Building a Better World, Together

Years of CR advocacy and reporting have culminated in a milestone victory: In April, the Environmental Protection Agency restricted levels of PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) in drinking water, setting the first nationwide, enforceable limits on these “forever chemicals.”

The proposal requires municipal water systems to monitor for five individual PFAS chemicals, tell the public what they find, and reduce levels that exceed the new limits. The EPA says the rule will reduce exposure for about 100 million people and prevent thousands of deaths and tens of thousands of illnesses.

PFAS have been used for decades in cookware, outdoor gear, food wrapping, and more, because of their nonstick and stain-resistant properties. They’re known as forever chemicals because they persist so long in the environment and in human bodies. One study estimated that 97 percent of American adults have PFAS in their blood. Mounting scientific evidence links the chemicals to health risks, including cancer and lowered immune responses, but no federal rules limited PFAS in drinking water until now.

CR investigations, going back to 2020, found PFAS in a number of consumer products, including food packaging, bottled water, and nonstick cookware. And in 2021, our joint investigation with the Guardian US news organization found alarming levels in U.S. tap water. We also collected 60,000-plus petition signatures asking the EPA to take action.

Utilities have five years to comply with the EPA’s new standards. Meanwhile, go to “CR’s Guide to Better, Safer Drinking Water” to learn how to know whether PFAS chemicals are in your water and, if so, how to protect your family’s health.

CR has been a strong advocate for the auto safety feature known as automatic emergency braking, or AEB. To incentivize automakers, we’ve been awarding points in our ratings to vehicles that offer this lifesaving feature standard with pedestrian detection. And over the past year, we’ve urged the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to require it on all new cars and light trucks—and gathered 24,000-plus consumer signatures in support. In April, NHTSA revealed its rule: New passenger vehicles must have AEB with pedestrian detection by September 2029.

What’s at stake: The information in consumer credit reports can affect one’s ability to get a mortgage, a loan, or an insurance policy they can afford; to rent an apartment; and even to get a job. Yet credit reports from the three major credit bureaus are notoriously rife with errors—many big enough to affect a consumer’s creditworthiness. And such errors can be extremely hard to correct.

What CR is doing about it: CR has been highlighting this issue for years and also tracking efforts by the credit bureaus and their regulators to address it. But a new CR study suggests that much more progress is needed.

With the personal finance nonprofit WorkMoney, we recruited more than 4,300 volunteers to check their credit reports and tell us what they found. An alarming number—25 percent—said they were unable to access their reports at all, some because they couldn’t get past the security questions, while others were thwarted by error messages.

Worse, more than a quarter of those who could check their reports found errors that were serious enough to potentially affect their creditworthiness. These included accounts and debt collections they didn’t recognize, and on-time payments that were wrongly reported as late or missed. Mistakes like these can lower a consumer’s credit score by hundreds of points.

What you can do: To learn more and get advice on how to protect your credit record, read our report, “More Than a Quarter of People Find Serious Mistakes in Their Credit Reports, Study Shows.” And help us fix the problem by signing our petition urging the three credit bureaus to do more to ensure that credit reports are accurate.