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STATE OF CONSUMER PROTECTIONS

August 2025

Welcome! We will start 2 minutes after the hour.

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Welcome!

State of Consumer Protections Roundtable

Levers of Power, and what we need to win

As many questions as we can fit!

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AGENDA

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HOUSEKEEPING

GROUND RULES

We are recording to share, and will send the video tomorrow
All the links we share today will also be in a follow up email
Closed captioning is available
Engage with us via polls, chat, and the Q&A function

Assume best intentions
Be mindful of fellow participants who are coming from different experiences
Speak to your own perspectives and stories
Refrain from personal attacks
By attending this webinar, you are agreeing to these ground rules.

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Theory of Change

Consumer Reports explained via …the bicycle:

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State of Consumer Protections Roundtable

Sustainability

Cars

Finances

Safety

Dylan Jaff

Policy Analyst�Cars, Energy, Sustainability

Alexandra Grose

Senior Policy Counsel Sustainability and Safety

Chuck Bell

Director�Financial Policy

Gabe Knight

Senior Policy Analyst�Product Safety

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Questions, Questions, QUESTIONS!

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Levers of Power

Consumer Reports has many levers of power we use to make the marketplace more fair and just. ��Legislative: contacting representatives, participating in public hearings, joining advocacy campaigns to pass state or federal laws

Corporate/Purchasing: writing to companies, making informed buying choices, sharing product ratings

Regulatory: submitting public comments, attending agency hearings, supporting CR petitions, engaging in watchdog campaigns to hold regulators accountable

We can use these levers at the state and local levels.

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Emma Horst-Martz

Andrew Leach

Community Organizer�Planned Parenthood Votes! South Atlantic

Member and Activist�Consumer Reports

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Defending the CFPB

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Make the Price Right: Kroger

Amber Parrish�

Executive Director �The United Food & Commercial �Workers Western States Council

Surveillance pricing is when companies use your personal data to set an individualized price for your or to only offer secret discounts to certain shoppers.

�We caught Kroger creating profiles of its loyalty shopper members, with everything from your education level, number of children, to whether you own a dog or are likely to go on a cruise, and based on those data profiles, loyalty members receive different discounts offers, leaving some shoppers potentially pay more for groceries than the next customer.

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Moving New York towards a landmark Beauty Justice Bill

2019 - WeAct for Environmental Justice began work on removing toxins from beauty products and introduces the NY Beauty Justice Act

2024 - CR hosted a tour and listening session with Black parenting groups who identified this as a top concern and CR committed to testing synthetic braiding hair

February 2025 - CR released our test results showing dangerous toxins in all ten brands we tested and joined WeAct and the coalition working to pass the Beauty Justice Act

March - June 2025 - Coalition dived into a deep organizing effort to build support for the New York Beauty Justice Act

June 2025 - NY Beauty Justice Act passed the NY Senate

�

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Starting in 2019, racial and environmental organizations began working on a Beauty Justice project in New York, aimed at getting toxic chemicals out of beauty products. In 2024, CR brought together Black mom and parenting organizations to talk about important issues and this was flagged as a top concern, so we ran a test on synthetic braiding hair and found toxic chemicals in all 10 brands that we tested, so we joined the coalition working to pass the New York Beauty Justice Act. Members wrote postcards, made phone calls, and delivered petitions. We did a deep drive organizing project in a key district (after doing a power analysis), bringing together CR members and broad range local organizations - ranging from a women’s social club to environmental organizations - to host a townhall with the Senate president. CR and one of our coalition partners Vngle made and released videos of New Yorkers talking about why the bill was important to them. This spring, the bill passed the NY Senate and now we’re working on similar organizing plans to make sure the bill passes the House when session starts again in January.

Groups include: Sister 2 Sister, Westchester Women’s Agenda, Girls Inc of Westchester, WeAct, CR, Clean + Healthy NY

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MCDPA–�Minnesota’s new �consumer data privacy law

The Minnesota Consumer Data Privacy Act (MCDPA) took effect on July 31, 2025. Residents of the state joined Delaware and Oregon as the only state covered by a provision that allows you to request information on which third parties a company is selling your data to. ��We're asking volunteers to make requests for your own data, so we can see the the third parties that different companies are selling to.

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Key Takeaways

Organizing Lessons and Tips from our examples today

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Keep the

momentum

going!

This 5-minute reflections questionnaire is the next step in growing our consumer power.

Your voice helps us direct our work on

behalf of all members – please take a moment to fill this out today!

Visit

www.surveymonkey.com

/r/aug_SOCP

or use the QR code below

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