The “digital transition” is coming. Will your TV make the switch? In February 2009, television broadcasting signals will switch from analog to all digital signals.

Our expert on the issue, Amina Fazlullah, found that Wal-Mart, Best Buy and Target, among others, are using the transition to their advantage, convincing customers to buy unnecessary equipment, or neglecting to inform would-be analog buyers about the transition.

While a rebate program has been established to help consumers purchase analog to digital converters, the information on the program is hard to find and not widespread. Most of the consumers who will be affected are rural, elderly or low-income. Estimates put the number of households in danger of being cut off from television with the digital transition between 13 million and 21 million. Fazlullah testified before U.S. House and Senate committees on the issue.

“With many of us getting so much of our news and information from television, this problem is much bigger than just missing your Thursday night show,” said Fazlullah.

New Jersey’s congressional delegation helped pass a comprehensive higher education reform bill that included policies championed by NJPIRG.

If approved by the Senate, the College Opportunity and Affordability Act will help students and their parents find better deals on expensive textbooks. Under the bill, publishers would provide the price of textbooks when they market them to faculty and sell their textbooks “unbundled” from costly workbooks and CD-ROMS. Schools would provide book lists earlier to allow students and parents to shop around. The bill also requires private lenders to clearly disclose the rates and terms of student loans and requires lenders and colleges to notify students about their options to borrow more affordable federal student loans.

Elected Speaker of the U.S. House in early 2007, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (San Francisco) promised to make sure the 110th Congress is the most ethical congress in history. This March, with the help of New Jersey Reps. Steven Rothman (Hackensack), Frank Pallone (Monmouth), Rush Holt (Windsor), Robert Andrews (Woodbury), Albio Sires (Jersey City), Bill Pascrell (Patterson) and Donald Payne (Newark), the House passed a monumentally important resolution to create an independent, bipartisan panel of non-lawmakers to help review and investigate possible ethics violations by House members.

By a vote of 229 to 182, the House created the six-member Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE), which will have the power to initiate and conduct ethics investigations and issue reports and recommendations to the House Ethics Committee. Unfortunately, the resolution does not affect the Senate, which has done nothing to improve enforcement of ethics rules.