A recent Senate nomination hearing indicated that the pending nominations to the Consumer Product Safety Commission (“CPSC”) and National Transportation Safety Board (“NTSB”) are likely to proceed without significant opposition, while also highlighting technology-related congressional interests and oversight priorities in consumer product safety and transportation regulation.
On June 24, 2026, the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science & Transportation held a nominations hearing for a handful of agencies, including the CPSC and NTSB: Karen Sessions and Brien Lorenze as first-time commissioners to the CPSC, and Thomas Chapman for a second term as a commissioner on the NTSB.
The hearing —which lasted less than an hour and drew little participation from Committee members, —featured questions from only three Senators. The Senators’ inquiries of the NTSB and CPSC nominees remained friendly, without aggressive questioning. First-time nominees Sessions and Lorenze presented opening remarks detailing their prior experience and interest in product safety. Mr. Lorenze described his work as the current Executive Director of the CPSC, emphasizing that as a commissioner he would continue to leverage data analytics and technology to advance hazard detection and enforcement. Ms. Sessions highlighted her prior leadership roles across government and the private sector, saying that these experiences have prepared her to tackle challenges facing the CPSC, such as complex global supply chains and the growth of e-commerce.
While brief, the hearing did highlight several significant themes in agency enforcement priorities and congressional oversight.
Both Ms. Sessions and Mr. Lorenze identified the safety risks of emerging technologies as a priority for the CPSC. Committee Chairman Ted Cruz (R-TX) asked Mr. Lorenze about the CPSC’s authority to regulate products with AI components, asking whether CPSC should focus only on the physical components of AI products. Lorenze emphasized that the CPSC must remain vigilant to such products, but agreed with Senator Cruz that CPSC only has authority over physical injuries from such products caused by physical components.
Although Senator Cruz emphasized limits on the CPSC's authority over non-physical harms, the discussion suggests that AI-enabled consumer products will remain subject to enforcement so long as they present traditional product safety risks.
This exchange mirrors CPSC Chairman Feldman’s position with respect to the Commission’s authority over harms from AI-enabled products. In a recent speech, Feldman stated that CPSC has authority “to address substantial product hazards that present unreasonable risks of physical injury associated with toys, including toys that incorporate AI systems,” but “CPSC is not a content regulator, nor is it equipped or authorized to evaluate non-physical hazards, such as mental, emotional, or psychological harm, or physical harm that is not proximately caused by a product’s physical characteristics or operation.”
Also on the theme of technology, Chairman Cruz asked NTSB nominee Thomas Chapman about the need for a national policy for autonomous vehicles. Mr. Chapman enthusiastically supported such a policy. Although the NTSB lacks the rulemaking and enforcement powers of the Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, it has broad investigative and recommendation authority, and has conducted several investigations of autonomous vehicle accidents.
Chairman Cruz also used the nominations hearing as an opportunity to advocate for passage of the ROTOR Act (S.2503), which would increase requirements for aircraft tracking through the use of ADS-B In equipment, which receives and processes Automatic Dependent Surveillance–Broadcast signals to track the location of nearby aircraft. The Senate has passed the ROTOR Act, of which Senator Cruz is a co-sponsor, but it failed a House vote in February 2026. NTSB nominee Chapman supported the bill, which was based on the NTSB’s recommendations arising from the investigation into the January 2025 mid-air collision between an Army helicopter and commercial airplane over Reagan National Airport in Washington that left 67 people dead.
Lorenze noted that under Commissioner Feldman’s leadership, CPSC has increased use of data in identifying products that cause unreasonable risks of serious injury or death. He said that monthly recalls are up 73%, unilateral warnings are up 159%, product screens at ports of entry are up 20% and monthly takedowns are up 208%. Senator Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-DE) was supportive of Mr. Lorenze’s statements and endorsed consideration of the Consumer Safety Technology Act (H.R.1770), which she said would be introduced in the Senate this summer. Senator Blunt Rochester described the bill as a bipartisan effort to explore how artificial intelligence and data analytics could help the CPSC identify emerging hazards and better target unsafe products.
While Sessions, Lorenze, and Chapman await Senate confirmation, the brief nature of the hearing points toward the Committee’s lack of substantive issues with their nominations. For manufacturers, retailers, and technology companies, the hearing provides two key takeaways. First, congressional and agency attention remains focused on the use of data analytics and AI to identify product hazards and target enforcement resources. Second, and more importantly, if the two nominees are timely confirmed, CPSC will again have a quorum for the first time since August 2025. The lack of a quorum has hindered CPSC’s ability to conduct legislative rulemaking and initiate mandatory recall proceedings, among other agency actions. With a three-member Commission, the agency could again exercise the full range of its powers and enforcement activity may surge..
If you have any questions concerning the material discussed in this client alert, please contact the members of our Litigation and Investigations, Product Safety, Investigations, and recalls or Transportation practices.
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