In the Public Interest

An American Bar Association Commit­tee has completed a report for the Justice Department on economic or business crimes that is sure to focus more top-level attention on tax enforcement efforts regarding these offenses. Already, sig­nals from the Carter White House and from Attorney General Griffin Bell fore­shadow a move to expand the federal government’s resources…

How many times have you heard it said that this nation has no compre­hensive energy policy? Probably al­most as often as you have heard Jimmy Carter and other political fig­ures promise to give you one. Well, it is important in this harsh winter of the energy industry’s con­tent to summarize what has been learned, if…

About 12 years ago a 9-year-old girl was rid­ing her bicycle near her suburban home out­side of Washington when she struck the rear bumper of a parked automobile. The collision hurled her flush into the sharp, protruding tail-fin on the car. She was fatally impaled. Such tragedies are not freak accidents. Hun­dreds of thousands of…

A few months before the Congressional elections of 1816, the members of Congress voted them­selves a pay increase. The public outrage was jolting. Thomas Jef­ferson wrote: “There has never been an instance before of so unanimous an opinion of the people.” Even though the Congress quickly repealed the compensation law before election day, almost two-thirds…

If the lessons of recent Washington history are to be heeded, Jimmy Carter should be launching a “two track presi­dency” to fulfill his campaign declara­tions. The first track is the familiar one. It involves treating the problems of inflation, unemployment, disease, poverty and crime on the domestic scene and the urgency of the arms race,…

Utilities, polluters, other corporate defrauders and wayward government agencies may not be pleased, but here is a bit of good news on the hori­zon for the people. The fraternity of lawyers known as the “organized bar” is finally beginning to con­sider seriously its obligations to support what has come to be known as public interest…

The other day I came across a unique report from U.S. District Judge Charles B. Renfrew in San Francisco. It exam­ines the sentences he imposed on several corporate executives in a criminal anti­trust case. Judges rarely follow up their sentencing decisions and even more rarely write an evaluation of them after they are carried out.…

Jimmy Carter comes to Washington soon to bring his voters “Why Not The Best” government. This is a tall order — one that needs new ideas and modes of operation. In the spirit of the New Year, here are some modest resolutions which could Help Mr. Carter become a President of the People — for…

In the struggle for leadership of the United Steelworkers Union the issues between the incumbents and challenger Ed Sadlowski become clearer every week. Consider, for example, the reaction of the two camps to the steel industry’s recent uniform price increase. Sadlowski issued a statement that sounded like old time unionism. He condemned these prices as…

Former General Motors President Edward Cole and former General Motors Vice President John De­Lorean are for it. So are many con­sumer groups, the auto insurance industry, Forbes Magazine and three former chiefs of the federal auto safety agency. “It” is the automotive passive re­straint, often referred to in one of its forms — the air…