In nominating Michael E. Baroody Mar. 1 to be chairman of the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), President Bush demonstrated yet another example since the 2006 elections of his efforts to slow down or roll back government regulation. CPSC is the independent regulatory agency charged with protecting the public against injury and death from a wide range of consumer products.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Baroody currently serves as the executive vice president of the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), an industry trade group which often works to ease regulations on manufacturers of consumer products. Baroody has been at NAM since 1990, except for a year when he worked for the Republican National Policy Forum. While at NAM, Baroody built a powerful lobbying and communications arm, which has had a very strong anti-regulatory agenda. He appeared to be next in line to get the top job at NAM until former Michigan governor John Engler was appointed president and CEO.

The CPSC was created in 1972 to ensure uniform product safety standards for domestic and foreign consumer goods used in homes, schools, and sports. It does not regulate products like tobacco, vehicles, guns, food, and medical products. CSPC issues product recalls and is the federal agency we call to report product-related injuries or unsafe products.

One of the three CPSC commissioner positions has been vacant since July 2006. The commission's ability to act has been suspended since January because the law only allows it to act with a vacancy for six months. The agency no longer had the voting quorum necessary to regulate for consumer safety since Bush left the position unfilled until Baroody's nomination. Now he has nominated someone who actively worked against the agency's mission and that has infuriated consumer activists and some on Capitol Hill.

The Los Angeles Times reports that, for example, Baroody fought against ergonomic standards that the Occupational Health and Safety Administration recommended in 2000, and he spoke on behalf of NAM when the Supreme Court ruled the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) acted constitutionally when it issued air pollution limits in 2001. Baroody's nomination goes to the Senate Commerce Committee where Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) has vowed to scrutinize the nominee.

Brain Drain Also Plagues CPSC

CPSC's budget was level for both FY 2006 and 2007, and the current request is for an increase in funding of $880,000 for FY 2008. The agency's FY 2008 budget request states that these funding levels resulted in losing the equivalent of 31 and 20 full time staff in 2006 and 2007, respectively, and 19 more losses will occur if the agency is funded at the 2008 request level. Only about 450 employees will be monitoring over 15,000 products.

A Feb 15. BNA story (subscription required) reports that the House has already expressed concern that the CPSC wasn't able to do the job because of a brain drain at the agency. Turnover has been high, and many experienced employees have been leaving, exacerbating the budget problems described in the request.

CPSC Troubles Just One Piece in a Puzzle

Since the November 2006 elections, Bush has re-nominated Susan Dudley to head the Office for Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) at the Office of Management and Budget, which oversees nearly all regulatory matters in government., Dudley was not confirmed in the Republican-controlled Senate because of her extreme perspectives on regulation, and some wonder why Bush would re-nominate her now that the Senate is controlled by the Democrats.

Meanwhile, Dudley continues to evade Senate questions about her approach to managing OIRA. According to a Mar. 2 Inside the EPA story, in written responses to senators' questions, she downplays her role in any reviews of the EPA rulemaking proposals and dances around her support for regulatory considerations like the senior death discount. The senior death discount was a formula for lowering the value of a life of an older person, which thereby decreases the benefits derived from environmental and health regulation.

She needs to downplay her potential review of EPA rules because her husband is in charge of developing cost-benefit analyses for EPA rules. Inside the EPA reports that Dudley is "prepared to take the steps necessary to avoid any conflict of interest or even the appearance of a conflict of interest. . . . I would insist that OIRA treat EPA regulations no differently than those of other agencies." In another response, she wrote that agencies have "the in-depth expertise [on rulemaking], and OIRA's role is that of coordination, guidance and review." If OIRA really played that benevolent role in the regulatory process, it would be a dramatic change.

As OMB Watch has documented, Dudley evaded questions when she testified in November before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. The fact that Bush renominated Dudley, even though her confirmation is unlikely, may be a clue that Bush intends to appoint her as administrator when Congress recesses in August, if not sooner. Coupled with recent amendments to an Executive Order that governs the regulatory review process, the news about protecting public safeguards just gets worse. The new E.O. adds new layers of analysis on agencies, requires a political overseer in agency to shape the development of regulations from the start, and centralizes more review authority, particularly for agency guidance, at OMB. The impact of the E.O. amendments will be to slow down if not stymie new regulation.

As we watch our nation's inability to respond to a range of challenges, whether it's regarding the quality of our national parks, our veterans' health care quality, the readiness of the National Guard, Hurricane Katrina, or the regulation of our food supply, Bush continues to nominate people not to govern the country, but to achieve ideological ends and protect corporate interests.