Nader's Conglomerate

In the seven years since he began making headlines with exposes of unsafe cars, Ralph Nader has broadened his interests enough and launched enough consumer organizations to rival any corporate conglomerateur. Annoyed critics have kept hoping that he would either run out of steam or start boring the public. Instead, Nader supplied fresh evidence last week that he is as energetic, and as capable of enlisting new allies, as ever.

As a starter, Nader's Washington-based Center for Study of Responsive Law issued the latest of its more than 20 books and reports to date: The Monopoly Makers, a scathing 345-page examination of the cozy relationships between federal regulatory agencies and the industries that they supposedly watchdog. By too willingly approving mergers, setting price floors that protect established companies and preventing new firms from entering fields such as the communications and transportation industries, the report charges, the regulators have assisted in the creation of monopolies that overcharge consumers and taxpayers by $16 billion to $24 billion a year. The remedy, Nader and Report Editor Mark J. Green suggested in a twitting letter to big business leaders, is to end "corporate socialism," deregulate certain industries and restore the free competition that executives so loudly praise.

Then Nader joined with an environmentalist group, the Friends of the Earth, in a lawsuit that, if successful, could force the Atomic Energy Commission to shut down most of the nuclear power plants in the country and halt any further construction until a dispute over the safety of such plants can be resolved. The suit demands that nuclear plants be shut until the AEC can give verified assurances that back-up systems, designed to cool off an overheating reactor core if the primary system breaks down, will work reliably.

The suit was typical of Nader's activities in recent years. He sees his role as "not just disclosure any more, but follow-up with lawsuits and other actions." To do that, he has assembled a pack of consumerist organizations that nip at the heels of top dogs in both business and government. His Public Citizen, Inc., for example, supports four young lawyers who have peppered the government with lawsuits. In one they are attempting to force the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration --ironically, an agency created in response to Nader's prodding--to release used-car safety standards that by law should have been issued two years ago. The suit even asks the courts to make former NHTSA Administrator Douglas Toms repay part of the salary he received during the delay.

Nader's cohorts are also trying to put some new laws on the books. The Corporate Accountability Research Group is drafting legislation to require federal chartering of corporations, a move that Nader thinks would make companies legally accountable to consumers. Nader also has in the works a new outfit called Congress Watch, which he says would be "the largest public interest lobby in the U.S." Starting with a staff of three that will eventually grow to ten, Watch will not only push for legislation on such matters as consumer protection and tax reform but also monitor the performance of individual Congressmen. Watch might improve on the results of one of Nader's few projects that fell short of its target, a 1972 study of Congress that was criticized even by some of Nader's admirers as superficial and lacking in new details.

Nader has shown a rare ability to attract supporters from both sides of the generation gap. Last year he set up the Retired Professionals Action Group, which will shortly issue a searing report on the hearing-aid industry. College students are said to be apathetic and inward-turning these days, but Nader's representatives have no trouble recruiting the most able students for low-paying "Raider" jobs in the summertime. Even more important, some 41 student PIRGS--for Public Interest Research Groups--are now under way in 16 states. PIRG students make small contributions to support full-time consumer advocates at state and local levels. The PlRGs, says Nader, "operate independently--our only connection with them is inspirational" --but they have all the gutsiness of their mentor. The New Jersey PIRG led a successful fight against a $650 million transportation bond issue, and the Minnesota group is suing the U.S. Forest Service to halt timber cutting in a canoeing area along the Canadian border.

The headlines and publicity have had no discernible effect on Nader's ascetic lifestyle; he still lives in a modest boardinghouse, wears baggy suits and scuffed shoes and has no known romantic entanglements. But even some of his supporters fear that as his operation becomes institutionalized he may be spreading himself too thin. The Congress Project's relative unsuccess, in fact, may have stemmed directly from Nader's inability to personally supervise the work of the young researchers who put it together, and signs of less than meticulous research have crept into other studies that bear the Nader imprint. All of this gives his critics hope that some day Nader may make an irretrievable mistake--but they are still waiting.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.