WASHINGTON — The issue of credit and debit card interchange appears poised to get more attention this week as the House Judiciary Committee's Anti-Trust Task Force has scheduled a July 19 hearing on the issue.

The Task Force has not yet set the hearing agenda or announced who the witnesses will be.

At the same time the Merchants Payments Coalition, a retail group formed specifically around the interchange question, has begun running advertisements in Washington, D.C. area newspapers about the topic.

The ads feature a man buried up to his neck in mail in credit card offers and charges that interchange is the source of money that issuers use to fund the credit card mailings.

“We're not turning a mountain into a molehill; it's already a mountain–of unwanted mail solicitations coming at you directly from the credit card companies. And the fees they charge you pay for all that unwanted junk,” the ad reads.

Christy Moran, spokesman for the Coalition, said that her group had not specifically asked for the hearing, but acknowledged that there had been a significant lobbying effort with a number of different legislative committees to draw attention to the issue.