WASHINGTON, DC – This week, the Progressive State Leaders Committee (PSLC), the policy-focused affiliate of the Democratic Attorneys General Association, announced that Rohit Chopra, former director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and former commissioner on the Federal Trade Commission, will serve as Senior Advisor to the organization’s Consumer Protection and Affordability Working Group.

“The move marks another step in a months-long push by Democratic [attorneys general] to use state powers to fill the void created by the Trump administration’s retreat from financial regulation,” reported Bloomberg.

Key highlights from Bloomberg:

• “Some state officials are stepping up to help consumers amid affordability issues and a federal rollback of rules, says Rohit Chopra, the former head of a top US consumer watchdog.”
• “‘It’s healthcare, it’s housing, it’s food, it’s the cost of electricity, and we have seen the federal regulators in Washington basically shrug,’ Chopra said Wednesday on Bloomberg Television’s ‘The Close.’”
• “The recent dismantling of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has prompted concerns from consumer advocates, who have said it could encourage predatory practices. Chopra pointed to states to fill the void, saying they would need to be the ‘chief regulators of much of the economy.’”

• “‘We’re going to see how these state tools can be put into practice to lower the cost of so many of these items that are busting the budgets of families,’ [Chopra] said.”
• “Chopra highlighted, for example, state regulators’ ability to rein in electricity costs as utility companies build the energy capacity to operate more data centers. ‘We’re seeing state AGs intervene to block some of those exorbitant rate increases and in many cases to bring it down,’ Chopra said.”

More key highlights from Bloomberg:

• “… [Chopra] will oversee a team of researchers and policymakers charged with making recommendations for how prosecutors can curb abusive practices by lenders and other companies in their states.”
• “The group expects to formulate nationwide strategies for health care, technology and financial services.Democratic attorneys general will then be able to choose whether to implement the recommendations in their states, said Sean Rankin, president of the Democratic Attorneys General Association.”
• “‘We would normally count on federal regulators to be able to serve as a check on some predatory practice or criminal activity, and now it’s really falling on state attorneys general to serve as a line of defense,’ Chopra said in an interview.”
• “‘We have seen so many different places,’ he said, pointing to policies from the US Department of Agriculture and the Department of Transportation where ‘state attorneys general are functionally now the key regulators in America.’”

Chopra later joined Bloomberg TV to discuss the goals of the working group and how state AGs are going to fill the gaps of protecting consumers where the Trump administration has failed.

Key highlights from Bloomberg TV:

• “One of the things we’ve already start[ed] to see is the state AGs are already challenging illegal actions by the Trump administration, whether it’s the illegal tariffs or other actions, but they also have all sorts of state and federal laws that they can enforce. That means it can apply to banking, to healthcare, to food, so much. So they have asked me to help lead what is going to be the way that they fill that gap.”
• “The federal agencies should be doing their job, but they’re not. And so, we’re gonna see how these state tools can be put into practice to lower the costs of so many of these items that are busting the budgets of families.”
• “So you see the state attorneys general going after price fixing and collusion on, that affect tenants and rents. You see them looking at real issues about housing developers. There is, I think, a long list we need to do, but unless we lower the cost of housing, we’re gonna continue to see consumers and households really struggle with debt.”

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