{"id":32253,"date":"2023-08-16T19:11:53","date_gmt":"2023-08-17T01:11:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/democratic-secretaries-of-state-oppose-kroger-albertsons-merger-in-letter-to-ftc\/"},"modified":"2023-08-17T01:11:53","modified_gmt":"2023-08-17T01:11:53","slug":"democratic-secretaries-of-state-oppose-kroger-albertsons-merger-in-letter-to-ftc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/democratic-secretaries-of-state-oppose-kroger-albertsons-merger-in-letter-to-ftc\/","title":{"rendered":"Democratic secretaries of state oppose Kroger-Albertsons merger in letter to FTC"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"A
A group of seven Democratic secretaries of state signed a letter opposing the Kroger-Albertsons merger because of consumer choice concerns.
\nEric Glenn\/Shutterstock.com<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

A group of seven Democratic secretaries of state oppose the Kroger-Albertsons merger because of consumer choice concerns, they say in a letter sent Wednesday to the Federal Trade Commission.<\/p>\n

The signees \u2013 New Mexico Secretary Maggie Toulouse Oliver, Colorado Secretary Jena Griswold, Arizona Secretary Adrian Fontes, Vermont Secretary Sarah Copeland-Hanzas, Minnesota Secretary Steve Simon, Rhode Island Secretary Gregg Amore and Maine Secretary Shenna Bellows \u2013 say the merger could affect up to 4,996 in their seven states.<\/p>\n

\"New
New Mexico Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver speaks on Capitol Hill in 2018 in Washington. Susan Walsh\/The Associated Press<\/span>onset<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Colorado
Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold speaks during a news conference about the the state's efforts to protect the process of casting a vote in the general election in downtown Denver in 2020. David Zalubowski\/The Associated Press<\/span>David Zalubowski<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Kroger operates the chains King Soopers, City Market and Fry\u2019s, while Albertsons operates Safeway.<\/p>\n

The secretaries argue in the letter to FTC Chair Lina Khan that the merger will result in less consumer choice and \u201cno competitive incentive\u201d for the stores to reduce prices.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe merger would result in Kroger-Albertsons controlling nearly a quarter of the entire U.S. food retail market \u2013 a significant consolidation of the already limited competition within the market,\u201d the secretaries wrote.<\/p>\n

Secretary Griswold in a statement called on the federal government to step in and \u201censure that corporate greed does not result in executives and shareholders enriching themselves while hardworking Americans pay artificially high prices for basic necessities.\u201d<\/p>\n

Attorneys general are also keeping a close eye on the merger. In Colorado, Attorney General Weiser\u2019s office is taking public input across the state on the proposed merger. In Arizona, Attorney General Kris Mayes\u2019 office said in February it was investigating the merger for possible antitrust violations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mexico\u2019s Oliver, Colorado\u2019s Griswold are among signees<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":32254,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-32253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32253"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32253\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32253"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=32253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}