OMB Watch and other public interest groups have been following rumprs for the last several months that the White House intended to nominate industry-funded extremist Susan Dudley, currently housed at anti-regulatory think tank the Mercatus Center, to become the White House reg czar. The White House just made it official. Click here for a statement from OMB Watch, and here for commentary from Public Citizen. Meanwhile, here is PR Watch's take, under the headline Free-Market Fox Nominated to Henhouse Post: Susan E. Dudley, the "Regulatory Studies Director" at the anti-regulatory think tank the Mercatus Center and a self-proclaimed "free-market environmentalist," has been nominated by the White House to "a little known but powerful post at the Office of Management and Budget." If confirmed by the Senate, Dudley will head the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), which "reviews major agency regulations with an eye toward reducing compliance costs, and according to critics, easing burdens on companies." Dudley and Mercatus have been "very active" on OIRA issues, notes the Wall Street Journal. "Ultimately, 14 of the 23 rules the White House chose for its 2001 'hit list' were Mercatus entries." Website: Wall Street Journal (sub req'd), August 1, 2006 [Via Center for Media and Democracy - Publishers of PR Watch] Stay tuned for more as Dudley's nomination advances.