The president of the Federal Trade Commission of the American President Donald Trump began his mandate this week at the head of the key agency by ending the requests for public comments on the prices for the monitoring of companies and other operating tactics who were in the center of the FTC under the direction of Lina Khan.
Shortly after taking the presidency of the FTC earlier this week, Andrew Ferguson declared that “the Dei was finished” at the agency and demanded a rapid vote on a motion giving it extensive power to “comply with President Trump orders ending the DEI throughout the federal government. ”
Meanwhile, without such a fanfare, Ferguson ended requests for information and public comments from the FTC on mergers and business acquisitions, “protecting workers from illegal business practices”, the “price of Eviction “and” price monitoring practices “, which refer to use by personal data companies to set individual prices.
The FTC Democratic Commissioners expressed their concern in the face of Ferguson’s first actions and said they were an indication of its priorities.
“Andrew Ferguson could have done his first public act as president by proposing a motion to study the rise in food prices,” Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya said on Thursday in a statement. “He could have followed up on an ongoing public petition from a group of entrepreneurs in walls and ceilings to investigate how entrepreneurs in offense can effectively compel competitions in the commercial construction sector.”
“President Ferguson could have done a number of things to really reduce the cost of living and create opportunities for American companies and workers. He did none,” said Bedoya. “Instead, he canceled ‘dei’.”
Douglas Farrar, former director of the FTC public affairs office, said that it was “unthinkable that the new president of the FTC begins his mandate by censoring small businesses confronted with American monopolies and consumers already struggling with high prices ”.
“The American people deserves to have a voice within the government,” added Farrar, “and not only to be dictated by the oligarchs”.
Ferguson defended his attention on the DEI on the grounds that Trump had “campaigned openly” to put an end to the initiatives in matters of diversity, equity and inclusion within the federal government.
But Bedoya noted that Trump, the day of his nomination, also ordered “chiefs of all the departments and executive agencies to grant an emergency price reduction, in accordance with the applicable law, to the American people and to increase the prosperity of the American worker ”.
“President Ferguson does not seem interested in the challenges that ordinary human beings face,” said Bedoya on Thursday. “One of his first actions as president was to discreetly remove the possibility for the public to comment on five different requests for information.”
“Rather than letting the American people speak to them,” added Bedoya, “President Ferguson excluded them”.
