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Legislative
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New Interactive Cartoon Shows Consumers Who's Swiping Their Money |
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Thursday, 08 April 2010 18:45 |
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NACS has just released a short, interactive cartoon designed to educate consumers about the problem of credit and debit card swipe fees – and get them involved in a solution.
“Did you know that $2 out of every $100 you pay for products at your local convenience store goes to hidden interchange fees?” asks the narrator. Users can then see the effect that swipes fees have on purchases, whether for fuel, milk, bread, snacks or the daily newspaper. The result likely will be shocking to many consumers, given the low, or even negative, margins that convenience retailers have on small purchases made with plastic.
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Read more... [New Interactive Cartoon Shows Consumers Who's Swiping Their Money]
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Senate Passage of PACT Act a "Major Win" for Retailers |
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Friday, 12 March 2010 19:51 |
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The March 11 Senate passage of the Prevent All Cigarette Trafficking Act (PACT Act), which addresses the long-standing convenience store industry concern of tax evasion via remote sellers of tobacco products, is a “major win” for retailers, according to NACS Senior Vice President of Government Relations Lyle Beckwith.
Authored by Sen. Herb Kohl (D-WI) and co-sponsored by a bipartisan group of 20 senators, this legislation (S. 1147) would help combat online cigarette sales that have robbed states of badly needed tax revenues and that undermine state laws that prevent youth access to tobacco products.
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Read more... [Senate Passage of PACT Act a "Major Win" for Retailers]
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2010 WV Legislative Position Statements |
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Saturday, 09 January 2010 17:31 |
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Maintain Constructive Reforms
We applaud Governor Manchin and the legislature for their previous actions and want to stress that we maintain the reforms on these measures:
Workers' Compensation
Insurance
Tax
Bottle Bill
We oppose this legislation. Forced deposits do little to help the environment and essentially impose a hidden, regressive tax on consumers. Forced deposits are costly to operate and administer and introduce a significant health and safety risk. OMEGA believes that comprehensive recycling programs are better investments and comprehensive litter control outperforms forced deposits.
Fair Competition & Border Stability
OMEGA is comprised of hometown employers and entrepreneurs contributing to our communities. We believe that advantages should not be given to large out-of-state companies or that our surrounding states should have advantages over us. We continue to seek an even playing field to conduct business. Differences in excise tax rates across jurisdictions create incentives for consumers to cross the border and purchase in lower tax jurisdictions. There are certain commodities that consumers shop price for and among these are gasoline, cigarettes, soft drinks and beer. It is estimated that fifty percent of West Virginia residents live near a border, therefore being competitive on those borders is important to West Virginia retailers. We know that when consumers go across the border for these items that they make other purchases.
Governmental/Regulatory Cooperation
OMEGA members provide both employment and valuable services to West Virginia. OMEGA members interact with numerous governmental and regulatory agencies on a daily basis. We desire fair and consistent treatment and an environment that is business friendly.
Unemployment Compensation
Last session business and government stepped up to fund unemployment compensation in West Virginia. Unemployment compensation is still being misused and abused. Because these abuses are drains on the fund, we are hopeful that they will be monitored and managed.
Civil Justice Reform & Judicial Reform
OMEGA is very happy with the work done by the Governor’s Independent Commission on Judicial Reform for their thoughtful and appropriate recommendations, which will serve as a foundation for important reform of the West Virginia court system. The option for state businesses to appeal judicial decisions affecting their operations is not only fair, it sends a positive message to other businesses considering locating in West Virginia.
We urge the West Virginia Legislature to codify the Judicial Commission’s recommendation on the automatic right to appeal.
One area of success in West Virginia has been medical malpractice reform. The reforms granted to the medical community – providing a measure of certainty in non-economic damages and holding a defendant accountable only for his or her own actions – are grounded in fairness, and deserve to be extended to the public at large, including the business community. We urge these reforms, and believe they will go a long way toward proving West Virginia’s is, in fact, “Open for Business”. |
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FTC Releases Petroleum Market Manipulation Rule |
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Monday, 10 August 2009 17:04 |
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Today, the Federal Trade Commission issued a final rule to prohibit market manipulation in the petroleum industry. PMAA is reviewing the rule closely. At first glance, it is what we expected there are not any surprises. In issuing the final rule, the Commission is exercising authority provided by the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA) enacted in December 2007. The rulemaking process began with the publication of an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR) on May 1, 2008. PMAA General Counsel Bob Bassman submitted comments on behalf of PMAA throughout the rulemaking process. The rule prohibits anyone from engaging in fraud or deceit in wholesale petroleum markets or misleading any person by omitting important information from statements that might distort petroleum markets because of the omission.
PMAA will report more on this later after further review of the final rule. |
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Cap and Trade Will Hurt West Virginia |
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Monday, 13 July 2009 18:10 |
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Hard times have not been an unknown visitor to West Virginia over the years, but they don't usually arrive courtesy of the U.S. Congress.
That could change if the U.S. Senate goes along with the Waxman/Markey energy and climate change bill narrowly passed by the House of Representatives on June 26. This legislation does not make economic or environmental sense for the whole country, but its effect would be nothing short of punitive for West Virginia and other states that are major producers or users of coal.
Despite an all-out lobbying press by the White House, closed-door deals and hundreds of pages of special treatment for special interests, the bill passed the House by only a 219-212 margin. That was just one over the minimum 218 votes needed. It's no surprise that West Virginia Representatives Allan Mollohan, Nick Rahall and Shelley Moore Capito all voted "no."
The narrow passage of the House bill came as a prelude to the announcement the following week that the national unemployment rate for June had hit a 26-year high of 9.5 percent and seems bound for double-digits by fall. The national economic recession has been slower to arrive in West Virginia, but in recent months we've been catching up.
Our latest available unemployment rate for May was 8.5 percent. That's not encouraging, but it's considerably better than the 17 percent rate some of us can remember from the early '80s. Until Waxman-Markey passed the House, our biggest vulnerability was falling coal prices, but this new legislation could do more damage than any shift in commodity prices.
Using a complicated "cap and trade system" tailor-made for manipulation, the bill virtually criminalizes the burning of coal and the carbon emissions that go with it. From the beginning, the bill's unrealistic targets for reducing carbon emissions were seen as a guarantee of higher energy prices and job losses in states where power utilities and other industries depend on coal.
The bill requires utilities, for instance, to produce at least 12 percent of their power from renewable energy sources such as wind and solar by 2020 and mandates that they realize an 8 percent increase in energy-efficiency savings. For newer coal-fired power plants, the restrictions are even more severe.
It's basically a tough-love approach to forcing the use of renewable energy sources and eliminating coal. The bill's primary sponsors are from California and Massachusetts. Their idyllic view of a "green" energy future ignores realities like the fact that renewable energy at this point is incredibly expensive and in short supply. Forcing a quota for renewable energy use on power producers will inescapably raise the price of energy and everything else.
The economic hammer would fall heaviest on places like West Virginia and the industrial Midwest, but the whole country would feel the pain. According to projections by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, enacting the Waxman-Markey bill would cost the average U.S. family $1,600 a year in after-tax household income.
A study by the respected consulting firm CRA International projects that the bill would drive a net reduction of 2.5 million U.S. jobs, and that's after allowing for the vaporware of the new "green" jobs that backers are betting the bill would create.
And all the self-righteous posturing about the environmental benefits rings hollow against the details of the bill itself. The cap-and-trade system it would create is a sludge pile of special deals for Wall Street traders and other insiders - a group that does not include the coal industry.
I hope Senators Byrd and Rockefeller vote against the House bill.
Vineyard is chairman of the West Virginia Business & Industry Council. |
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