Unlawful removal of Consumer Product Safety Commission leaders demolishes agency’s role as independent, bipartisan, data-driven safety watchdog
Consumers will be at greater risk from unsafe products if the move is not reversed
WASHINGTON, D.C.—Consumer Reports (CR) today condemned the illegal firing of agency leaders at the independent Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), as announced by the Commissioners themselves. The three leaders—CPSC Commissioners Alex Hoehn-Saric, Rich Trumka, Jr., and Mary Boyle—have a proven track record of putting consumers’ safety first in a rapidly evolving marketplace. CR demands that the purported firings be reversed immediately, and that Congress support these Commissioners in keeping their lawfully held roles.
William Wallace, director of safety advocacy for Consumer Reports, said, “This is an appalling and lawless attack on the independence of our country’s product safety watchdog. Anyone who cares about keeping their family safe should oppose this move and demand that it be reversed. This isn’t really about the individual leaders, as commendable as they are. It’s about whether Congress can maintain a federal agency that takes strong action to protect the public, based on scientific evidence and insulated from political whims. For more than five decades, members of Congress from both parties have supported the role of an independent, bipartisan CPSC. Today’s Congress must step up to defend the agency, reject this power grab, and reaffirm that our laws actually mean what they say on the page.”
The move to illegally fire the three CPSC Commissioners comes soon after a draft budget proposal from the administration came to light that would eliminate the independent, bipartisan CPSC and put the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in charge of overseeing the safety of more than 15,000 types of consumer products. CR has denounced these plans and urged the White House to abandon its reckless proposal.
Yesterday, CR, along with nearly 160 consumer advocacy groups and individual advocates, including parents who have lost children to dangerous products, sent a letter to the director of the federal Office of Management and Budget (OMB) expressing strong opposition to any attempt to eliminate, defund, or weaken the CPSC. Also yesterday, 21 U.S. Senators and 30 members of the U.S. House of Representatives demanded that OMB reverse its plans.
Gabe Knight, senior safety policy analyst for Consumer Reports, said, “These unlawful firings undermine the CPSC’s critical work to keep consumers and their families safe. Americans rely on the CPSC to create sensible rules, enforce our safety laws, stop dangerous imports at the border, and hold companies accountable for wrongdoing. If the CPSC can’t carry out its work independently, our families—and in particular infants, children, and older Americans—will suffer the consequences of a more dangerous marketplace. Consumer Reports calls on the administration to immediately allow Commissioners Hoehn-Saric, Trumka, and Boyle to resume their service at the CPSC in the roles they lawfully hold, and to abandon any efforts to further curtail the independence of this vital agency.”
As established by Congress in 1972, the CPSC must be “[a]n independent regulatory commission … consisting of five Commissioners who shall be appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate” where “[n]ot more than three of the Commissioners shall be affiliated with the same political party.” Commissioners “may be removed by the President for neglect of duty or malfeasance in office but for no other cause.”
Since its creation, the CPSC has carried out its mission to protect the public from unreasonable risks of serious injury or death from more than 15,000 types of consumer products. It conducts research, collects data, creates and enforces safety standards, and warns the public when there’s a hazardous product on the market—or already in their homes—that could injure or kill them. The agency was made independent from the President to protect the public without undue political or corporate influence, empowering it to make decisions based on scientific evidence and hold powerful industries accountable when products put people at risk.
CR has strongly supported the mission of the CPSC and its critical role as an independent watchdog since its creation. The following are some recent key actions the CPSC has undertaken to protect consumers from unreasonable risk of injury and death:
- In 2024, the CPSC screened millions of e-commerce listings and was responsible for the removal of more than 53,000 recalled or banned products.
- In coordination with U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the CPSC has intercepted tens of thousands of violative items at U.S. ports of entry before they could harm American families.
- Since 2021, the CPSC has assessed more than $125 million in civil penalties for violations of product safety laws.
- The CPSC has set strong safety standards to help protect children from serious injury and death, including to prevent dresser tip-overs, ingestion of button and coin cell batteries, and intestinal damage from small high-powered magnets.
- For babies, the CPSC has taken several steps to prevent suffocation and sudden unexpected infant death (SUID), including through new standards for crib mattresses, nursing pillows, and loungers, and bans on inclined sleepers and padded crib bumpers.
As the consumer product marketplace rapidly changes, and a growing number of purchases take place online, consumers increasingly depend on the CPSC to protect them and their families from unsafe products. According to CR, the agency’s ability to take strong action depends on preserving its independence and the integrity of its bipartisan leadership. CR is calling on Congress to protect the CPSC’s vital work from any efforts that would restrict its ability to fulfill its mission to protect the public from hazardous consumer products.
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Media Contact: Emily Akpan, emily.akpan@consumer.org