DENVER - Legislation pending the Colorado Senate yesterday, and supported by the banking lobby, was yanked from consideration following the inclusion of an amendment that including debit transactions via ATMs as part of a ban on credit card surcharges.

Visa backed the original bill, which banks and credit unions supported. State Senate Majority Leader John Morse, who co-sponsored the bill with state Senate Minority Leader Josh Penry, asked that the bill be laid over until May 13, 2010, (after the legislature goes sine die), effectively killing the bill. Visa has been pushing similar legislation in other states in an attempt to persuade the U.S. Congress not to allow surcharging.

Retailers, already batting interchange fees, strongly opposed the original bill. The merchants pointed out that they are not the ones charging more fees €" they instead want the ability to tell consumers about the hidden fees credit card companies want to keep secret.

Mark Larson, executive director of the Colorado Wyoming Petroleum Marketers Association, sent a call to action to state retailers yesterday asking Colorado state senators to support the ATM amendment, calling attention to the 30 percent increase in PIN-based debit card fees. Circle K lobbyists also indicated support for the ATM amendment.

"It is hypocritical to say to a bank, 'You can do it,€™ and prevent small-business people from doing it," state Sen. Keith King, who drafted the addendum, told the Denver Post. "It is the big corporations against the little guys trying to make a business work."

And because ATMs were added to the bill, the banks and credit unions rescinded support for their own bill. "We are strongly opposed to this amendment to the degree that we would not want to see the bill move forward," Don Childears, president and chief executive of the Colorado Bankers Association, told the Denver Post.