According to the Stop Baroody site, another questionable decision about security in America is on the table:
President Bush has nominated Michael Baroody – one of Corporate America’s leading anti-consumer henchmen – to head the Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC) – our top government agency protecting millions of Americans from injury and death from unsafe products.
Some examples they provide are alarming:
During his tenure at NAM, Michael Baroody:
Fought to allow a higher level of arsenic in drinking water: NAM claimed that negligent manufacturers would feel a pinch in their profits if forced to prevent their waste products from poisoning local communities.
Arsenic is often found downstream from negligent chemical producers and users that knowingly try to bypass EPA Regulations – thus endangering all communities downstream. A deadly poison, even in the smallest amounts, it causes shock, vascular disease and a plethora of cancers in the body.
[…]
Worked to immunize corporate CEOs from criminal liability for marketing deadly products to the public, maintaining such actions might slow “productivity.”
As an example, knowingly marketing clearly defective bulletproof vests – leading to deaths of soldiers, police and elected officials – would not be a criminal act.
The consumerist has this to say on the subject:
Baroody’s professional career consists mainly of PR work for major Republican candidates. Recently, he served as chief spokesman for the National Association of Manufacturers, a group the San Francisco Chronicle described as “an industry group that opposes aggressive product-safety regulation and punitive fines.”
The Wall Street Journal points out that he has been working against consumer security and safety since 1990, when he left the Reagan administration:
Mr. Baroody currently serves as Executive Vice President of the National Association of Manufacturers. He has been at the trade group since 1990. Mr. Baroody worked in the Reagan White House and served as assistant secretary for policy at the United States Department of Labor from 1985 to 1990.
I haven’t looked into it much yet, but I bet Baroody also was instrumental in trying to strategize against airbags in automobiles.
Reagan apparently fought along-side the automobile manufacturers and against the safety of consumers. His administration argued that airbag requirements were not going to help prevent deaths, but even more importantly (to them) they would prevent Chrysler and Ford from competing with import vehicles. Who can forget the date in history when Reagan was rebuffed and the security of Americans was upheld by a unanimous court:
1983: The Supreme Court rules against the Reagan administration and directs NHTSA to review the case for air bags.
[…]
1981: Under the anti-regulatory Reagan administration, NHTSA announces one-year delay of passive-restraint rule, proposes that it be rescinded altogether. [Transportation Secy: Elizabeth Dole]
Bush appears again to be using the spoils system to head backwards in time, at the expense of national security. This is like Bolton at the UN, Brown at FEMA, Wolf at the World Bank, Paige in education, etc.
Why is it that the Helen Petrauskas of the world rarely, if ever, get these types of appointments?
Her daughter, Laura Petrauskas of Troy, Mich., said her mother was committed to safety and to air bags and often talked about her work.
“A car is an awfully big purchase for most people,” the daughter said. “You’re producing something that is intrinsically dangerous, and you have a real responsibility to make it as safe as you can in those circumstances.”
Now that’s the kind of consumer safety champion who should earn the appointment, not just another republican party campaign manager and corporate lobbyist.