Conference of Consumer Organizations

1143 Carlson

Ambridge, PA 15003

(724) 266-1875

The Conference of Consumer Organizations (COCO) is a Non-Governmental Organization which

focuses on consumer and environmental issues.

We began, in 1973, when Dr. Currin Shields, of the Arizona Consumer Council joined people such

as Louis S. Meyers, Richard L.D. Morse and Prof. Robert McEwen to form an associational interest group.

The consortium extends across 23 states, but individual chapters sustain local interest actions.  We

are a not-for-profit organization, which uses any proceeds to maintain, improve and expand its operations.

The details of each chapter’s energies far exceed the bounds of this introduction, and the bulk of our records are stored in Kansas State University's Consumer Movement Archives.

Roger Thomas was a member of COCO from its inception, and is now Director of the Pennsylvania Chapter.

Thomas interned under Dr. Shields and attorney Stuart Herzog during the Tucson Gas and Electric Company rate hearings in 1971. His primary activity was the development of a table of interlocking directories which showed how each of TG&E’s directors had conflicts of interest by serving on the boards of other energy providers. His secondary activities were to detail TG&E’s behavior as a monopoly which was not responsive to either consumer or environmental needs.

After the TG&E hearings, he became Director of Fight Inflation Together-Tucson. FITT was organized in response to the sudden increase in food prices in 1972-3. Its meat boycotts reduced those prices some 15%. FITT also sponsored a series of 11 “Kitchen Clinics” to raise awareness of alternative sources of protein, and of general home budgeting techniques.

Thomas continued consumer and environmental practices after moving to Wyoming. These included organizing market basket surveys, and kitchen clinics. The most singular effort there was the development of a proposal for Monitored Retrievable Storage of High Level Nuclear Waste. This involved two years of research and public hearings.

Then, while in the Republic of Hungary, Thomas was instrumental in the development of the “Aarhus Convention on Public Participation in Environmental Policy Making.” This project began with the European Union’s Directive 313 in 1993, and continued through the Convention’s ratification in 2001.

Upon returning to Western Pennsylvania, Thomas became active in developing a series of specific petitions, ordinances and legislative bills regarding, in this instance, the transportation and storage of coal combustion waste.

COCO’s 2003 Annual Conference focused on multiple use, and its 2004 Annual conference has been scheduled for June in Ambridge, PA. Papers are anticipated regarding the Aarhus Convention, Living Wills, credit scoring, and organ donations, Alternative Tax Measurement, Coal Combustion Waste, etc.