Blumenthal & Udall Sound the Alarm on Trump's Dangerous Nominee for Top Consumer Watchdog Position

[WASHINGTON, D.C.] – Ahead of tomorrow’s confirmation hearing for Nancy Beck to be Chair of the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), U.S. Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Tom Udall (D-NM) held a virtual press conference with people whose lives have been profoundly harmed by toxic chemical exposures and consumer product dangers. During the video call, the senators and other speakers discussed the devastation that follows when government fails to protect the public from known hazards, leading to sickness and death.

“Dr. Nancy Beck fits very well the pattern of the Trump Administration, which is to appoint people who have opposed the very mission of the agency that they are being appointed to lead,” said Blumenthal, Ranking Member of the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Manufacturing, Trade & Consumer Protection. “Dr. Beck’s record is antithetical to the core mission of the Consumer Product Safety Commission. She is anti-environment. She is anti-science. She is anti-consumer.”

“The nomination of Dr. Nancy Beck to lead the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission is one of the worst examples yet of President Trump putting the fox in charge of guarding the henhouse,” said Udall, lead author of the 2016 Toxic Substances Control Act reform. “Let’s put this simply: someone who has spent her career endangering the safety of America’s consumers should not be our top consumer watchdog. As a scientist, Dr. Beck should know better. She should follow the science. But instead, at every turn, she has sidelined science to benefit industry – and hurt the health of American families in the process. The American consumer is entitled to leadership at the Consumer Product Safety Commission that will protect their health, safety, and lives. Dr. Beck does not meet that standard.”

Throughout her career at the Environmental Protection Agency, the Office of Management and Budget, and the American Chemistry Council, Beck has championed and implemented policies that have left the public exposed to toxic chemicals, including PFAS, asbestos, lead, TCE and methylene chloride, that pose life-threatening health risks to Americans.

Today’s video call included remarks from:

• Emily Donovan, the co-founder of Clean Cape Fear, and a resident of Brunswick County, North Carolina. Clean Cape Fear is an environmental advocacy group focused on PFAS. As a resident of Wilmington, Emily lives down river from the Chemours factory in Fayetteville, which has contaminated her tap water with PFAS and other pollutants. Emily’s husband and many of their close friends suffer from cancers, including leukemia and brain cancer.
• Pamela Miller, the executive director of Alaska Community Action on Toxics and co-chair of the International Pollutants Elimination Network. Pamela grew up near Ohios’ Dover Chemical Company plant, which manufactured a plastic-softening chemicals known as short-chain chlorinated paraffins, or SCCPs, that have been banned in many countries because it harms neurological development in children. Since moving to Alaska, she has also fought to expose and combat pollutants in the Arctic.
• Jerry Ensminger, a retired Marine Corps master and long-time resident of Camp LeJeune in North Carolina. Jerry lost his daughter Janey, in 1985, at the age of nine from leukemia after she was exposed to toxic chemicals while living on base.
• Brian Wynne, Chairman of the Drew Wynne Foundation. Brian’s younger brother, Drew, died after being exposed to methylene chloride in the product he had purchased at Lowe’s to strip the floors in his new business. Drew was thirty-one years old when he died.
• Janet McGee, a founding member of Parents Against Tip Overs. Janet’s son, Teddy, was almost two-years-old when an Ikea “Malm” dresser toppled over and killed him. Teddy’s death occurred despite a repair program that Ikea and the CPSC announced in July 2015 after two similar deaths in 2014.
• Crystal Ellis, a founding member of Parents Against Tip Overs. Crystal’s son, Camden, was killed when he opened the draw of an Ikea dresser than then fell on top of him. He died several days later, two days after his second birthday.
• Dr. Gretchen Goldman, Research Director at the Center for Science and Democracy with the Union of Concerned Scientists.

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