Director Reggie James of Consumers Union's Southwest Regional Office

Welcome Aboard! (Oct. 2002).
By Reggie James

All of us at Consumers Union's Southwest Regional Office are excited about the redesign and launch of Consumer OnLine — the electronic version of our printed newsletter ConsumerLine. For those familiar with the evolution of our newsletter, you can attest that we have come light years from our mid '80s legal sized, tri-fold, dense print, no graphics format to a slicker 6- to 8-page layout with a more professional look and less wonky writing. While I'm a little sad to leave the hard copy version behind, whatever misgivings I have about moving on are more than offset by the potential to reach so many more people with more information, in a more flexible format in a more timely manner.

Our shift also parallels the growth of Consumer Reports Online, which continues to lead the pack in online paid subscription sites and is closing in on the 1 million subscriber milestone. Going online also furthers another goal of CU advocacy. While Consumer OnLine will continue its state government focus, we intend to broaden our scope to eventually cover issues beyond Texas. Regardless of when we actually address issues in other states, we believe our experiences in Texas are relevant to consumers and advocates in other states. Very few, if any, issues we address are unique to Texas - despite how special we Texans believe we are. Many of the trends in consumer policy — for better like patient protection and auto lemon laws or for worse like electric deregulation — are policies that started at the state level before entering the national debate.

Beyond expanding our reach, the new format gives us the opportunity to link to relevant information within Consumers Union such as www.consumerreports.org (we have tons of important information on the non-subscription part of the site) as well as other Consumers Union project sites including www.eco-labels.org and www.consumerwebwatch.org. Consumer OnLine will be housed in our advocacy site www.consumersunion.org where I hope our evolution leads us to the ability to readily interact with consumers across the country.

The launch comes at a critical time for the office as we prepare for the upcoming session of the Texas Legislature. In the last issue, I discussed theTexas' budget crisis, which state policy makers are now admitting is far more dire than previously stated. We will attempt to let consumers know about the tax policy debate shaping as it is happening. Insurance reform will also be a priority issue for our office, and we are excited about being able to provide a blow-by-blow account from our perspective as it happens. We hope we will be able to energize people to take action in support of policies intended to further the consumer interest. Guess what? We will even provide links to relevant policy makers so you can make you opinion known to them when it counts.

In all of our excitement about the technological possibilities, we are aware of and working to address the legitimate concern that not everyone has access to the Internet. We will continue our advocacy, in conjunction with our Washington office and with other groups, to address the digital divide, as well as seek avenues to reach low-income and minority consumers. One step in this process will be to translate elements of Consumer OnLine into Spanish. And we will always retain the ability to print the online version and distribute hard copy when needed.

Stay tuned.