Despite vigorous lobbying by credit unions, prospects were dim Thursday the Texas legislature would pass a landmark bill plugging data card breaches.
"There's still a chance something might happen tomorrow in the Texas House but let me say that we've known for some time we have a big fight on our hands with retailers," declared Buddy Gill, the chief advocacy officer for the Texas Credit Union League.
Gill noted that Texas has made great strides in building a coalition supporting data breach reform, that opposition from large retailers has helped doomed the passage of such legislation which would limit compromised credit card losses.
Also joining in supporting the bill, now two years old, have been the banking lobby and the state attorney general. Gill noted though that the banks have been "more preoccupied with the financial meltdown to devote as much effort as we have."
Among opponents to the Texas bill has been the Target discount chain and Macy's, which flew in its chief financial officer to Austin earlier this month to lobby against the bill.
The Texas legislature is slated to adjourn June 1, and the measure also needing Senate action.
For months, the bill has been pushed by the league through a series of online markers encouraging members to contact state lawmakers. In addition, the league has also conducted a newspaper and radio campaign, noting that Texas CUs "had to replace over half-a-million cards when hackers broke into computers processing transactions due to lax security." Moreover, "the theft may have compromised an estimated 100 million cards nationally."
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