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Needed: Access to the Law

May 31, 1975
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It is time for the Congress to take on the Nixon-shaped Supreme Court before more doors to the courthouse are closed to all citizens and taxpayers except the rich and the super-rich. In a series of decisions over the past year, Chief Justice Warren Burger and a majority of his associates seem determined to reverse…

Nuclear Risks Frightening

May 24, 1975
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In the Great Hall of the New York City Chamber of Commerce there occurred recently a most ironic legislative hearing on a bill to establish a state-owned bank. Sponsored by the New York Assembly Committee on Banks, the two-day ses­sion in the portrait-ringed hall heard witnesses for and against the proposal to put the state…

New York Considers State Bank

May 10, 1975
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In the Great Hall of the New York City Chamber of Commerce there occurred recently a most ironic legislative hearing on a bill to establish a state-owned bank Sponsored by the New York Assembly Committee on Banks, the two-day ses­sion in the portrait-ringed hall heard witnesses for and against the proposal to put the state…

A Youth Battles Nukes

April 26, 1975
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At age 19, weighing 110 lbs, Franklin L. Gage is a leading candidate for the title: “America’s toughest kid.” Working out of a small, drafty bedroom-office in a rowhouse three blocks from Congress, Gage is organizing a national petition drive against nuclear power and for solar energy. As coordinator for the Task Force Against Nuclear…

The USPS-A Bleak Look

April 12, 1975
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In a discussion of energy issues with consumer representatives at the White House last month, Vice-President Nelson Rockefeller could not resist one prideful remark. Speaking of himself in the third person, he said, “If the vice-president’s brother hadn’t made a deal with Libya to leak oil during last winter’s embargo, we wouldn’t have been as…

Rockeller Confirmation Files

April 1, 1975
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In a discussion of energy issues with consumer representatives at the White House last month, Vice-President Nelson Rockefeller could not resist one prideful remark. Speaking of himself in the third person, he said, “If the vice-president’s brother hadn’t made a deal with Libya to leak oil during last winter’s embargo, we wouldn’t have been as…

Plutonium Makes the Heart Beat

March 29, 1975
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Plutonium, that horrendously potent cancer-caus­ing substance, is viewed more benignly in some gov­ernmental and industrial circles. The Nuclear Regu­latory Commission is proposing to license wide-scale use of plutonium-powered heart pacemakers. There are more than 100,000 conventional or non-nu­clear pacemakers implant­ed in Americans, and the market is growing rapidly. Companies wanting to manufacture the plutonium pacemaker…

A Polite Anti-Consumerist

March 22, 1975
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Outside the door of a Sen­ate meeting room recently, Sen. James B. Alien (D-Ala.) was huddling with Al Bourland, a notorious anti-consumer GM lobbyist. The filibuster-prone senator was exchanging strategies and information about the Con­sumer Protection Bill (S.200) which he has op­posed for five years. Allen then joined the other senators on the com­mittee to…

Student PIRGs Growing

March 15, 1975
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Back in the late ’60s when students were demonstrat­ing or sitting-in on many a college campus, embattled school administrators would urge students to work for needed changes in soci­ety through conventional political and legal channels. Why be so disruptive, they would plead, when stu­dents could use their demo­cratic rights as citizens through traditional branches of…

Natural Gas Hike Looms

March 8, 1975
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President Ford, who be­lieves consumer energy prices are not high enough, is pushing Congress to deregulate the price of inter­state natural gas. Although this move, backed by the giant oil companies, would cost consumers about $10 billion a year (a $64 annual increase in the average residential user’s gas bill), Ford thinks it would encourage…