The Trump administration is dismantling the Consumer Product Safety Commission, an independent watchdog that has been keeping harmful cribs, gadgets, and toys out of American homes for fifty years. The commission is small but strong.
Alexander Hoehn-Saric, Mary T. Boyle, and Richard Trumka Jr. were fired from the five-member CPSC board on Thursday night. Two individuals familiar with the meeting, who requested anonymity to avoid retaliation, said that this happened just hours before two employees from the “Department of Government Efficiency” were supposed to meet with acting Chair Peter Feldman at the agency’s Bethesda headquarters. According to Hoehn-Saric, Feldman has prevented him from carrying out his responsibilities, even though he has not received any official correspondence from the White House.
In a statement, Trumka Jr. noted that the three commissioners who were fired voted to prevent Feldman from officially hiring the two from DOGE.
A son of the late labor leader Richard Trumka, Trumka stated, “Rather than respect the democratic process, soon after, I received the email purporting to fire me.” He went on to threaten legal action over his dismissal.
An anonymous present employee who feared reprisal said that their names had already been removed from their office doors by midmorning.
The commissioners had previously opposed DOGE-directed layoffs and reclassified over 70 CPSC personnel, including safety engineers, hazard analysts, and outreach staff whose job it is to educate manufacturers and consumers; these actions follow the firings.
The agency was already running below its authorized employment levels, according to Boyle, Hoehn-Saric, and Trumka Jr., who claimed that layoffs would undermine vital safety work.
Hoehn-Saric, who was appointed in 2021 and confirmed overwhelmingly by the Senate, cautioned that “these terminations will inevitably result in emergency room visits or deaths that could and should have been avoided.”
The CPSC is set to be dismantled and its functions absorbed into the Department of Health and Human Services as part of the Trump administration’s planned budget, which HEADLINESFOREVER has seen.
“Assistant Secretary for Consumer Product Safety” would be appointed to lead a newly established department within HHS that would “absorb functions and staff from the [CPSC]” and continue the commission’s fundamental objective of safeguarding the American people from consumer products that pose an unreasonable risk of harm or death. Compared to its present funding level of $151 million, the projected yearly budget of $135 million for the new division is almost 10% lower.
Since the panel was established by legislation, it is likely that the proposal will encounter several legal hurdles, including approval from congressional appropriators.
The commissioners are irate because they feel the administration is unlawfully dismantling a vital agency as a result of the firings and the larger reorganization.
The reason the CPSC was established to be separate from the White House, according to Hoehn-Saric, was so that political whims would not dictate decisions about public safety.
She was fired for refusing to “be complicit with the efforts of DOGE to destroy the agency,” according to Boyle, who has spent fifteen years as a lawyer and senior administrator at the CPSC.
She made the following statement: “DOGE shows no respect for expertise, no respect for public servants, and no respect for the citizens our government serves.” “Government is disabled, not reformed, by arbitrary, seemingly illogical layoffs.”
In an interview with HEADLINESFOREVER, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt rebutted the accusation, asking, “Is the federal agency within the executive branch?” Tell me who heads up the government’s executive branch. Within the executive branch, he possesses the authority to dismiss employees.
The firing occurred days after the Democratic commissioners agreed to move forward with a safety standard for lithium-ion batteries, which have been associated with over 20 fatal fires involving electric bikes and scooters, according to both Boyle and Hoehn-Saric. In a clear defiance of an executive order from the Trump administration, which the commissioners claim infringes upon their statutory independence, the vote went forward without consulting the White House on any proposed regulations.
“We put the rule forward to get public feedback, not to put it into action,” Boyle stated. We’ve been doing it that way for a long time. This government is intent on keeping everything under wraps.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has been around since the 1970s, and in that time it has been a formidable but unsung force in the fight against dangerous product recalls, stricter safety regulations, and corporate wrongdoing through litigation.
Companies may be crippled by such moves, and the agency has been entangled in court battles with conservative legal groups and corporations like Amazon over the years. The Supreme Court rejected a challenge to the CPSC last October that claimed the agency’s independence from the president was unconstitutional under the separation-of-powers clause.