In the Public Interest

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and its Administrator, William Ruckelshaus, are beginning final consideration of the domestic motor vehicle manufacturers’ request for a one year suspension of the 1975 carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons motor vehicle emission standards. If EPA gives in, most large cities including Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, New York, and Phoenix will be…

The struggle over the dangers of nuclear power plants throughout the United States centers on a collision of invincible hazards against immovable investments. After two decades of assurances by the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) and private utilities that nuclear power is acceptably safe, the evidence to the contrary has become undeniably impressive during the last…

What can Congress do when a government official purposefully and systematically breaks the law, as acting director of the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO), Howard J. Phillips, is doing with White House approval? Ideologically fueled by hatred for government programs to Americans who are poor and helpless, Phillips is pursuing the dismantling or subversion of…

If there was any hope that the White House would at least pay lip service to consumer protection, President Nixon’s recent “Human Resources” message to Congress scrapped it. The section in the message devoted to “Consumer Affairs” was a dismal declaration of no interest. Where previous Presidents have spoken about market place abuses of the…

The lighting fixtures and electric utility industries have made it. By pushing for and installing higher and higher illumination levels in buildings, they have sold more fixtures, more services and more electricity. This escalating practice of waste shows no signs of abating even in this period of public concern over inflation and the nation’s energy…

The federal program providing lawyers for the poor is heading for destruction. Cynically, White House and Office of Economic Opportunity reactionaries are breaking up the nonpolitical structure of the Neighborhood Legal Services program in preparation for its ultimate disintegration. The 2400 lawyers representing poor people in consumer, landlord, employment, family and governmental problems throughout the…

President Nixon’s proposed $268.7 billion budget for the fiscal year that starts July 1, continues the Administration’s indifference to consumer rights. In his Inaugural Address, a few days before unloading the federal government’s biggest budget ever, the President told the people that they shouldn’t expect much from him or the government but rather they should…

General Motors is disturbed that somehow millions of school children believe that air pollution can seriously ravage their health. To change their minds, GM has launched a massive brainwashing campaign to tell them that auto air pollution isn’t so bad and will soon disappear. The first stage of the auto giant’s strategy is an 18-page…

It has been more than a decade since the world learned that a sedative drug called thalidomide, taken by pregnant women, had resulted in the birth of about 10,000 horribly deformed, limbless babies in a dozen countries, mostly West Germany, England and Japan. There are about 400 thalidomide children in England. Most of them have…

A few days before Christmas, James E. Mack must have felt he was earning his salary as managing director of the Washington-based Peanut Butter Manufacturers and Nut Salters Association (PBMNSA). He had just mailed a highly confidential draft report by the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, on the Peanut Price Support Program…