On the recordJuly 20, 2021
Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 2668, the Consumer Protection and Recovery Act. This critical legislation restores the authority of the Federal Trade Commission to hold wrongdoers accountable under section 13(b) of the FTC Act. Until recently, this statute authorized the Commission to obtain monetary relief when a corporation has harmed consumers or businesses by breaking the law. For more than four decades, the FTC used this critical enforcement tool to secure billions of dollars in relief for consumers that were harmed by anticompetitive conduct or unfair or deceptive practices. In the past 5 years alone, the FTC has secured $11.2 billion in refunds to consumers through this enforcement tool. As Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter recently testified, these important cases involved combating anticompetitive practices by pharmaceutical companies that contribute to the soaring costs of prescription drugs, abusive scams targeting veterans and older Americans, and numerous other examples of harmful conduct. However, the Supreme Court severely weakened this tool in a recent decision where it narrowed the scope of section 13(b) to cases involving ongoing harms. H.R. 2668 will reverse this disastrous ruling by reinstating FTC's authority to obtain both injunctive and monetary relief for all violations of the law that it enforces.…





