Public Citizen

The consumer advocacy group Public Citizen urged Maryland officials yesterday to revoke a $21.2 million contract awarded to a Reliant Energy Inc. subsidiary to supply electricity to state universities and sports stadiums because the Houston-based energy company has been indicted over its role in the California energy crisis. "It's outrageous that Reliant, a company under criminal indictment, has the audacity to try to profit from Maryland taxpayers while still benefiting from its record-setting profits allegedly stolen from California residents," said Wenonah Hauter, director of Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program.

A public health advocacy group is calling on Maryland's hospitals to stop handing out free infant formula to new mothers because it can encourage them to give up on breastfeeding. Public Citizen says the distribution done by at least two-thirds of U.S. hospitals is unethical and violates good public health policy. It also undermines the efforts that many hospitals have undertaken to encourage breast feeding. Officials there have written letters, co-signed by more than 100 other organizations, to administrators of 33 Maryland hospitals . They're doing the same thing in other states.

NEW YORK -- Another American insurance giant lashed out yesterday at a survey by Public Citizen listing companies that would be imperiled by a severe recession."

Everybody likes Gary Gensler. President Barack Obama nominated the Baltimore native in December to head an important federal agency that regulates commodities. Mr. Gensler's nomination cleared the Senate Agriculture Committee. He is supported by industry groups such as the Futures Industry Association and consumer groups like Public Citizen - no mean feat. So, if everyone likes him, why isn't Gary Gensler leading the Commodity Futures Trading Commission? Because a single U.S. senator, Bernard Sanders of Vermont, objects to the nomination.

The head of USF&G Corp. said a recent study by Public Citizen, a consumer group founded by Ralph Nader, is an effort by the group to bring about federal regulation of the insurance industry."

WASHINGTON -- Electric utility companies are underestimating the costs of closing and dismantling nuclear power plants, which could present taxpayers with another multibillion-dollar headache in years to come, the consumer group Public Citizen said yesterday.The group, founded by Ralph Nader, said a yearlong study of the electric industry showed that utilities expect to spend almost $26 billion on closing, cleaning up and dismantling all of the nation's 124 nuclear reactors -- a process called "decommissioning" -- as the reactors reach the end of their operational capability over the next 10 to 40 years.

NEW YORK -- USF&G Corp. released yesterday a blistering denunciation of a report by Public Citizen that said the giant Baltimore-based company was among five major insurers "financially vulnerable and potentially at risk in a significant economic downturn unless they correct their troubling business practices.""This report is a flagrant misuse of information," USF&G Chairman Jack Moseley said in a memo distributed to all employees. "Through gross misrepresentation of data and inappropriate conclusions, the . . . [report]

Maryland's performance in the discipline of bad doctors has improved in the last two years, according to a national health research organization.The Public Citizen Health Research Group says Maryland ranks 27th nationally in dealing with incompetent and negligent doctors. In previous ratings by the organization, Maryland always ranked among the bottom 15 states."It is a sign for optimism," said Dr. Sidney Wolfe, director of the research group, which was founded by consumer advocate Ralph Nader.

A public health advocacy group is calling on Maryland's hospitals to stop handing out free infant formula to new mothers because it can encourage them to give up on breastfeeding. Public Citizen says the distribution done by at least two-thirds of U.S. hospitals is unethical and violates good public health policy. It also undermines the efforts that many hospitals have undertaken to encourage breast feeding. Officials there have written letters, co-signed by more than 100 other organizations, to administrators of 33 Maryland hospitals . They're doing the same thing in other states.

NEW YORK -- USF&G is among five major property and casualty insurers at risk if there is a severe economic downturn, Public Citizen, a Washington-based consumer interest lobby, said in a extensive report on the industry issued yesterday."

WASHINGTON - President-elect Barack Obama says he does not want to use special-interest money to pay for inaugural events, but the lobbyists are coming anyway. The calendar is chock full of parties, receptions, brunches, breakfasts, lunches, dinners and prayer services, many and perhaps most designed to bring those who need influence into contact with those who wield it. A running and incomplete tally of official and unofficial inaugural events kept by a Washington lobbyist runs to 41 pages and at least 206 events crammed into the week that began Jan. 14. Obama's ban on money directly from lobbyists, corporations, political action committees and labor unions affects only official inaugural events overseen by the Presidential Inaugural Committee, a small subset of all the back-slapping and rug-cutting occurring in the capital.

A decision this week in a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Justice means that consumers will be able to find out whether an automobile they want to purchase has been stolen or rebuilt after a wreck. U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel ruled Monday in California that Justice has until Jan. 30 to make this information available to consumers in a national database. Congress passed a law in 1992 to create such a database. It took a lawsuit filed in February by Public Citizen, Consumers for Auto Reliability and Safety and Consumer Action to make it happen.

If you mistakenly believe that the federal estate tax forces lots of families to sell off their farms and small businesses, you can pretty much thank 18 of America's wealthiest families for that common but false myth. We're talking about super-rich families whose wealth stems from not farms or small businesses but from having founded Wal-Mart, Campbell Soup, Cox newspapers, the Mars candy company, the Gallo winery and so on. Altogether, these families are worth an estimated $186 billion, according to a new report.

For years, local prosecutors have been turning to private companies to help collect on bad checks. But now consumer advocates worry that these companies will be exempt from federal consumer protection laws if legislation is approved by Congress. Public Citizen and National Consumer Law Center warned at a news conference in Washington yesterday that consumers who accidentally bounce a check for even small amounts could be subject to excessive fees and deceptive practices from for-profit debt collectors.

A Maryland appeals court will hear arguments today in a case that could help determine whether someone who makes an anonymous -- and disparaging -- Internet posting in chat rooms or on message boards could be unmasked. A decision could add to an emerging body of law shaping free-speech boundaries in the Internet age, when people using screen names as aliases regularly gripe online about politicians, employers and investments. The area is of great concern on Wall Street, where online postings have affected stock prices and tarnished corporate reputations.

LARRY SASICH WANTS to know why the Food and Drug Administration rejected parecoxib, a pain medication proposed for use after surgery. David Arkush wants to know about automobile safety defects reported by carmakers to the federal government, so that he can make sure the government is properly monitoring the auto industry. Both work for Public Citizen, a nonprofit consumer-advocacy organization in Washington, and neither is getting what he wants. More and more public records aren't so public anymore.

WASHINGTON -- Two consumer groups accused the Transportation Department yesterday of manipulating car crash tests and selectively releasing the results to support the automobile industry's contention that stricter fuel economy standards would produce more dangerous cars.The safety agency's pictures of a head-on collision between a large and a small car have been widely shown in recent advertisements sponsored by the automobile industry and its allies.Safety is at the heart of the debate over legislation calling for a 40 percent increase in the average car's fuel efficiency within 10 years.

A decision this week in a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Justice means that consumers will be able to find out whether an automobile they want to purchase has been stolen or rebuilt after a wreck. U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel ruled Monday in California that Justice has until Jan. 30 to make this information available to consumers in a national database. Congress passed a law in 1992 to create such a database. It took a lawsuit filed in February by Public Citizen, Consumers for Auto Reliability and Safety and Consumer Action to make it happen.

The consumer advocacy group Public Citizen urged Maryland officials yesterday to revoke a $21.2 million contract awarded to a Reliant Energy Inc. subsidiary to supply electricity to state universities and sports stadiums because the Houston-based energy company has been indicted over its role in the California energy crisis. "It's outrageous that Reliant, a company under criminal indictment, has the audacity to try to profit from Maryland taxpayers while still benefiting from its record-setting profits allegedly stolen from California residents," said Wenonah Hauter, director of Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program.

WASHINGTON - The 30 companies that own most of the dirtiest power plants in the country, and their trade association, have raised $6.6 million for President Bush and the Republican National Committee since 1999, and were given relief from pollution regulations that would have cost them billions of dollars, according to a new analysis. Ten utility industry officials were so good at fund raising for the president that they were named Rangers or Pioneers by his campaign for bringing in at least $200,000 or $100,000, respectively, according to the analysis by Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy group, and the Environmental Integrity Project, an environmental watchdog organization.