U.S. Senator Joe Donnelly, Fridday at a Senate Banking Committee hearing, discussed a number of consumer protections that became law as part of the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act in late May, and questioned witnesses about progress in implementing the protections. Donnelly negotiated, co-wrote, and helped introduce the bipartisan regulatory relief package last year, and supported its passage in the Banking Committee and full Senate. President Trump called the legislation “a very, very important bill.”
Donnelly said, in part, during his remarks, “On May 24th, S. 2155, the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief and Consumer Protection Act was signed into law. I negotiated and wrote that legislation along with Chairman Crapo and several of my colleagues here. This new law includes important new consumer protections related to the credit bureaus to benefit servicemembers, veterans, and all Americans. The law provides free credit freezes, credit monitoring for servicemembers, and protections for veterans from VA billing delays… These provisions allow Americans to take control of their credit files.”
Maneesha Mithal, an official from the Federal Trade Commission, responded, “I think these are very important rights and they give important tools to consumers so thank you for your work on that… And again, I think the provisions provide very important new rights for veterans.”
The new consumer protections highlighted today that are now law include:
- Responding to the Equifax Breach: This provision allows consumers, free of charge, to freeze and unfreeze their credit and set year-long fraud alerts. The Federal Trade Commission and the major credit bureaus must set up webpages where consumers can easily freeze their credit, set a fraud alert, and opt-out of pre-approved credit offers. Donnelly pursued these reforms to protect consumers after the massive Equifax data breach that may have compromised the personal information of approximately 145 million Americans.
- Protecting Servicemembers: This provision provides free credit monitoring for all active-duty servicemembers.
- Protecting Veterans Credit: This provision, based on a bipartisan bill Donnelly previously introduced, ensures veterans are not wrongly penalized by medical bill payment delays by the Department of Veterans Affairs.
