Critics In Charge

Daniel Troy, chief counsel of the Food and Drug Administration, sued FDA on behalf of tobacco companies.

Eugene Scalia, the son of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, was nominated as solicitor of the Labor Department after representing businesses that oppose federal ergonomics regulations. These regulations protect workers from repetitive stress injuries. At press time, Scalia's nomination was pending before the Senate.

Mark Rey, a former timber lobbyist and aide to Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, is undersecretary for natural resources and the environment at the Agriculture Department. Rey has direct authority over controversial rules that have restricted logging in the national forests.

Steven Griles, a former lobbyist for petroleum and mining interests, is deputy secretary of the Interior Department, where he oversees proposals by companies that want to drill and dig on public lands.

Timothy Muris, the Federal Trade Commission chairman, formerly was a law professor at George Mason University, where he was sharply critical of what he viewed as the Clinton administration's overreaching in its eagerness to challenge corporate mergers and pricing practices.

Michael Powell, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission and son of Secretary of State Colin Powell, has been an outspoken critic of the FCC's rules limiting the holdings of media companies and restricting regional telephone companies in long-distance markets.

Two of President Bush's regulation-busting nominees attracted so much opposition from Democrats and activist organizations that they failed to make it through the Senate confirmation process: Donald Schregardus, nominated to be enforcement chief at the Environmental Protection Agency, withdrew his bid on Sept. 17 after Sen. James Jeffords, I-Vt., chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, called for an investigation of Schregardus' record as Ohio's EPA chief. Conservation groups had accused Schregardus of being lax in enforcing air, water and toxic waste regulations during the seven and one-half years he headed Ohio's EPA. Schregardus was later named the Navy's deputy assistant secretary of the environment-a post that did not require Senate confirmation.

Mary Sheila Gall, nominated to head the Consumer Product Safety Commission, was rejected by the Senate Commerce Committee in July in a 12-11 party-line vote with Democrats citing Gall's decade-long track record as a commission member of voting against proposed safety rules.