Jeff Overley has a report in Law360 (behind a paywall), Knives Out For Another Pro-Agency Landmark After Chevron, about how Consumers Research is seeking cert to bring its constitutional attack on the Consumer Product Safety Commission to the Supreme Court after even the Fifth Circuit upheld the CPSC’s constitutionality. CPSC commissioners can’t be removed without cause, and Consumers’ Research argues that the Supreme Court’s Humprey’s Executor decision, which upheld the FTC against a similar challenge in 1935, does not save the CPSC. Right-wing groups and politicians also urged the Court to take the case.
For those curious about why an organization with consumers in the name would attack an agency that protects consumers, the article reports
* * * From 2017 to 2020, the group’s annual revenue ranged from about $500,000 to $835,000, according to IRS filings. But in 2021, when it sued the CPSC, it raked in more than $8 million, and in 2022 it took in more than $10 million.
The IRS filings do not disclose the source of that income. Will Hild, the executive director of Consumers’ Research, and McGahn did not respond to an email seeking comment for this article.
Which makes me wonder whether its funding comes from industry sources or right-wing groups.
