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House Panel Approves of ‘Credit Card Fair Fee Act’ |
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Thursday, 07/17/2008 |
July 17, 2008-- In an unusual bipartisan vote, the House Judiciary Committee approved H.R. 5546, the Credit Card Fair Fee Act. The vote was the result of the hard work of the authors of the bill, Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) and Rep. Chris Cannon (R-UT), as well as the grassroots efforts of Merchants Payments Coalition (MPC) members.
The key component of this vote is the bipartisan effort that went into producing a solid piece of legislation. The House Judiciary Committee is not normally known for crossing the aisle to work together, but today the bipartisan effort made by members was historic. Ten Democrats and nine Republicans joined together to help fix a broken market and provide an opportunity for retailers to negotiate their interchange fees. In addition, several poison-pill amendments were defeated in bipartisan votes.
In addition to the sponsors of the bill, we applaud Reps. Dan Lungren (R-CA), Ric Keller (R-FL), Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) and Shelia Jackson Lee (D-TX). In particular Rep. Keller dispelled the myth that retailers would just take any savings they received and pocket them without passing on any benefits to the consumer. He quoted from the May 15, 2008, hearing in which NACS Vice Chairman of Government Relations Tom Robinson, CEO of Robinson Oil Corporation, testified that in such a competitive market it would be impossible not to pass on any savings to the consumer, especially in the petroleum industry where companies are competing on a penny-per-gallon basis.
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