December 3, 2022
Dear Friends,
As I wrap up another busy and productive week in Washington, I’d like to share a few updates with you about my ongoing efforts to support American workers, protect Capital Region consumers during the holiday shopping season, and push for new, innovative clean energy solutions.
Protecting shoppers from price-rigging “Grinch Bots”
With the holiday shopping season well underway, I’m working to protect consumers from malicious cyber bots that drive up the price of trending items, squeezing ordinary consumers out of the market for popular products. This growing issue made national headlines in recent weeks when thousands of tickets for Taylor Swift’s concert tour were snapped up in seconds by third-party vendors, bots, and resellers. This left dedicated fans with a difficult choice: pay exorbitant prices or miss out on the concert of a lifetime. Families across the nation are facing similar issues with all kinds of items, as bots seize product trend data to buy up large quantities of in-demand items, inflate their price, and then pocket the profits as consumers are forced to overpay or go without.
That’s why last year, I introduced the Stopping Grinch Bots Act to crack down on these cyber Grinches and prevent scammers from circumventing control measures designed to protect real consumers. And this week, I sent a letter calling on the Federal Trade Commission to take its own action to ensure that this market manipulation does not go unchecked. With the expansion of e-commerce only accelerating in recent years due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I’m working to make certain that children and parents don’t lose out to bots as they shop for the holidays.
Standing with workers to secure paid leave
In the wealthiest nation on Earth, it remains inexcusable that millions of Americans continue to work without the safety net of paid sick leave. Like all Americans, our dedicated and essential railroad workers deserve more than just one day of paid sick leave. That’s why this week, I voted alongside my colleagues in the House to both avert a railroad shutdown and add seven days of paid sick leave to the Tentative Agreement for railroad workers.
To be clear, Congress was moved to action because of the remorseless greed of railroad bosses. For months, these multi-billion dollar companies continually thwarted good-faith negotiations with union workers and held our economy hostage under the threat of a devastating nationwide rail shutdown, all to deny their employees the chance to take time off when they are sick. As we work to strengthen our supply chains, we must also protect the workers who keep those supply chains moving. I’m proud to stand with our hard-working railroaders as they fight for sick leave, fairer wages, and improved working conditions. And I won’t rest until every American enjoys the protections they deserve on the job.
Advancing clean energy solutions
As the dual crises of climate change and severe droughts continue to accelerate, I am committed to driving our nation toward a more sustainable future. With that in mind, I introduced the POWER our Reservoirs Act, a groundbreaking bill that will advance clean energy production and enhance drought protection at our nation’s federal reservoirs. This legislation will call on key federal agencies to study opportunities to deploy floating solar panels on their reservoirs and to launch innovative pilot projects that will lead to cleaner and safer communities.
Earlier this year, I secured $3 million for the City of Cohoes to install floating solar panels on their municipal reservoir, a promising model project for communities across the nation. And research shows that expanding this model nationwide would pay major dividends. According to a 2018 study by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the deployment of floating solar technology on our nation’s more than 24,000 human-made reservoirs could save 2.1 million hectares of land and meet up to 10% of the country’s electricity needs, all while reducing water evaporation that worsens already extreme droughts. Not only will this bill expand renewable energy production here at home, it will also protect our depleting water systems – a win-win for our climate and for consumers.
As we approach the end of the 117th Congress, I’m working hard each day to stand up for American workers and consumers and to spark new innovations in our clean energy economy. And in the new session of Congress, I’ll keep a laser focus on cutting costs for consumers, raising worker wages, and building a more sustainable future for all Americans.
As always, thank you for reading.
Your friend,
DID YOU KNOW?
My office and I are working to ensure you remain informed with the latest updates and recommendations. With that in mind, here is some information that may be of interest to you:
- On Monday, December 5 from 11:30 AM to 12:00 PM, the Upstate New York office of the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) will host a webinar on repayment of COVID EIDL loans.
- For many COVID Economic Injury Disaster Loans (EIDL) approved by the SBA, initial payments became due in October 2022 and most payments will become due over the next few months.
- You can join the webinar to learn:
- COVID EIDL terms and conditions and borrower responsibilities
- How to create a Capital Access Financial System (CAFS) account with SBA to review your loan information and check payment history
- How to make electronic and re-occurring loan payments on pay.gov
- How to request servicing actions on your EIDL loans, such as lien subordination requests, collateral release requests, sale of business, or business closing
- Where to go for support with planning your payment
- You can register for the webinar HERE.
