Biden led a revival of consumer protection. Will the elections shorten this? (Video)

Over the course of Joe Biden’s presidency, federal regulators have orchestrated a sweeping consumer protection push not seen since the 1970s.

The government declared war on so-called junk fees, tangled with car dealers and credit card companies, and focused on the everyday problems that plague shoppers, such as fake online reviews and difficult-to-cancel subscriptions. Along the way, watchdogs have dusted off legal authorities that had gone largely unused for decades in efforts to impose tough new rules on the industry.

Supporters say the conduct of Tuesday’s election will likely determine whether that upswing continues or is cut short. While both candidates have left key questions about policy and personnel unanswered, some consumer groups say they expect Vice President Kamala Harris to continue much of Biden’s approach, while former President Donald Trump would implement a similar rollback of enforcement with his first term.

“The contrast between Harris and Trump on these issues couldn’t be clearer,” said Lisa Gilbert, co-chair of the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen. “One stands for fighting for consumers, and the other for the richest among us.”

Read more: What are junk fees – and how can you avoid them?

Biden’s record

After receiving relatively little attention for years, consumer issues in Washington took on new urgency after the 2008 financial crisis. The collapse of subprime lending led Congress to create the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, allowing it to monitor predatory practices by banks and other institutions, such as payday lenders.

Biden pushed that evolution further, in part by appointing aggressive young regulators to lead key agencies. They included Lina Khan, director of the Federal Trade Commission, and Rohit Chopra, head of the CFPB, well-known proponents of tough antitrust enforcement who saw consumer protection as a key part of their agenda to limit the power of big corporations.

The president also put a political spotlight on consumer protection with a government-wide crusade against “junk fees” — a loose term for sneaky or unfair fees that companies like airlines, ticket sellers and banks use to hide the true costs of their services.

Rhetorically, the issue served as a folksy way for a government grappling with voters’ anger over inflation to show that it was taking concerns about the cost of living seriously. During his 2023 State of the Union address, Biden asked Congress for legislation banning nickel-and-dime tariffs. grumble about resort fees for hotels that “aren’t even resorts.”

The call for a bill came to nothing, but the agencies continued with their own crackdown. The FTC proposed a broad rule ban companies from charging ‘hidden’ and ‘fake’ fees, while CFPB proposed regulations limiting credit card fees for late payments to just $8 And limiting overdrafts at banks. The Department of Transportation has issued rules requiring airlines to do this reveal their fees for things like checked bags in advance and proposed a ban about the costs of bringing parents and children together.

But junk fees have been just one part of the broader push on consumer regulation. The FTC ended a long-awaited regulation that forced car dealers to be more transparent with their prices, causing them to no longer selling unnecessary add-ons. One rule companies need to make canceling subscriptions as easy as signing up on your own seemed to send the stock of gym chain Planet Fitness plummeting. This month, there are rules requiring airlines to offer automatic refunds for delayed and canceled flights came into forcewhile the The CFPB has proposed a regulation that would make switching to another bank and credit card easier.

All this, according to consumer protection experts, has led to a return to a strong style of consumer protection that last peaked in the Carter era.

“We have gone back to the past. That’s clearly true,” said David Vladeck, a law professor at Georgetown University and former head of consumer protection at the FTC. Then, as now, the agency tried to use sweeping regulations to limit what it said were companies’ unfair practices.

The agency largely abandoned this approach in the 1980s, after its efforts to ban advertising aimed at children prompted a strong resistance from Congress and a lasting budget freeze. In the decades that followed, the country has been reluctant to issue major new regulations, except in cases where it was given the green light through legislation, and has relied more on individual enforcement actions and orders to rein in bad industry behavior.

Now the pendulum has swung back, says Luke Herrine, a law professor at the University of Alabama. Notably, at the FTC, Khan has invoked legal authority to issue regulations banning “dishonest and deceptive” corporate conduct, which had remained almost entirely dormant since the 1980s.

“The idea that a certain way of doing business is fundamentally unfair and needs to be eliminated and that you need to do that with a combination of regulation and enforcement and business guidance, that’s now the normal way of doing business,” Herrine said.

Read more: How to protect your credit card rewards as CFPB responds to a wave of customer complaints

What Harris could do

Some progressives are concerned that Harris could try to replace Khan at the FTC, given her unpopularity with business leaders close to the vice president’s campaign. The speculation has lingered in part because the candidate has refused to talk publicly or privately about who she might try to appoint to the next administration.

But there are reasons to think Harris would follow Biden’s path on consumer issues. For example, her promises to ban price gouging and crack down on business owners have featured prominently in her campaign ads. She also proposed a plan cancel Americans’ medical debtsand in June he appeared alongside Chopra to announce a new rule that would ban agencies from including medical bills credit reports.

What Trump could do

Trump has delved into his own populist promises on consumer protection. Earlier in the campaign, for example, he announced that he would try that Temporarily limit credit card interest to 10%a promise that received swift pushback from business-friendly conservatives. His running mate and Ohio Senator JD Vance has also expressed support for Khan, saying he agrees with her “on some issues.”

But Trump’s first term has given consumer advocates plenty of reasons to worry. His first appointee to lead the CFPB, future chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, was accused of trying to dismantle the agency “brick by brick” from within, while halting much of its enforcement work and instructing staff that it agency for both industry and industry worked. consumers, despite the name.

The former president also spent much of his four years in office touting “historic deregulation.” Conservative pundits in and around Trump’s orbit have argued for more rollbacks of Wall Street regulations. (Trump’s campaign declined a request to comment). His court appointees also tend to speak out against regulators, whose powers have been significantly curtailed by recent Supreme Court rulings.

If Trump does indeed choose the deregulation route, he would have many tools at his disposal. Many of the Biden administration’s most high-profile new rules, such as the FTC’s junk fee rule, have yet to be finalized or are being challenged in court, such as the CFPB limits on credit card rates. Trump could choose to stop defending some in court, or neutralize others with rewrites. He could also repeal them entirely with the help of Capitol Hill Republicans through the Congressional Reform Actallowing Congress and the President to scrap recently completed regulations.

At least some of the pro-business groups that have clashed with the Biden administration over its push for consumer protection expect Trump to take a softer approach — for both ideological and personal reasons.

As John Berlau, director of financial policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, put it: “If something has the Biden stamp on it, there would be a tendency to reverse that on that basis alone.”

Correction: An earlier version of this article included the incorrect first name for Lisa Gilbert, the co-chair of Public Citizen.We regret the error.

Jordan Weissmann is a senior reporter at Yahoo Finance.

Click here for the latest personal finance news to help you with investing, paying off debt, buying a home, retirement and more

Read the latest financial and business news from Yahoo Finances