CONSUMERISM: Nader's Conglomerate

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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.