Americans’ Safety Under Threat: Trump Nominee Nancy Beck Poised to Take the Helm of Consumer Product Safety Commission
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: May 19, 2020
| Contact: | Thomas Fox, Center for Environmental Health, tom@ceh.org Ruben F. Diaz, Center for Environmental Health, ruben@ceh.org |
OAKLAND, CA—In the latest wave of assaults on Americans’ health and safety protections for the benefit of the nation’s worst polluters, President Trump has nominated former chief lobbyist for the chemical industry Nancy Beck to lead the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). Beck’s nomination follows a pattern of nominating the worst people possible to lead our federal agencies, literally placing foxes to guard the regulatory hen houses. Nancy Beck has a long history of using her position to dismantle regulations to advance the chemical industry’s interests. Beck currently serves as the Toxics Czar at the Environmental Protection Agency where she has backtracked consumer protections from hazardous chemicals while weakening environmental laws and exposing millions of Americans to more cancer-causing chemicals in our food, water, and consumer products. Although technically still at the EPA, Beck has been detailed to the White House where she played a role in helping to suppress CDC guidance on relaxing restrictions imposed to slow the spread of COVID-19, leading Senator Blumenthal to call for her nomination to be withdrawn. Senator Cantwell has requested a list of documentation to be produced due to serious concerns about her fitness to serve as Chair of the CPSC, including more background information as to what her current role is in the Trump Administration.
With the Senate Commerce, Science, and Technology Committee planning to hold a hearing on her confirmation sometime soon, the Center for Environmental Health is strongly condemning her nomination and urging lawmakers to do the same:
“Nancy Beck cares about polluters and not people. Her track record should make it abundantly clear that she is the worst possible choice as Chair of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, the agency charged with ensuring that consumer products, like toys, cribs, furniture, household chemicals, cleaning products, and clothing are safe for consumers, including children. A former chief lobbyist for the American Chemistry Council, she was only appointed to the EPA because of a dangerous loophole allowing her to evade the ethics pledge meant to prevent White House officials from working on issues they have lobbied on in the previous two-year period. Her very presence in the U.S. government is a calculated and dangerous concession to an industry that has been secretly waging war on our bodies for generations. Her time at the EPA has been aimed at eroding our public health protections so that powerful chemical companies can poison Americans—from suppressing the truth about the toxic threat of PFAS chemicals to weakening regulations meant to protect Americans from these carcinogenic “forever chemicals” that stay in the human body for a lifetime. We urge every Republican lawmaker considering support for her nomination to ask yourself, every time you lift a glass of water to your lips to drink, if it’s worth it? If your health, the health of the American public, is worth cowing down to industry’s demands. Because the repercussions of your vote won’t be felt in just your body, but the bodies of every child and adult across the Country. To our supporters, we ask that you join us in calling on our elected leaders to swiftly and strongly oppose Nancy Beck’s nomination.”