On Wednesday, the U.S. Senate confirmed Mary Boyle as the fifth commissioner of the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). Her term will run through October 2025.

The Commissioner:

Boyle’s new role is her latest position in a 10-year career with the CPSC.

  • She joined the agency first as an attorney in the office of the general counsel before becoming general counsel herself, and most recently served as its executive director.
  • She is the second executive director to move to become a commissioner in the last few years. Former executive director Elliot Kaye served as a commissioner in 2014-2021.

In a statement following her nomination, Boyle said, “Consumers expect products to be safe. They deserve products to be safe. It is our responsibility to make sure that happens, using all of the tools at our disposal to do so: through recalls, rulemaking, litigation, regulatory enforcement, work with voluntary standards organizations, and timely communication of information to the public.”

Boyle’s history prior to joining the commission includes:

  • Developing affordable housing programs for the city of Gaithersburg, Maryland.
  • Working in private practice at a major international law firm.
  • Serving on Capitol Hill as a staff member for the late Congressman Steve Solarz and for the Asia and Pacific Subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

She received her B.A. in English from Georgetown University in 1985 and her law degree from the University of Virginia in 1991.

The Confirmation:

Boyle was nominated to the commissioner’s seat by President Biden in July 2021. Her nomination was held up in the Senate’s Committee on Commerce, Science, & Transportation due to concerns over the CPSC’s unauthorized disclosure of company and consumer information in 2019 and staffing the agency’s import surveillance operations during the pandemic.

The 117th Congress ended in December 2021 with Boyle’s nomination still in committee. It was returned to White House and President Biden renominated her earlier this year.

Boyle’s nomination passed out of committee in May, following a tie-breaking vote by Vice President Harris. Her confirmation vote by the full Senate passed, 50 to 48.

The Commission:

With Boyle’s confirmation, the CPSC has its full roster of five commissioners for the first time since 2019. She joins Commissioners Dana Baiocco, Peter Feldman and Richard Trumka, Jr., and Chair Alexander Hoehn-Saric.

The CPSC is charged with protecting the public from unreasonable risks of injury or death associated with the use of the thousands of types of consumer products under the agency's jurisdiction. PPAI works closely with the CPSC in ensuring product safety for promotional products and providing education to the industry. Former CPSC acting chairs Bob Adler and Ann Marie Buerkle have both been keynote speakers at numerous PPAI Product Responsibility Summits in recent years.