Bush Appoints Lobbyist To Oversee Product Safety?
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Bad Decisions, General PoliticsThe question you have to ask after reading this is, “Is Michael E. Baroody the best guy for the job?”
Seriously. Shouldn’t we have the best people in these positions? The best and brightest? Instead, we get a lobbyist who’s been paid for years to oppose a government agency that he’s now going to run.
Here are his credentials…
He ascended into politics by writing speeches for Bob Dole in the 1970s. From 1981 to 1985, he served on President Reagan’s White House staff as deputy assistant to the President and director of public affairs. He spent a year in 1993 as the president of the Republican-oriented National Policy Forum before taking a post at NAM. [...]Baroody is the executive vice president of the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM). NAM is one of the nation’s largest trade groups and it opposes aggressive product safety regulation.
I’m sorry, but this doesn’t make any sense to me…
• In 1988, as assistant secretary of Labor, he defended the Reagan administration’s record in protecting workers despite delays in issuing safety rules and efforts to weaken regulations.• In 2000, he fought an ergonomics rule — put into place by the Clinton administration — that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration said was intended to prevent 300,000 workplace accidents and injuries.
• In 2001, speaking for NAM, he criticized a Supreme Court ruling rejecting arguments that the Environmental Protection Agency had acted unconstitutionally when it issued standards for limiting smog and soot.
And apparently, Bush has hired a bunch of lobbyists in health and safety positions recently. There’s Susan Dudley, who was nominated to run the generically titled Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (the deal with the EPA, workplace safety etc.), and Nicole Nason, who was nominated to run the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
How about that? Anybody know of any more like this that don’t get media coverage? Do tell.
This entry was posted on Saturday, March 3rd, 2007 and is filed under Bad Decisions, General Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
March 3rd, 2007 at 3:58 pm
So what else an anyone expect from a President who hired Christine Whitman as head of the EPA? You remember, the one who said 3 days after 9/11 was safe to breathe when reports on her desk unequivocally said otherwise?
March 3rd, 2007 at 4:53 pm
Don’t forget the rollback on Clinton-era safety regulations at the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) and Paul Hoffman’s attempt to destroy the mission of the National Park Service. The politicals are certainly enough to drive a regular federal employee mad, let alone the possibility they may endanger others or destroy some of the very things that make this country great.
March 4th, 2007 at 2:23 am
A better question would be “how long are Americans going to put up with all of the corruption in Washington, see beyond the political attack ads, get beyond the narrow partisanship and vote these people out of office?” I mean, it’s not only on the Republican side under this president, it’s also with the Dems (Nancy Pelosi appointing Rep. Jefferson to the Homeland Security committee despite his being under investigation by the FBI). Thinking further back, it’s also Bill Clinton pardoning Mark Rich thanks to his wife’s support for the Dems and appeals from the Israeli government.
March 4th, 2007 at 8:00 am
I agree, nykrindc. You’d think these people would want to avoid even the appearance of this kind of thing, if for no other reason than to stop giving the other side ammunition.
But more importantly, appointments like this do nothing to help the citizens the agencies were supposedly formed to protect.
Heckuva job, indeed.