For profit colleges are being called on to make sure that their students are marketable and succeeding from their education or risk losing financing from the people. What, are you crazy? Making educational institutions responsible for educating their students? That violates the rights of the institutions to provide a service that is not being forced on others. Just because those institutions are taking money from the people and then using that money to steal people's time and money doesn't make them bad. They have the right to screw over the people with their own money. What crazy talk is this? lol.
Utility companies are whining because they can't pollute as much. It's not bad enough that they own a monopoly, are in control of the infrastructure of the country, but they also need the ability to pollute and destroy the land around them so that a few rich cats can buy another car they wont drive, another house they will never see, and their mistress another fur coat. This country should be far ahead of Denmark in the amount of clean energy they are producing. A windmill takes a week to put up, a power plant about 5 years. Solar panels are going to be cost effective in the next 10 years, without any financing, just think how soon they could be efficient with backing. And most importantly our kids and grandchildren wont be playing in toxic waste because we supported some greedy jerk who needed to give his mistress another dead animal skin.
Google is built on tracking individuals on the web. I can understand them being concerned. I wonder how effective TACO and Track Me Not add ons for Firefox are for blocking? I wonder how this will effect searches, blogging, affiliate marketing, etc. The new legislation is supposed to give us the choice to be tracked or not and who we will allow to track us, right? So instead of lobbying to stop it, why not embrace it and advertise, "we are your friends, let us track you, or some such thing". If I don't want you to stalk me then I don't want you to stalk me. If I am feeling a little voyeuristic then maybe I will let ya in, but that should be my prerogative.

Amplify’d from www.usatoday.com

Groups ramp up lobbying as new regulations loom

WASHINGTON — Industries ranging from for-profit colleges and electric utilities to some high-tech companies are spending record sums on lobbying to combat federal efforts to tighten regulations of their consumer practices.

The Association of Private Sector Colleges and Universities, for instance, spent $440,000 on lobbying during the last three months of 2010, more than twice the amount it spent during all of 2009. It is fighting proposed regulations that would stop sending federal aid to these colleges if too many of their students default on their loans or don't earn enough money to repay them, new lobbying reports show.

At the same time, the association dramatically increased its campaign giving, putting thousands into the coffers of lawmakers who have oversight of their industry.

Most of the rules go into effect July 1; those linking college's federal aid to their graduates' income and loan-default rates are scheduled to take effect in 2012.

•Electric utilities, for instance, spent nearly $134.8 million on lobbying last year, a nearly 50% jump over 2009 levels, according to CQ MoneyLine's totals. The surge came as Congress weighed climate-change legislation and the Environmental Protection Agency launched plans to regulate the emission of greenhouse gases from power plants.

• Search-engine giant Google, meanwhile, spent nearly $5.2 million on lobbying last year, an increase of nearly 30% over 2009 levels as the government considers forbidding companies from tracking consumers' activities across the Internet.

For-profit colleges have waged an all-out battle against the package of rules to rein in the industry, which has seen enrollment soar to more than 2.2 million students in 2009 from nearly 673,000 in 2000.

The colleges, which range from universities offering four-year bachelor's degrees online to schools offering certificates in auto repair, account for nearly 11% of higher-education enrollment, but 43% of student-loan defaults, according to the U.S. Department of Education.

"Too many students are graduating from these programs with unsustainable debt and degrees or certificates they cannot use," said Justin Hamilton, a department spokesman.

Miller said it is unfair to compare for-profits to other colleges with fewer low-income and non-traditional students. Read more at www.usatoday.com

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