People Power United joined coalition efforts to Call on Congress to Protect the Independence and Integrity of the CPSC
🗽A well informed citizenry is the best defense against tyranny.
People Power United joined coalition efforts to Call on Congress to Protect the Independence and Integrity of the CPSC. Shout out to National Consumers League for leading this effort.
📄 Here is a copy of the letter sent on behalf of our People Power United members:
For Immediate Release: July 21, 2025
Dear Chairs Collins, Cruz, Cole, and Guthrie, and Ranking Members Murray, Cantwell, DeLauro, and Pallone,
We write to urge you to preserve an independent, bipartisan Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) and ensure the agency has the appropriate tools, resources, and personnel to carry out its lifesaving mission.
The CPSC is an independent federal agency commissioned by Congress to protect the public from unreasonable risks of injury or death from consumer products through education, safety standards, regulation, and enforcement.1 This small agency with a big mission has had lifesaving effects. 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 from 1980 to 2018.2 Child poisonings have decreased by 80 percent between 1972 and 2020.3 Bicycle injuries dropped by 35 percent between 1973 and 2020.4 Deaths from refrigerator door entrapments and garage door incidents have been virtually eliminated.5 Crib deaths have plummeted by 80 percent from 1973 to 2018.6 Pool and pool equipment injury rates have decreased by 55 percent from 1975 to 2019.7
We strongly support the Fiscal Year (FY) 2026 CPSC budget submitted on June 26, 2025, and urge you to provide the vital resources and support requested. The CPSC budget proposal requests $183.05 million in funding (a 21 percent funding increase) and 588 employees (a 9 percent staff increase), resources critical to preserving and strengthening the independence, workforce, and operations of the Commission.8 These resources and personnel will enable the CPSC to better stop hazardous products at U.S. ports of entry, vigorously enforce product safety laws, investigate product hazards, effectively convey safety information to the American public, and accelerate the modernization of mission-critical technology.9
We strongly oppose any attempt to dramatically restructure the CPSC, reduce the agency’s workforce, and decrease funding for consumer product safety. The FY 2026 Department of Health & Human Services’ (HHS) budget and a rescinded FY 2026 CPSC budget recommend that CPSC’s functions be transferred to HHS.10 The rescinded CPSC budget stated that “[u]ntil the enactment of authorizing legislation to reorganize, the CPSC will continue to carry out its mission to protect the public from unreasonable risks of injury from consumer products as a standalone agency.”11 Further, the rescinded budget requests language in FY 2026 appropriations legislation that transfers the CPSC’s budget accounts to HHS.12 It also recommended $135 million in funding (a 10 percent funding cut) and 459 employees (a 14 percent reduction of staff).13
Over its fifty-year existence, the CPSC has developed a body of safety standards, enforcement actions, consumer education campaigns, data collection initiatives, and recall processes, none of which can be “transferred” to a new agency by executive action. 14 If this proposal were unilaterally carried out, product safety standards—such as those preventing fires, lacerations, poisonings, suffocation, drowning, entrapment, and crushing—may no longer be in effect. Consumer products, including those imported from overseas, may no longer be inspected by federal regulators for safety threats. Sellers may no longer be obligated to recall dangerous or violative products. Critical product safety research may no longer be performed. Vital product safety information and data may no longer be public. That includes data essential for addressing hazardous household products, motor vehicle crashes, adverse drug effects, aviation incidents, and work-related injuries.
HHS lacks the statutory authority to establish product safety standards, implement enforcement actions and consumer education campaigns, conduct data collection, and oversee recalls and safety warnings for consumer products that would be necessary to continue carrying out CPSC’s mission. The CPSC, not HHS, has explicit jurisdiction over consumer product safety.15 Any effort to use HHS’s existing authorities to replicate CPSC activities would be vulnerable to legal challenge, potentially leaving a regulatory black hole through which dangerous consumer products can freely enter the stream of commerce. Replicating the CPSC’s activities would likely require several cumbersome rulemakings, which could take years to complete, if ever finalized.
Furthermore, HHS is not well-suited to oversee household product safety. HHS already has a vast mission, which includes food and drug regulation, communicable disease prevention, public health emergency preparation and response, medical research, and administration of Medicare, Medicaid, and the Children’s Health Insurance Program.16 Product safety will likely be deprioritized. Competition with other programs could result in less funding for consumer product safety. Competing agency priorities could result in a lack of vigorous standard setting, oversight, and enforcement.
The additional layers of bureaucracy will lead to less effective and efficient governance of household product safety. Rulemakings, enforcement actions, research initiatives, and education campaigns may be subject to review, modification, and approval by the Secretary of HHS and the Office of Management and Budget. Such processes could add months if not years to product safety actions, if the action is permitted at all. With approximately 49,000 product related deaths, 34 million product-related injuries, and consumer product incidents accounting for $1 trillion in societal costs each year, the American public can ill afford foreseeable delays and denials.17
Congress deliberately established an independent, nonpartisan agency with exclusive authority over the safety of consumer products. Such independence ensures that product safety issues are treated like the public safety imperative they so clearly are. The CPSC protects the health and safety of the American people – especially babies, children, and older Americans – and creates clear rules of the road for manufacturers, retailers, and distributors. It ensures that safety is ingrained in the design and manufacturing of each product, giving companies assurance that they can profit while fulfilling their obligation to protect their customers.
We thank you for your prompt attention to this important matter.
Respectfully,
National Consumers League
Consumer Federation of America Consumer Reports
Access Ready Inc.
Action on Smoking and Health Aden Lamps Foundation
Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety
Aging Life Care Association
America Walks
American Academy of Pediatrics
American Academy of Pediatrics, Arizona Chapter
American Academy of Pediatrics, Arkansas Chapter
American Academy of Pediatrics, Delaware Chapter
American Academy of Pediatrics, Florida Chapter
American Academy of Pediatrics, Georgia Chapter
American Academy of Pediatrics, Idaho Chapter
American Academy of Pediatrics, New York Chapter 2
American Academy of Pediatrics, New York Chapter 3
American Academy of Pediatrics, Pennsylvania Chapter
American Academy of Pediatrics, Virginia Chapter
American Academy of Pediatrics, Washington D.C. Chapter
American Academy of Pediatrics, West Virginia Chapter
Bicycle Alliance of Minnesota
Bicycle Coalition of Greater
Philadelphia
Bicycle Colorado
Bicycle Helmet Safety Institute
Bike Cleveland
Bike LA
Bike Pittsburgh
BikeWalkKC
BikeWalkNC
BioInjury, LLC
California Bicycle Coalition
Center for Auto Safety
Center for Digital Democracy
Center for Economic Integrity
Center for Economic Justice
Center for Justice & Democracy
Center for Pet Safety
Child Care Aware of Virginia
Claire Bear Foundation
Consumer Action
Consumers for Auto Reliability and Safety
Cribs for Kids
Derrick Stone Safe Sleep
Detroit Greenways Coalition
Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund
Earth Ethics, Inc.
Epilepsy Foundation of America Families for Safe Streets
First Candle
Food Empowerment Project
Government Information Watch
Green America
Hawai'i Bicycling League
Healthy Babies Bright Futures
HealthyWomen
Homestretch Nonprofit Housing Corp.
Housing and Economic Rights Advocates
Just Strategy
Keeping Babies Safe
Kids and Car Safety
League of American Bicyclists
Living Streets Alliance
Local Motion
Main Street Academies
Maine People's Alliance
Massachusetts Bicycle Coalition
Missourians for Responsible
Transportation
Napa County Bicycle Coalition
National Bicycle Dealers Association
National Center for Health Research
National Center for Healthy Housing
National Coalition for Safer Roads
National Drowning Prevention Alliance
National Safety Council
Oregon Consumer Justice
Oregon Consumer League
Parents Against Tip-Overs
PediMom LLC
People Power United
Pool and Hot Tub Alliance
Responsible Sourcing Network Ride Illinois
Safe Infant Sleep
Safe Kids Worldwide
Safety Research & Strategies
Sciencecorps
Shepard’s Watch
Stop Drowning Now
StopDistractions.org
That Water Bead Lady
The National Carbon Monoxide Awareness Association
The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI)
The Wisconsin Bike Federation Together We Thrive, Inc.
Trailnet
Truck Safety Coalition
U.S. Public Interest Research Group
U.S. Swim School Association
United States Swim School Association
Unleaded Kids
Virginia Citizens Consumer Council
Washington Area Bicyclist Association
West Virginia Citizen Action Group
Women in Fire
Justin Raphael, Product Safety Advocate
Kelli Schweigart, Product Safety Advocate
Kristina Knapp, Product Safety Advocate
Mary Jagim, Product Safety Advocate
Mayra Romero-Ferman, Product Safety Advocate
Melissa Wandall, Product Safety Advocate
Michael Haggard, Product Safety Advocate
Nina Batista, Product Safety Advocate
Pamela Gilbert, Product Safety Advocate
Paul Susca, Product Safety Advocate
Sandeep Khatua, Product Safety Advocate
Sara Thompson, Parent Advocate Sofia Diaz, Product Safety Advocate
Stephen Hargarten MD MPH, Product Safety Advocate
Taylor Bethard, Parent Advocate
1 Consumer Product Safety Commission. “About Us.” www.cpsc.gov/About-CPSC. Accessed 14 March 2025.
2 Consumer Product Safety Commission. “CPSC Celebrates 50 Years of Making Consumer Safety Our Mission.” 15 March 2022, www.cpsc.gov/Newsroom/News-Releases/2022/CPSC-Celebrates-50-Years-of-Making Consumer-Safety-our-Mission. 3 Id. 4 Id. 5 Id. 6 Id. 7 Id. 8 Consumer Product Safety Commission. “Performance Budget Request to Congress Fiscal Year 2026.” 25 June 2025. https://www.cpsc.gov/s3fs-public/RCA
CPSC_Fiscal_Year_2026_Performance_Budget_Request_to_Congress-OS
0380.pdf?VersionId=ZMJjXl09MRGCTSUZuW9APLd2Ds2EisTn. 9 Id. 10 Department of Health & Human Services. “Fiscal Year 2026 Budget in Brief.” https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/fy-2026-budget-in-brief.pdf. Accessed 3 June 2025.; Consumer Product Safety Commission. “Performance Budget Request to Congress Fiscal Year 2026.” 30 May 2025. https://www.cpsc.gov/s3fs-public/FY-2026-Budget
Request.pdf?VersionId=VduKUr.mXsklMpI_I8jEQLYNeL8g2Xwk#:~:text=Page%202- ,FY%202026%20Budget%20Overview,%24135.00%20million%20and%20459%20FTEs. 11 Consumer Product Safety Commission. “Performance Budget Request to Congress Fiscal Year 2026.” 30 May 2025. https://www.cpsc.gov/s3fs-public/FY-2026-Budget
Request.pdf?VersionId=VduKUr.mXsklMpI_I8jEQLYNeL8g2Xwk#:~:text=Page%202- ,FY%202026%20Budget%20Overview,%24135.00%20million%20and%20459%20FTEs. 12 Id.
13 Id. 14 15 U.S.C. Chapter 47; 16 CFR Chapter II. 15 15 U.S.C. Chapter 47. 16 Congressional Research Service. “Department of Health and Human Services: FY 2025 Budget Request.” 23 May 2024. www.congress.gov/crs-product/R48060.
17 Consumer Product Safety Commission. “Consumer Product-Related Injuries and Deaths in the United States: Estimated Injuries Occurring in 2020 and Estimated Deaths Occurring in 2019.” September 2021. https://www.cpsc.gov/s3fs
public/ConsumerProductRelatedInjuriesandDeathsintheUnitedStates.pdf?VersionId=bPIYVZJhOwvBRyFm2vlm0O 36tN7P0AKm; Consumer Product Safety Commission. “Strategic Plan 2018-2022.” https://www.cpsc.gov/s3fs public/CPSC_2018-2022_Strategic_Plan.pdf. Accessed 15 March 2025.
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