I’ve talked about the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) a few times on this blog, HERE and HERE… and it should not come as a surprise to anyone who knows the MO of this administration that throughout Bush’s presidency he’s installed people in the CPSC that put business interests over the public interest… in case you need examples (HT to ThinkProgress);

• The first CPSC chair under Bush, Harold Stratton, assured the business world that he would “break the barrier of fear” by making it more difficult to order product recalls… recalls that protected the public…
• His nominee to replace Stratton, Michael Baroody, opposed asbestos regulations and highway safety reform…
• And then there’s Nord… the current acting head Nancy Nord, who famously opposed Congressional efforts to strengthen the CPSC… despite millions of Chinese-made toys were recalled due to incredibly dangerous levels of lead.
• Both Nord and Stratton took nearly 30 trips at the expense of industries and companies the CPSC was supposed to regulate… which is clearly a conflict of interest…

Well… apparently the schmuck has not learned his lesson as the Bush(whacked) Administration is strongly considering nominating Gail Charnley to head the CPSC…

Ms. Charnley, in the past, has been a consultant for the tobacco and coal industries... which makes her perfectly qualified for a post that deals with consumer product safety.

Yes Virginia that was sarcasm...

Ignoring for a moment her shilling for coal and tobacco (see more about that HERE and HERE).

She also has a nasty habit of hiding her ties to the coal and tobacco industries (which is nothing new in this administration)… including her hiding the fact that a study that was partially funded by pesticide makers was her basis for a 2004 letter to a technical journal supporting the human testing of pesticides…

Like the people preceding her at the CPSC, Charnley also opposes government regulation at all costs and of any kind and doesn’t think the CPSC needs to regulate environmental hazards to children’s health because “government agencies do not know which environmental exposures actually pose risks to children.”

I want people in DC to remember something; Bush is a lameduck, so you don’t have to give him everything he asks for… the nominating and confirming of this nominee should not happen quickly if at all…

Why? Because she is yet another in a line of nominees from this administration that not only does NOT have the qualifications for the post, but is in bed with industries that could very well be policed by the CPSC…

Just once it would be nice to see the Democrats in DC find their balls and NOT hand Bush everything he wants… he has less than a year in office, start treating him as such…