THIRSTING FOR JUSTICE

Part of the Legal Capital Foundations address dropped out last month; but there is good reason to give it again: 1101 17-th St. NW/#810, Wash., DC 20036, for they have just stepped into the biggest case of legal incest since Sierra Club lawyers filed suit over coal leases, then moved into Carter's Dept. of Interior to "defend" against it (AtE May 78).

This time the stake was $18 million, the remainder of a sum alloted by Congress to pay energy bills for low-income consumers in emergencies. What bigger emergency than $2 million worth of "solarization" projects or $4 million of "conservation kits" or $6.5 million funding of consumer advocacy groups? And who is needier than the likes of the Citizen/Labor Energy Coalition? Who needs taxpayers' money more desperately than the Radcliffe girls and Harvard boys at the troughs of the multimillion foundations?

Thirsting for justice, the Community Services Administration, rather than let the $18 million go back to the US Treasury, had itself sued by these co-thirsters, and Federal District Judge Grady in Illinois was persuaded to sign over the money as in the examples above when the "plaintiffs" and "defendants" had vigorously pleaded their "case."

But then the Capital Legal Foundation stepped in with the facts; and Justice Grady courageously set aside his own order. In a 9-page memorandum of Oct. 29, he reports how he was "lulled by the appearance of an adversary situation," and declared his previous order "vacated and held for naught."

Six days later, the election gave little joy to the back room dealers of Carter's energy policy. No wonder Ralph Nader called it "a black day for consumers and civil rights."