The Consumer Product Safety Commission, already reeling from deep staffing cuts, is undergoing a dramatic reduction in its leadership that could further jeopardize its vital mission.

On Thursday night, two of the five heads of the agency received termination emails; a third did not receive notice but was prevented from entering his office. All three are Democrats. The CPSC website now reflects that the once bipartisan-led agency is now led by one acting chair and one other commissioner, both Republicans, with the three Democrats listed as past commissioners.

Consumer advocates, including those at Consumer Reports, say that the firings are illegal and that an independent, bipartisan-led CPSC is crucial to keeping Americans safe.

“This is an appalling and lawless attack on the independence of our country’s product safety watchdog,” says William Wallace, director of safety advocacy at Consumer Reports. “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.”

Since its founding by Congress over 50 years ago, the CPSC has always been an independent agency, led by multiple commissioners of both parties. It is small but mighty, responsible for creating product safety standards, recalling unsafe products from the market, taking enforcement actions against companies that violate safety rules, and more. It oversees about 15,000 categories of products for sale in the U.S., from blenders to baby cribs to bike helmets. Consumer advocates and experts say its work is underappreciated but indispensable.

One of the fired commissioners, Alexander Hoehn-Saric, attributes the move to his and his colleagues’ speaking out against cuts to their agency staff.

“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,” Hoehn-Saric said in a statement Friday morning. “President Trump’s action politicizes a critical independent public safety agency that was structured by law to avoid such interference.”

Another fired commissioner, Richard Trumka Jr., said in a statement Friday morning that he plans to challenge the firings in court. He also said his and his colleagues’ firings occurred after last week’s contentious hearing, where the Democratic commissioners voted to advance a safety rule—a move that the Republican commissioners said at the time “defied” an executive order by President Donald Trump forbidding independent agencies from rulemaking without White House approval.

“Unfortunately for the President, he did not have the authority to fire me,” Trumka said in his statement. “I have a set term on this independent, bipartisan Commission that does not expire until October of 2028, and I will continue protecting the American people from harm through that time . . . CPSC’s lifesaving work is far too important to take this lying down.”

Mary Boyle, the third fired commissioner, echoed these sentiments in her statement as well.

“Along with my colleague Richard Trumka, I was fired because at a Commission meeting the day before, I spoke out forcefully and unequivocally against efforts to strip the agency of qualified professionals whose work ensures that consumers can have confidence in the products they buy,” Boyle said in her statement. “Random layoffs with no rationale don’t reform government; they disable it.”

The White House did not immediately respond to CR’s request for comment on Friday.

As the commissioners’ statements assert, the firings follow growing tension at the agency, which was on display at several public hearings recently. Last week’s hearing to vote on the proposal of a new safety standard for the lithium-ion batteries in e-bikes would have ordinarily been a staid one, but it became contentious when the debate shifted to whether or not the agency had the authority to be acting independently at all, in light of the president’s executive order.

Then, in yet another tense public hearing on Wednesday, CPSC commissioners discussed how the agency is already operating at reduced capacity after about 10 percent of its staff accepted an offer made earlier this year to all federal employees to voluntarily resign. An office that assists small business owners who have questions about how to make sure their products are compliant with safety rules used to have three staffers but now has one, for instance. Three ports where overseas shipments of products are received that used to have one full-time inspector now have none. 

The hearing was scheduled to run for 1 hour but went for 3, as the agency’s five commissioners discussed their budgetary needs and the impact of the existing changes in staffing levels. The two Republican commissioners and three Democratic ones took different sides in the debate.

“We should plan conservatively . . . and find ways to work harder and smarter, and to do more with less,” said Commissioner Douglas Dziak, a Republican.

Democratic Commissioner Trumka disagreed: “I don’t think the American people can afford to lose anyone else who is keeping them safe.” 

Meanwhile, even before the Thursday night firings, the ranks of lawmakers and consumer advocates defending an independent, bipartisan-led CPSC were growing, and growing louder. 

Last month, a leaked draft budget proposal revealed that the new administration had plans to eliminate the CPSC as an independent agency and move its work to a new division under the authority of the Department of Health and Human Services. Several consumer groups, including Consumer Reports, along with Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., teamed up to denounce that proposal, arguing that it would undermine the CPSC’s work by potentially exposing it to greater political and corporate influence.

On Thursday, Blumenthal, Schakowsky, and Rep. Kevin Mullin, D-Calif., sent a letter to the director of the Office of Management and Budget, Russell Vought, expressing “outrage” about the plan and calling on the administration to reverse it. Forty-eight other members of Congress also signed on. The letter focused on how the marketplace has been kept safe thanks to the agency’s past efforts, and how important its work will continue to be.

“Since its inception, the CPSC has played a vital role safeguarding American families, and in particular infants, children, and older Americans,” the 21 senators and 30 House members wrote. “With the rapid growth of e-commerce and imported consumer products, especially from countries with less stringent safety regulations, CPSC plays a critical role to prevent unsafe and counterfeit goods from entering the U.S. market unchecked.”

The members argued that it would be counterproductive to move the CPSC’s work to a new division within the HHS—a department that already has a “vast and demanding” mandate and whose budget and staffing is also planned to be slashed under the administration’s proposed budget plan.

“We strongly oppose any attempt to eliminate, defund, or weaken the CPSC and demand that you immediately roll back any efforts to dissolve the agency,” the letter went on. “Americans rightfully expect that the products they bring into their home are safe, and only the CPSC has the authority and expertise to ensure that expectation is met.”

CR contacted the Office of Management and Budget and the White House for comment on Thursday but has not received responses.

Also on Thursday, 159 consumer advocacy groups and individuals wrote a separate letter to the OMB’s Vought, echoing the lawmakers’ plea to allow the CPSC to continue its critical work. They cited powerful statistics: 

“CPSC standards and enforcement activities have helped spur a 43 percent decline in residential fires, a 47 percent decrease in fire deaths, and a 41 percent reduction in fire injuries,” the coalition wrote. “Child poisonings have decreased by 80 percent. Bicycle injuries dropped by 35 percent. Deaths from refrigerator door entrapments and garage door incidents have been virtually eliminated. Crib deaths have plummeted by 80 percent. Injuries associated with baby walkers have been slashed by 88 percent. Pool and pool equipment injury rates have decreased by 55 percent.”

The advocates agreed that the HHS is already overburdened and lacks the authority to carry out the CPSC’s work. Moving ahead with this proposal, they wrote, risks “leaving a regulatory black hole by which dangerous consumer products can freely enter the stream of commerce.”

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