CORPORATE CRIME REPORTER

Public Citizen Calls on Congress to Reject Baroody
21 Corporate Crime Reporter 15, April 2, 2007

President Bush wants to nominate big business lobbyist Michael Baroody to head the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC).

And Joan Claybrook is not happy.

Claybrook is president of Public Citizen.

And she called the nomination “spectacularly and arrogantly inappropriate.”

“Michael Baroody is currently the executive vice president for the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) and has spent most of his professional life as a lobbyist and political operative on behalf of corporate interests,” Claybrook said in a statement. “He would be an extremely ill-suited choice to lead an agency charged with protecting Americans from dangerous products – many of them made by the manufacturers he is accustomed to representing.”

Claybrook said that while the chairman of the CPSC makes decisions that deeply affect consumer and child safety, Baroody has spent his professional life “spearheading campaigns designed to cripple the regulatory agencies and deny consumers access to the courts.”

“He has made a career out of opposing any measure to hold negligent corporations accountable for preventable harm,” Claybrook said.

“When will President Bush learn that industry flacks are not an acceptable substitute for competent public health and safety officials?” Claybrook asked. “Bush’s choice is yet another blow designed to trash accountability and destroy the regulatory safety net that protects Americans.”

 


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