Senate Debates FCRA Extension, Votes on Amendments
The U.S. Senate debated the National Consumer Credit Reporting System Improvement Act of 2003 on Tuesday. The bill, S. 1753, was sponsored by Richard Shelby (R-AL). It would extend certain measures within the Fair Credit Reporting Act that allow the act to supercede state privacy laws. These provisions are set to expire Jan. 1.
At issue was whether the bill will pass as originally submitted, or whether any of more than 20 amendments to the bill would be incorporated into it. For marketers, the more onerous of these include language sponsored by California Democratic Sens. Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein that would allow states and other localities to issue a hodgepodge of consumer privacy protections. The Shelby bill in its original form would provide one uniform national standard.
Industry groups have lobbied for the bill’s passage in its original form, saying that tracking and complying with myriad and ever-changing laws would place an undue burden on the national credit information industry.
At deadline, two amendments sponsored by Feinstein had been rejected. The first, which would have created a national opt-out standard and prevented personal customer information from being shared by affiliated companies, was rejected by a 70-24 vote.
Another, which would have called for data-mining reports to be made to Congress, was defeated by a 61-32 vote.
