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Nearly a year after she was first nominated, Mary Boyle was confirmed Wednesday to be a Commissioner of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). When she takes office for a term that will run through October 2025, Boyle will bring the Commission to its full five-member strength for the first time since 2019.

Boyle has been at CPSC for more than a decade, serving as an attorney in the Office of General Counsel (OGC), as General Counsel herself, and currently as the agency’s Executive Director. A graduate of Georgetown University and the University of Maryland, Boyle is the second CPSC Executive Director to join the Commission in recent years, following former Chair Elliot Kaye, who served from 2014 to 2021.

Boyle’s nomination had been held up in the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, & Transportation amid Republicans’ concerns about her role in the agency’s unauthorized disclosures of company and consumer information in 2019 and in staffing of CPSC’s import surveillance operations amid COVID-19 disruptions. The first session of the 117th Congress ended in December 2021 with Boyle’s nomination still in committee. Her nomination was returned to the White House, and President Biden swiftly renominated her in early 2022.

The Commerce Committee failed to report Boyle’s nomination favorably on a 14-14 party-line vote in March. Her nomination was ultimately discharged from committee on May 12 by a straight party-line vote, with Vice President Kamala Harris breaking the 50-50 tie. Republican opposition followed Boyle to the floor with a filibuster that was broken by a 49-47 cloture vote on June 16, 2022. Wednesday’s confirmation vote was 50-48.

Boyle joins Chair Alexander Hoehn-Saric and Commissioner Richard Trumka, Jr., forming a Biden-administration majority on the Commission alongside Trump appointees Dana Baiocco and Peter Feldman. With Boyle’s confirmation, CPSC’s leadership appears set for the next two-plus years. The Commissioners’ terms are as follows:

Biden Consumer Product Safety Commission
Commissioner Term Through
Dana Baiocco (R) 2024
Mary Boyle (D) 2025
Peter Feldman (R) 2026
Alexander Hoehn-Saric (D, Chair) 2027
Richard Trumka, Jr. (D) 2028