Interchange Price Controls, the MSA, and Ethanol

Interchange Price Controls

The Durbin Amendment will benefit retailers and punish the financial sector by imposing price controls on interchange fees.

Director of the Center for Investors and Entrepreneurs John Berlau urges Congress to repeal the amendment.

“Unless Congress acts to delay or repeal the Durbin Amendment, consumers, community banks, and credit unions will be getting a large lump of coal in their stockings by next December as the expenses of running an efficient payment card system are shifted almost entirely onto their shoulders. Consumers have already seen the costs of this rule through the loss of free checking as a result of banks’ anticipation of an estimated 60 to 80 percent loss of revenue from merchant fees. Moreover, the price controls and other provisions of the Durbin Amendment will like reduce investment and innovation to counter emerging hacking and security threats to the payment system.”

MSA

Richard Epstein and Alan Morrison have filed an amicus brief supporting CEI’s challenge to the 1998 Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement (MSA).

General Counsel Sam Kazman explains why the MSA is unconstitutional.

“The tobacco settlement was hatched in a smoke-free backroom between tobacco companies and state attorneys general. The state AGs imposed a massive national sales tax on cigarettes, without a single elected legislator at any level of government voting for it. This was a major power grab by state AGs at the expense of citizens.”

Ethanol

A short video by CEI’s Brian McGraw explains “the insanity of ethanol policy.”

Watch the video here.