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The Federal Railroad Administration (FR) would win any award for bureaucratic camouflage. Its most important purpose is to regulate the safety of the nation’s railroads — the track, equipment, operating conditions hazardous materials and other factors that now account for about 1300 fatalities and over 25,000 injuries per year. Yet the public almost never hears…

This is a story of a father, his two sons and the largest volcanic eruption in the 20th century. William Shernoff., a California attorney was reading about the explosions of Mt. Pinatubo in the western area of Luzon, Philippines during the week of June 9th, 1991. Rivers of lava were pouring down the mountainsides, burying…

The same commentators who criticize Presidential candidates for not addressing fundamental issues are now on Jerry Brown’s back for doing just that. On the recent television debate, hosted by NBC’s Tom Brokaw, Brown, former two-term governor of California, four times raised the issue of the corruption of money in politics. Four times before Brokaw picked…

General Motors dropped its biggest lemon last week — a lemon of its making. The giant auto maker announced the closing of 21 plants in North America and the loss of over 70,000 jobs by the mid-Nineties. From 1990 to 1995, 100,000 GM workers will not have their employment and the number of GM workers…

Seabrook, New Hampshire — The most expensive electricity in the United States comes from the controversial, troubled Seabrook nuclear power plant in New Hampshire near the Massachusetts border. both as taxpayers and as consumers, ratepayers are paying for John Sununu and company’s technological lemon. The citizens who led the opposition to the construction of the…

It was an altogether exceptional dinner gathering. The occasion was to honor the eleven major air bag inventors who were personally recognized, one by one, by survivors of vehicle collisions saved by the air bag. Official Washington is not used to such events. Dinners are to celebrate funding of campaigns and mutual backscratching between sets…

When he is not teaching law or writing articles on democracy, telecommunications and broadcasting at the University of Iowa, Nicholas Johnson has a quadrennial hobby he pursues. He asks candidates running for President in the early Iowa Caucus one question. It goes something like this: “I’ve now heard you denounce those powerful special interest lobbies…

How deep is our democracy? Is it getting deeper or thinner and in what areas? Can adequate criteria be selected to rank the 50 states on a depth of democracy scale with one another? These questions make us think beyond the more general but memorable definition of “government of, by, and for the people.” Let’s…

Ella Honeycutt dedicates her days to supporting the cause of farmland preservation from her Morrow Bay office on the central coast of California. Now, as president of the Coastal San Luis Resource Conservation District she is sounding the alarm about risks associated with imports of Mexican vegetables from fields contaminated by polluted water and desperately…

Peter Barnes is what one could call a consumer-side, entrepreneur. In 1903 he helped start a socially responsible money market fund by the name of Working Assets — to provide an “easy way for people to make an impact with the money they save.” In 1986 he launched the Working Assets VISA Card — “an…