Effort by Senators Durbin, Marshall to Slip Credit Card Routing Mandates into NDAA is a Cynical Political Ploy  

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, Jeff Tassey, board chairman of the Electronic Payments Coalition (EPC), released the following statement in response to the effort by Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Senator Roger Marshall (R-KS) to attach their harmful credit card routing legislation to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA): 

“This Trojan horse—trying to slip the Walmart-Target sponsored Credit Card Competition Act into the NDAA—proves that this bill cannot stand on its own merits. Using our nation’s veterans as pawns is a cynical political ploy that should be resoundingly rejected by Congressional lawmakers. All American consumers, including our nation’s veterans, do not pay interchange fees. Only merchants and retailers are responsible for paying a small fee in exchange for using valuable payment networks to process their transactions.  

“The truth is that the Durbin-Marshall legislation is a multibillion-dollar corporate welfare scheme for mega-retailers like Walmart, Target, and Kroger that will lead to less secure, less innovative, and higher-risk transactions for American consumers. This legislation has nothing to do with defense spending. Senators Durbin and Marshall should immediately drop this attempt to use America’s veterans to score a government handout for big-box retailers at the expense of everyone else.”