Earlier today, The Hill newspaper released its Top 10 Lobbying Victories of 2011. Listed at the very top is the National Retail Federation’s campaign to block last-minute efforts by the banking industry to delay debit card swipe fee reforms.
While swipe fee reform was a crucial win for retailers, NRF’s legislative victories spanned a wide scope of issues. Here are some of the highlights:
- In September, NRF launched an unprecedented Retail Means Jobs campaign, a multi-faceted, multi-million dollar campaign to underscore the economic impact of the retail industry and push for policies that promote Jobs, Innovation and Consumer Value. In a short time the campaign has helped unify and advance the retail industry’s public policy priorities and enhance the industry’s voice in the political and economic arena.
- Congress is heeding retailers’ calls to level the sales tax playing field between online and brick-and-mortar retailers with the introduction of two bipartisan sales tax fairness bills, the Marketplace Equity Act and the Marketplace Fairness Act. NRF will continue its industry-leading calls to protect Main Street jobs and businesses and shutdown the $24 billion tax loophole.
- We have been vocal on the need for corporate tax reform, taking a leadership role in the business community’s RATE Coalition. NRF believes that the current tax code needs to be reformed and simplified so American companies and retailers can compete and succeed in the global marketplace.
- Our leadership continues in coordinating industry action aimed at repealing the health care law’s employer mandate and health insurance tax and managing development of the “essential” health benefits package. NRF seeks to limit the adverse impact of the health care law in order to better accommodate the unique workforce needs of the retail and restaurant industries, and continues to push for smarter health reform that promotes higher-quality and more affordable health care coverage for both employees and employers.
- In an effort to avert a potentially ‘devastating’ freight rail strike during the critically-important holiday shopping season, NRF mobilized the supply chain community. After detailing the impact a freight rail strike could have on retailers and consumers, Congress swiftly responded.
- Proposed changes to federal trucking regulations that seek to limit driver’s hours of service could increase transportation costs, consumer prices and reduce safety. NRF continues to advocate for the current hours-of-service regulations that improve efficiency, safety and reduce accidents.
- We led industry-wide efforts to restore balance and fairness in labor negotiations and opposed several pro-union and pro-labor regulations and decisions issued by the National Labor Relations Board. NRF chairs the lobbying committee which led the fight on NLRB’s ambush elections and micro-unionization decisions and will continue to try to halt implementation.
- Along with other retail organizations and companies, NRF filed suit appealing two portions of the Federal Reserve Board’s final debit swipe fee rules. The suit maintains that the Board unjustifiably increased the amount of swipe fees banks could collect and reduced competition among card networks in violation of the law. In 2012, NRF will begin to focus its attention on reducing the $30 billion a year retailers pay in credit card swipe fees as well.
- We played a leading role in pushing Congress and the Administration to expand trade opportunities and open up new markets for retailers, and were pleased to see passage of the Free Trade Agreements with Panama, Colombia and South Korea. NRF will now focus on the current Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations in an effort to tear down trade barriers, including reforming restrictive rules governing apparel trade. NRF will also continue work to protect retail brands by advancing key corporate social responsibility issues, including implementation of the conflict minerals and Lacey Act laws.
- An Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers’ plan to hurriedly sell hundreds or even thousands of new “top level” domain names was a major policy priority for NRF. Adding domain name extensions like “.retail” could cost companies millions, increase fraud, harm some branding and marketing efforts, and confuse consumers. NRF has called on ICANN to proceed more deliberately and to provide further detail on the sale so retailers and consumers are better informed.
- We strongly urged the Administration to move forward with reforming the travel visa process, joining a broad coalition of the business community in the Discover America Partnership. NRF welcomed legislation aimed at reforming and reducing the time it takes for foreign travelers to get American visas so that more foreign consumers can visit the United States and shop in the U.S. retail stores.
- Overly broad consumer privacy bills brought serious concern, which could have prohibited retailers’ from offering coupons and deals to their customers. NRF supports uniform laws that protect privacy and data and allow retailers to bring innovative services and products to market so that retailers can personalize the shopping experience.