With the bursting of the real estate bubble and increases in interest rates, access to cheap home equity loans is drying up and adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs) are taking up larger portions of homeowners’ take home pay. As household finances begin tightening, consumers will be increasingly reaching for their credit cards, and not just for big-ticket purchases like plasma TVs, but for more everyday expenses like food and utility bills. At a time when Americans are under unprecedented levels of household debt, credit card companies enacting unfriendly consumer practices, and headlines about consumer privacy violations, the 110th Congress may be looking at ways to shield consumers from some of the more devious clever fees and interest rates credit card companies charge their customers. BNA ($): "If credit card companies do not promptly take the initiative to clean up their industry, Congress and the regulators--including the Federal Reserve, the Federal Trade Commission, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency--must take action," [Sen. Carl] Levin [(D-MI)] said in remarks prepared for a Nov. 30 policy forum sponsored by the Center for American Progress. [..] At the forum, Levin highlighted several examples of practices he found disturbing including companies requiring payment of interest on charges already paid through "double-cycle" billing, he said. For example, a credit cardholder might pay off a charge of $490 out of $500, leaving a $10 balance, but the bank still charges the customer interest on the entire $500 charge. Other practices include requiring borrowers to pay back debt with a lower interest rate first before they can pay back debt with a higher interest rate, he said. Additionally, Levin highlighted the practice of charging consumers fees of $5 to $15 to make an on-time payment by phone, potentially in order to encourage people to mail payments so the company can earn interest on them. Meanwhile, in the House, Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) has announced his consumer-protection agenda for the next Congress (CongressDaily ($)): House Financial Services ranking member Barney Frank, D-Mass., said today his top priorities as incoming chairman are bills to restrict predatory lending on home mortgages, strengthen data security and ensure that the nation's top bank regulators do not override state consumer protections.