President Bush today nominated industry lobbyist Michael Baroody to head the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) drawing heavy criticism from public interest groups.

Baroody, the incumbent vice president for the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), has spent most of his professional life as a lobbyist and political operative on behalf of corporate interests, according to not for profit organization Public Citizen.

The group claims that Baroody is extremely ill-suited choice to lead an agency charged with protecting Americans from dangerous products, many of which are made by the manufacturers he is accustomed to representing.

Public Citizen described the nomination as the latest example of the Bush administration’s systematic attempts to gut federal agencies by replacing regulators with corporate cronies.