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Washington — The Supreme Court on Monday turned away a challenge to the structure of the Consumer Product Safety Commission and a restriction on the president’s ability to remove its five commissioners, leaving in place a lower court ruling that upheld that protection.
The dispute followed the Supreme Court’s 2020 decision invalidating the structure of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which was led by a director who could only be removed by the president for “inefficiency, neglect of duty or malfeasance in office.” The court’s conservative majority ruled that violated the separation of powers, and its director had to be removable by the president at will.
It’s also the latest in a series of cases that have challenged the power of federal agencies, which the Supreme Court has sought to rein in through a string of decisions. The most significant of those rulings came in June, when the conservative majority overturned a 40-year-old decision that said courts must defer to an agency’s reasonable interpretation of an ambiguous law passed by Congress.
This dispute raises separation of powers concerns arising from the president’s ability to remove members of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, or CPSC, an independent government agency that oversees the safety of consumer products from medicines to toys to clothing.
The five-member panel has the power to ban certain products or issue recalls, set safety standards and pursue enforcement proceedings, including civil penalties against companies for violating those standards.
