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consumer product safety commission
'Appalling and Lawless': Trump Moves to Fire Democrats on Consumer Safety Panel
"I'll see him in court," said Richard Trumka Jr., one of the commissioners.
May 09, 2025
Three Democratic members of the Consumer Product Safety Commission vowed on Friday to fight back after U.S. President Donald Trump moved to fire them, an effort that the trio described as part of the White House's unlawful assault on independent agencies.
Mary Boyle, Richard Trumka Jr., and Alex Hoehn-Saric are now listed on the CPSC's website as "former commissioners." The Washington Post reported that Trump moved to fire the commissioners "shortly after" the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency visited the agency on Thursday.
"The Democratic commissioners objected to two DOGE employees being formally detailed to the agency," the Post noted, citing Trumka's account.
Boyle and Trumka said they received emails from the White House late Thursday informing them of the president's bid to remove them from their posts. Hoehn-Saric said in a statement Friday that while he has yet to receive communication from the White House, the acting chair of the CPSC is "preventing me from executing my duties as commissioner based on an assertion that the president is also seeking my removal."
"The illegal attempt to remove me from the CPSC happened immediately after my colleagues and I took steps to advance our safety work and protect our staff from arbitrary firings," said Hoehn-Saric. "President Trump's action politicizes a critical independent public safety agency that was structured by law to avoid such interference."
All three of the Democratic commissioners indicated that they don't intend to leave the agency quietly, following in the footsteps of commissioners at other agencies who have challenged Trump's attempts to fire them, setting the stage for a high-stakes battle at the U.S. Supreme Court.
Trumka, son of the late labor leader Richard Trumka, said Friday that he has "a set term on this independent, bipartisan commission that does not expire until October of 2028." Last week, Trumka defied a Trump executive order instructing federal agencies to submit all proposed rules to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs for review.
"I will continue protecting the American people from harm through that time," Trumka continued. "The president would like to end this nation's long history of independent agencies, so he's chosen to ignore the law and pretend independence doesn't exist. I'll see him in court."
Boyle, whose term was set to expire later this year, also signaled that she intends to remain at her post.
"Until my term as commissioner concludes,” Boyle said, "I will insist on following these time-tested principles, and I will use my voice to speak out on behalf of safety."
Consumer advocates voiced outrage in response to Trump's attempt to fire the CPSC commissioners.
"The illegal firing of CPSC commissioners is not just a brazen, unprecedented, and reckless assault on the rule of law, it is a direct threat to the lives and physical safety of Americans, especially our most vulnerable, infants and children," said Courtney Griffin, Director of Consumer Product Safety at the Consumer Federation of America. "The consequences may be measured in preventable injuries, hospitalizations, and lives lost."
William Wallace, director of safety advocacy for Consumer Reports, said in a statement that "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," Wallace added. "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."
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Amazon Rebuked for 'Reckless' Lawsuit Against Product Safety Agency
"Amazon wants to eliminate the Consumer Product Safety Commission so it can sell dangerous, poisonous, and defective crap with no consequences," said one critic.
Mar 21, 2025
Consumer advocates this week denounced a lawsuit filed by e-commerce giant Amazon against the federal agency tasked with promoting product safety and alerting the public to risks, a move that comes amid the Trump administration's war on government regulators.
Amazon's lawsuit, filed earlier this month in a Maryland federal court, claims that the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) is unconstitutional. The Seattle-based company—which raked in $638 billion in 2024 revenue—says it should not be held legally responsible for products sold on its site by third-party vendors.
"Amazon is suffering, and will continue to suffer, irreparable harm from being subjected to an order issued by an unconstitutionally structured agency," the company's complaint states.
"Let's be real: Amazon would gleefully sell products that could kill your kids for a 5-cent profit."
Last July, the five CPSC commissioners unanimously determined that Amazon is "a 'distributor' of products that are defective or fail to meet federal consumer product safety standards, and therefore bears legal responsibility for their recall" under the Consumer Product Safety Act (CPSA). More than 400,000 products were subject to the CPSC order, including "faulty carbon monoxide detectors, hairdryers without electrocution protection, and children's sleepwear that violated federal flammability standards."
In January, the CPSC issued a decision and order outlining steps Amazon must take "to notify purchasers and the public about hazardous products for which the commission determined Amazon was a distributor under the CPSA."
Critics allege that by suing the CPSC, Amazon is attempting to avoid responsibility for shipping dangerous products to its hundreds of millions of customers.
"Instead of demonstrating its commitment to consumer safety, Amazon has fought the CPSC every step of the way for more than three years, and now it's going to court," Consumer Reports director of safety advocacy William Wallace said this week. "The law is clear that Amazon is a 'distributor' in this case and must carry out a recall."
Amazon just sued @cpsc.gov bc it wants to be held blameless for the safety of third-party-sold products on its platform. That's bad enough. It's also claiming the CPSC's structure is unconstitutional—attacking the foundation on which all its work rests. advocacy.consumerreports.org/press_releas...
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— William Wallace (@wwconsumer.bsky.social) March 18, 2025 at 6:47 AM
Wallace continued:
Amazon wants to be held blameless for the safety of products sold by third parties on its platform, which is bad enough—but what's even worse is that the company is attacking the legal foundation on which the CPSC rests. Amazon's suit suggests the company thinks the people of the United States would be better off without an independent, bipartisan safety agency to enforce our laws and protect consumers from dangerous products. We strongly disagree and condemn Amazon's reckless constitutional claims.
"It's absurd to suggest that because a company hosts a marketplace online it should be exempt from sensible requirements that help get hazardous products out of people's homes and prevent them from being sold," Wallace added. "The court should reject Amazon's arguments. Taking Amazon at its word would mean hazardous products slipping through the cracks, even when they are capable of injuring or killing people."
Wallace's remarks came a day after the CPSC issued warnings for products including a toddler playset due to what the agency says is a risk of serious injury or suffocation death, a mattress posing a fire risk, and a brand of liquid Benadryl whose packaging is not child-resistant.
Amazon and SpaceX—owned by Elon Musk, the de facto head of the Trump administration's Department of Government Efficiency—have also spearheaded lawsuits claiming the National Labor Relations Board, the federal agency tasked with protecting workers' rights, is unconstitutional.
The companies and their billionaire leaders have found an ally in U.S. President Donald Trump, whose administration has signaled that it will not defend the precedent set by Humphrey's Executor v. United States, a 1935 Supreme Court ruling protecting commissioners at independent federal agencies from being fired by the president at will, if it is challenged in court.
Amazon wants to eliminate the Consumer Product Safety Commission so it can sell dangerous, poisonous and defective crap with no consequences. Let's be real: Amazon would gleefully sell products that could kill your kids for a 5 cent profit. Pure evil.
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— Emma Lydon (@emmalydon.bsky.social) March 21, 2025 at 9:18 AM
Georgetown University Law Center professor Victoria Nourse told The Washington Post this week that right-wing lawyers are emboldened by the administration's stance, describing lawsuits like those filed by Amazon and SpaceX as "little fires being lit all over Washington."
"What Trump wants and what the companies want is to get rid of all this regulation, period," Nourse added.
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Manchin Joins With Cruz on 'Absurd' Bill to Protect Toxic Gas Stoves
One critic said the right-wing Democrat intends "to inhibit climate action and undermine agencies charged with protecting public health and safety—all in the interest of propping up his fossil fuel funders."
Feb 02, 2023
Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and right-wing Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia on Thursday introduced legislation that would prevent a federal agency from banning gas stoves.
Cruz and Manchin's bill to preempt the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) from banning gas stoves—titled the Gas Stove Protection and Freedom Act and described by progressive advocacy group Food & Water Watch as "absurd"—comes even though the agency says it has no plans to implement such a prohibition.
Climate and public health advocates celebrated last month after CPSC Commissioner Richard Trumka Jr. told Bloomberg News that gas stoves are "a hidden hazard" and suggested that new ones should be banned.
However, as Reuters reported Thursday, Trumka "walked back those comments after conservatives and energy industry groups seized on them as a way to criticize the Biden administration for allegedly overreaching with its climate and environmental policy agenda."
Food & Water Watch observed that while "there is currently no plan" to ban gas stoves, "there is substantial research documenting the hazards associated with the air pollution" the methane-powered appliances create.
A widely shared recent study found that 12.7% of childhood asthma cases in the U.S. can be tied to indoor air pollution caused by gas stoves. The findings bolstered calls from environmental justice advocates and public health experts to prohibit the sale of new gas stoves and expedite the switch to cleaner and safer electric ones, but the CPSC has yet to propose regulatory action.
"Manchin is doing his part to fuel the ridiculous right-wing panic over a nonexistent war on gas stoves," Food & Water Watch policy director Jim Walsh said Thursday. "But his intent behind this legislation is serious: to inhibit climate action and undermine agencies charged with protecting public health and safety—all in the interest of propping up his fossil fuel funders."
"As state and local governments are increasingly looking to turn away from gas in new construction—moves that will improve air quality and public health, and reduce climate pollution—Sen. Manchin continues looking backward," said Walsh.
\u201ctwo of Congress's biggest beneficiaries of fossil fuel $ are here to defend gas stoves from a non-existent ban\n\nfabulous stuff\n\noil/gas contributions over career: \nCruz: $4,242,269\nManchin: $1,261,766 (incl. $757,059 in 2022 cycle)\u201d— Chris D'Angelo (@Chris D'Angelo) 1675358153
Manchin is the top congressional recipient of cash from the fossil fuel industry, which has fought aggressively against increasingly popular campaigns to outlaw gas stoves at the state and local levels.
However, the coal baron who leads the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee is far from alone in his defense of planet-heating and illness-inducing gas stoves.
As The Washington Post reported Thursday, Natural Allies for a Clean Energy Future—a nonprofit group founded by a half-dozen gas companies—"has enlisted prominent Democratic politicians and pollsters to help enhance gas' reputation among liberal voters."
Former Sens. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) and Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) and former Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) are among those going to bat for the fracking and gas utility industries.
"Natural Allies is backed by TC Energy, the Canadian pipeline giant behind the controversial Keystone XL project, and Southern Company, one of the biggest U.S. utilities," the Post reported. "Launched shortly before the 2020 election, the group is led by Susan Waller, a former executive at the pipeline firm Enbridge."
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