1.4: Research, Reports, Rulemaking & Advocacy

Enhance consumer protection through research, reports, rulemaking, and advocacy.

Other Information:

The FTC uses a variety of strategies in addition to law enforcement and education to enhance consumer protection. The agency convenes and co-sponsors conferences and workshops through which experts and other experienced and knowledgeable parties identify novel or challenging consumer protection issues and discuss ways to address those issues. The FTC also issues reports that analyze consumer protection problems and provide recommendations to address them. Further, the FTC files comments with federal and state government bodies advocating policies that promote the interests of consumers and highlight the role of consumer and empirical research in their decision making. The agency testifies before Congress on consumer protection issues. The FTC also files amicus briefs to aid courts' considerations of consumer protection issues. Performance Measures: - Workshops and conferences convened or cosponsored that address consumer protection problems. - Advocacy comments and amicus briefs on consumer protection issues filed with entities including federal and state legislatures, agencies, or courts. - The percentage of respondents finding the FTC's advocacy comments and amicus briefs "useful." (Note that "usefulness" is assessed by the recipient; the target percentage recognizes that comments critiquing a recipient's proposed action may not be assessed positively.) - The percentage of proposed Administrative Procedure Act (APA) rulemakings, conducted solely by the FTC, completed within 9 months of receipt of final comments in the Final Notice of Proposed Rulemaking. Public policy that enhances consumer protection is based on a thorough understanding of complex issues, which arises from dialogue, study, and empirical research. Such policy also appreciates that stakeholders other than government, such as industry associations or private standard-setting organizations, are at times better placed to address certain consumer protection issues. These performance measures will help ensure that the agency augments its enforcement and education efforts by encouraging discussions among all interested parties, through careful study of and empirical research on novel or challenging consumer protection problems, by urging adoption of policies and legal principles that promote consumers' interest, and by conducting rulemaking as appropriate. These activities will help guide the FTC's consumer protection policy decisions, as well as those of other state, federal, and international policymakers.

Indicator(s):

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