Senate Rejects House Proposal on FTC Expansion; DMA Led Charge

June 25, 2010 — Early this morning, the Senate three-times rejected a House proposal to drastically expand the powers of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) across all but a few sectors of the American economy. DMA led the charge in the fight to keep these FTC expansion provisions out of the Restoring American Financial Stability Act (H.R. 4173) as the final text of the bill was negotiated by a formal Conference Committee.

These provisions would grant the FTC broad new rulemaking and enforcement authority, enabling the Commission to act essentially as an unelected legislature, governing industries and sectors that had nothing to do with the financial crisis.

Over the past nine months, DMA has built and led a broad coalition of trade associations and member companies in urging Congress to keep FTC expansion out of financial reform legislation, arguing that this important issue deserves its own due consideration and debate in the more appropriate context of an FTC reauthorization, as has been done in the past. While the House-passed bill did include such provisions, the DMA-led coalition was successful in keeping them out of the version passed by the Senate, leading to last night’s reconciliation on the issue in Conference.

Eighteen hours into a meeting of the Conference Committee, Senate Banking Chairman Chris Dodd (D-CT) and House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank (D-MA) agreed that the House-passed provisions will not be included in the Conference Report sent back to each chamber for final votes.

While last night’s success was an important one, DMA will remain vigilant until the bill has been signed by the President.

To learn more about this and other important efforts, please visit www.dmaaction.org.

About Direct Marketing Association (DMA)

The Direct Marketing Association (www.the-dma.org) is the leading global trade association of businesses and nonprofit organizations using and supporting multichannel direct marketing tools and techniques. DMA advocates standards for responsible marketing, promotes relevance as the key to reaching consumers with desirable offers, and provides cutting-edge research, education, and networking opportunities to improve results throughout the end-to-end direct marketing process. Founded in 1917, DMA today represents companies from dozens of vertical industries in the US and 48 other nations, including nearly half of the Fortune 100 companies, as well as nonprofit organizations.

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