U.S. Consumer Agency Gets A Reprieve

U.S. Supreme Court rebuffs a challenge to the job security of members of the U.S. Consumer Protect Safety Commission by another supposed consumer protection group, Consumers' Research.

The threat to the U.S. Consumer Protection Safety Commission came from an unlikely source, Consumers’ Research.

Years ago most major newspapers had a “consumer reporter,” usually an investigative reporter, who reported on consumer fraud.

When I worked at a daily newspaper in Connecticut in the 1980s, the consumer reporter beat was discontinued after the formerly family-owned newspaper was sold to Goodson Newspaper Group, the TV game show production outfit. Everything that interfered with profits was anathema to Goodson, which owned the paper from 1986 to 1989.

In time, one by one, newspaper consumer reporters got the ax. This left little coverage of issues affecting consumers. Today, newspapers struggle to survive and there is even less incentive for publishers to irritate potential advertisers.

So it is good news for consumers that the U.S. Supreme Court decided Monday not to hear a challenge to the job protections guaranteed to the five members of the U.S. Consumer Protect Safety Commission (CSPC). It means one of the last real consumer protection agencies lives on!

Ironically, the challenge to the CPSC was mounted by another consumer ‘protection’ group, Consumers’ Research.

The existential threat to the CPSC came from an unexpected source - Consumers’ Research, which became the nation’s first independent organization to test and report on consumer products when it was founded in 1929 by the co-authors of “100,000,000 Guinea Pigs,” a book exposing food and drug risks.

Consumer Research apparently devolved into a conservative political advocacy group backed by dark money in 2020 when a former Federalist Society official, Will Hild, became its executive director.

The Washington Post reports that Consumers’ Research, based in Virginia, paid $1.6 million to the national law firm, Jones Day, to file the lawsuit against CPSC. The lawsuit challenged a 1972 federal law stating the CPSC’s five commissioners can only be removed for “neglect of duty or malfeasance.” Consumers’ Research claimed this is a violation of the U.S. Constitution’s principle of separation of powers clause.

Without job security, the five CPSC commissioners’ could be removed for political reasons, such as when politicians with their hands out receive complaints from industry lobbyists.

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It is puzzling that Consumers’ Research effectively sought to weaken CPSC, which performs a critical role in American society. A major part of the CPSC’s mission is to learn about product hazards and make products safer.