Am I the only person troubled by this guy's attitude?

Tozzi, believing that the regulatory bar was too low, tried repeatedly to get Congress to pass legislation that would make it easier to challenge the science used to underpin regulations. Then, unable to receive broad congressional support, he crafted legislative language himself and gave it to Rep. Jo Ann Emerson (R-Mo.), a former lobbyist and onetime deputy director of communications for the National Republican Congressional Committee. The wording -- two sentences of 32 short lines -- directed the OMB to issue guidelines "ensuring and maximizing the quality, objectivity, utility, and integrity of information . . . disseminated by Federal agencies."

Emerson slipped the sentences into the 712-page Treasury and General Government Appropriations Act, which became the coming year's omnibus spending bill. Under pressure to wrap up the long-delayed budget, President Bill Clinton signed the huge bill on Dec. 21, 2000, nine days after the Supreme Court ruled that George W. Bush was to be the next president. It is not clear whether anyone in Congress other than Emerson and Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.) knew about the buried language.

"We sandwiched this in between Jerry Ford's library and something else," Tozzi said. "Was it something that did not have hearings? Yes. Is it something that keeps me awake at night? No. Is it something that I would do again, exactly? Yes, you bet your ass I would. I would not even think about it, okay? Sometimes you get the monkey, and sometimes the monkey gets you."