WASHINGTON - In a controversial move, President Obama announced yesterday that he would recess-appoint his nominees to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and bypass a likely filibuster from Senate Republicans to keep the controversial union agency operating in 2012.

The Hill reports that the president will install Sharon Block (Democrat), Richard Griffin (Democrat) and Terence Flynn (Republican) as members of the NLRB, bringing the agency to its full five-member roster. Without the recess appointments, the NLRB would have lacked the three-member quorum needed to issue rules and regulations.

President Obama also recess appointed Richard Cordray as director of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), which also bypasses Senate Republicans who had blocked his nomination from coming to a vote.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) blasted the president??s move, calling it "arrogant" and noted that the CFPB is "poised to be one of the least accountable and most powerful agencies in Washington," adding that it was "Created by the deeply flawed Dodd-Frank law, it is subject to none of the checks that independent agencies normally operate under, and will have an unprecedented reach and control over individual consumer decisions."