Consumer Protection and Recovery Act

Floor Speech

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Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for all of his hard work. I appreciate it.

It is not every day that we get to vote for something that will have an immediate and positive impact on our constituents like the legislation that we have before us today.

The Consumer Protection and Recovery Act, introduced by Tony Cardenas, is urgently needed right now to ensure that the Federal Trade Commission can protect consumers by putting money back into the pockets of victims of fraud and scams and other illegal activities.

The restitution authority under section 13(b) of the Federal Trade Commission Act has been the FTC's most effective law enforcement tool. But, unfortunately, just a few months ago, the United States Supreme Court said that somehow the law wasn't exactly written right, and if you wanted to retain that restitution authority, you had to go back and fix the law.

I do want to say that there is not a single change in the authorities to the FTC, not one. Actually, I take it back, there is one. Before there was no statute of limitations at all, and we did impose a statute of limitations.

What we know is, for 40 years when the FTC had this authority, it was able to do such fabulous things, like get back almost $62 million for delivery drivers in its remarkable settlement with Amazon over Amazon's systemic stealing of drivers' tips.

It enabled the Federal Trade Commission to recover more than $9.5 billion from Volkswagen and Porsche for consumers who were deceived by false advertising about vehicles fitted with illegal emissions defeat devices.

Honest businesses want this legislation because they don't want to have to compete with fraudsters and scammers.

This can't wait. We have seen new bad actors cropping up all over the country and taking money out of people's pockets. It is open season right now for scammers. Every single day that we wait, they get away with the scams and not have to put money back into people's pockets.

I urge my colleagues, join us. There are no secrets here. It is the same bill. Join us to protect consumers. There are plenty of guardrails that have gone on for 40 years, and it is time to pass this bill now.

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