Word: engman
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Outside of the White House itself, the most vocal opponent of the federal regulatory agencies is, of all people, one of Washington's most active regulators. In his two years as chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, Lewis A. Engman, 39, has adopted what seems like a wildly improbable posture. On the one hand, he is an outspoken champion of the free enterprise system and is leading a frontal attack on the federal bureaucracy that he believes is subverting it. At the same time he is an aggressive regulator of business. Yet Engman's self-appointed role...
...Harvard-trained lawyer who had a corporate practice in Grand Rapids, Engman was appointed to the FTC chairmanship in 1973. The Nixon White House evidently wanted a reliably controllable chairman to replace prickly, independent Miles W. Kirkpatrick, who revived the long calcified FTC as a trade watchdog and riled the business community with his emphasis on consumer protection. But instead of taming the FTC, Engman stepped up its activity. Hardly a week passes that the 1,600-man agency does not announce some new rule, investigation or lawsuit. Its principal targets have been monopoly, unfair influence, industrial or professional conspiracy...
...Chairman Lewis Engman, though, "it is a curious set of values that says that the consumer may be given full information about discretionary purchases such as deodorants and mouthwash but cannot be given information that will help him save money on . . . drugs that a doctor has prescribed as essential to his good health." The FTC's proposed rules would override all state laws forbidding drug-price ads and make it a crime punishable by a $10,000 fine for any person or association to hinder disclosure of drug prices...
...eventual FTC ruling on drug-price ads may presage a probe into the agreements by medical and bar associations that set fees charged by doctors and lawyers. Engman, who has vigorously pushed antitrust actions in his two years at the FTC, has talked before about "conspiracies of silence" concerning prices in other professions. Last week he said that the fact that druggists' antiadvertising agreements resemble understandings among other groups does not excuse the pharmacists but "may be a reason to take a hard look at doctors and lawyers...
...would identify federal rules and regulations that increase costs to consumers and work to get them dropped. Even some regulators are pressing for change, violating Washington's unwritten rule that no regulatory agency speaks out against another. In a recent Detroit speech, Federal Trade Commission Chairman Lewis A. Engman lashed out at most regulatory agencies, particularly the Interstate Commerce Commission and the Civil Aeronautics Board. He said that their practices raise prices and shelter producers from the competitive consequences of "lassitude and inefficiency" (TIME Essay...