After more than five months of silence regarding its choices to lead the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (“CPSC”), the Biden Administration has now unveiled all three of its CPSC nominees in less than two weeks, with its July 13 announcement of President Biden’s intent to nominate Richard Trumka, Jr., currently General Counsel and Staff Director at the House Oversight and Investigations Committee’s Subcommittee on Economic and Consumer Policy.

On July 2, the White House had announced it would nominate Alexander Hoehn-Saric, Chief Counsel for Communications and Consumer Protection with the House Energy & Commerce, to be a CPSC Commissioner and the agency’s chairperson, and Mary Boyle, currently CPSC’s Executive Director as a Commissioner, as well.

As we wrote previously, the Commission currently has one vacant seat with another opening this October with Commissioner Elliot Kaye’s departure after his hold-over year, and a third available Commission slot with the end of Acting Chairperson Bob Adler’s term. We assumed that Hoehn-Saric and Boyle would be slotted for the open seat and Kaye’s; the White House has confirmed that assumption with its formal submission of their nominations to the Senate. That means Trumka would be slotted for Adler’s seat. Assuming the three nominees are confirmed, the Commissioners and their terms would be as follows through the current Biden Administration:

The Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation will need to hold one or more hearings to consider the three nominees. With the Senate’s August recess looming, a hearing in the next three weeks seems unlikely, but is possible. A Committee vote on their nominations would come after a hearing, and a floor vote some time after that. With Kaye slated to depart October 27, and Adler expressing a desire to step down rather than stay for a holdover year, we anticipate action this fall on all three nominees.