Wallace concluded. “Our new Toy Tips explains the most common toy hazards and our mobile app.”

A pdf version of both documents are available:

Toy Tips
Trouble in Toyland

Executive Summary

The 2011 Trouble in Toyland report is our 26th annual survey of toy safety. In this report, we provide safety guidelines for consumers when purchasing toys for young children and provide examples of toys currently on store shelves that may pose potential safety hazards.

Over the past twenty five years, the report has identified hazards in toys and children’s products that could cause an acute injury from small parts that pose a choking hazard, to strangulation hazards from cords on pull toys, to laceration hazards from edges that are too sharp and to toxics hazards posed by toys. Our report has led to at least 150 recalls and other regulatory actions over the years, and has helped us to advocate for stronger federal laws to protect children from unsafe products. This report continues to be an important endeavor in keeping children, particularly babies and toddlers safe, as the majority of all injuries happen to children in the 0-2 age range.

The enactment of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA) of 2008 made great strides in toy safety and strengthened the ability of the Consumer Product Safety Commission CPSC to protect consumers, including the littlest consumers—children. Although in 2011 policymakers delayed implementation of its most stringent lead standard rules and enacted some narrow exceptions, on the whole the law has been protected from being weakened. However, we remain vigilant as a variety of regulatory threats to the CPSC’s tools and authority remain under consideration by policymakers.

We Looked For Common Hazards in Toys

We visited numerous national toy stores, malls and dollar stores in September and October 2011 to identify potentially dangerous toys. Our researchers examined the CPSC notices of recalls and other regulatory actions to identify trends in toy safety. Our investigation is focused on toys that posed a potential toxic, choking, strangulation or noise hazard. Our list of dangerous toys is in no way exhaustive, it represents a small sampling of the toys that can be found for sale.

Our Key Findings Include:

Lead Continues to be a Hazard in Toys
Exposure to lead can affect almost every organ and system in the human body, especially the central nervous system. Lead is especially harmful to the brains of young children and has no business in children’s products. This year our investigators found 2 toys whose lead levels exceeded the current 300ppm standard set by the CPSIA and one additional toy that exceeded its prospective 100ppm standard; we found 4 additional toys that exceeded the American Academy of Pediatrics recommendation that lead levels in toys should not exceed 40ppm.

Phthalates in Toys
Numerous studies have documented the potential negative health effects of exposure to phthalates in the womb or in child development. U.S. EPA studies show the cumulative impact of different phthalates leads to an exponential increase in harms including premature delivery and reproductive defects. The CPSIA permanently banned toys containing three phthalates and set temporary limits on three others, while tests continue. No toy or childcare article can contain more than 1000ppm of each of the six phthalates.

This year, we found two toys that laboratory testing showed to contain 42,000 ppm and 77,000 ppm levels of phthalates. These products exceed limits allowed by the CPSIA by 42 and 77 times, respectively.

Choking Hazards
Choking on small toy parts, on small balls, on marbles and balloons continues to be the major cause of toy-related deaths and injuries. Between 1990 and 2010, over 200 children died from a choking incident.

This year we found several toys that violated CPSC’s small parts for toys standard intended for children less than 3 years old. We also found “near small part” toys that – while not in violation of current regulations — support our call for the small parts test to be made less permissive. Finally, we found toys intended for older children that failed to provide choking hazards warnings required for small parts or small balls.

Noisy Toys
Research has shown a third of Americans with hearing loss can attribute it in part to noise. The third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey showed one in five U.S. children will have some degree of hearing loss by the time they reach age 12; this may be in part due to many children using toys and other children’s products that emit loud sounds such as music players. The National Institute on Deafness and other Communication Disorders advises that prolonged exposure to noise above 85 decibels will cause gradual hearing loss in any age range. We found 1 toy on store shelves that exceeded the recommended continuous exposure to 85-decibel limit and 2 close-to-the-ear toys that exceeded the 65 decibel limit when measured with a digital sound level meter.

Recommendations for Policy Makers

Policy makers must ensure that stepped increases in budget authorizations mandated by the CPSIA for the CPSC, (which increase to $136 million for FY2014) are fully funded in appropriations. Policymakers must also continue vigorous oversight of implementation and enforcement of the new law.
Manufacturers should be required to provide all hazard and health-impact information to the state and federal government, so agencies can begin to assess the thousands of chemicals currently on the market for which little or inadequate data are available.
There is overwhelming evidence showing that that the Toxic Substances Control Act is failing our most vulnerable consumers; i.e. pregnant women, babies and children. Policymakers should take steps to ensure the American people are better protected from toxins in the environment.
Policymakers should reject well-funded special interest efforts to weaken the ability of regulatory agencies to conduct rulemakings or enforce rules designed to protect public health and safety.

For The Consumer Product Safety Commission

CPSC should review and where necessary expand its definition of a “small part” or “small toy” to include parts and toys that are larger than the current standard, but have been shown to pose a choking hazard to children.
The CPSC should continue to proceed with mandatory rulemaking to regulate cadmium limits in children’s jewelry.
The CPSC should vigorously enforce lead and phthalate limits in toys; CPSC should move to using the lead standards recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics of 40ppm.
CPSC must ensure that new third-party testing programs meet CPSIA standards. As the CPSC continues to implement its new publicly accessible toy and other product incident database at www.saferproducts.gov , it must make sure that it provides the information consumers need to make informed choices in the marketplace.

For Consumers

Be vigilant this holiday season, and remember:

The CPSC does not test all toys, and not all toys on store shelves meet CPSC standards. There is no comprehensive list of potentially hazardous toys. Examine toys carefully for potential dangers before you make a purchase. Shop with our Toy Safety Tips, available at www.toysafety. mobi and in the leaflet available on our website. Parents should continue to be vigilant about metals in toys as they may contain lead or cadmium above the mandatory safety limits. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) recommends that all children be screened for exposure to lead. A simple and inexpensive blood test can determine whether or not a child has a dangerous level of lead in his or her body. The test can be obtained through a physician, or public health agency.
Report unsafe toys or toy-related injuries to the CPSC at www.cpsc.gov and to www.saferproducts. gov or call the CPSC at 1-800-504-7923.

Alaska Dispatch: Alaska Regulators Approve Fire Island Wind Power Project

Anchorage Daily News: Regulators OK Sale of Wind Power

APRN: RCA Approves Purchase Agreement Between Chugach Electric, Fire Island Wind

KTUU Channel 2: Fire Island Wind Project Approved

KTVA Channel 11: Fire Island Wind Project Approved

Your Alaska Link Channel 4/Channel 13: RCA Approves Fire Island Wind Project

The Alaska Center for the Environment (ACE), Alaska Public Interest Group (AKPIRG) and the Alaska Conservation Alliance (ACA) worked together on behalf of their members to ensure Fire Island Wind Project became a reality.

“This is a huge step toward energy diversification and price stability in the Railbelt,” stated Steve Cleary of the Alaska Public Interest Research Group (AkPIRG) “Whereas other proposed energy sources are many years away, Chugach customers can now expect to be using renewable wind power as early as 2012,” Cleary continued.

“The RCA’s approval allows for 6,000 homes, nearly four percent of Chugach’s energy needs, to be powered by clean and local wind energy,” stated Kate McKeown, Clean Energy Coordinator with the Alaska Conservation Alliance. “By offsetting natural gas, Southcentral Alaska is moving toward reducing our reliability on volatile natural gas prices.”

According to CIRI, the 11-turbine commercial-scale wind farm on Fire Island, three miles west of Anchorage, will provide 51,000 MW-hours of power to Chugach Electric Association annually, and has a generating capacity of 17.6 MW. With additional buyers, the project has the potential to expand to 33 turbines, generating nearly 53MW annually. RCA’s decision to approve the Power Purchase Agreement guarantees a 25-year, flat net price for the wind power.

The entire RCA ruling can be found here.

From that page you can also check out what others have written (including our comment), or just read on:

Public Comment for TA335-8 by Matthew Wallace

As director for the Alaska Public Interest Research Group, the state’s largest consumer advocacy organization, I’d like to take this opportunity to express strong support the proposed Fire Island Wind generation project, and urge the RCA to approve tariff revision TA335-8 without delay.

The age of cheap natural gas from Cook Inlet is quickly coming to an end, and the Fire Island Wind project is a significant opportunity to begin diversifying our sources of energy– and providing a real cost savings to consumers over the life of the project. Additionally, since the cost of the power is fixed over the 25 year life of the project, Fire Island Wind energy could potentially help stabilize prices for consumers in the event of future volatility in the price of gas.

The project also helps bring Chugach Electric, and the state of Alaska, closer to the ambitious renewable energy goals established by the utility and the legislature.

Finally, this project is significant because it represents the first commercial scale, non-hydro renewable energy project on the railbelt. Success here can help pave the way for more affordable, reliable renewable energy projects in the future.

I strongly urge your support.

Sincerely,
Matt Wallace
Executive Director
AKPIRG