MEMORANDUM

TO: U.S. Senate Financial Services and General Government Appropriations

Subcommittee, Minority
FROM: U.S. Senate Commerce, Science, & Transportation Committee, Minority
DATE: June 29, 2023
RE: Fiscal Year 2024 Appropriations

INTRODUCTION

As the Senate Appropriations Committee prepares the fiscal year 2024 funding bills, the Senate
Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation minority (Committee) would like to
provide its views and recommendations regarding a few of the inclusions in President Biden’s
Fiscal Year (FY) 2024 budget request. Not all agencies within the Commerce Committee’s
jurisdiction are reflected in this memorandum.

CONSUMER PRODUCT SAFETY COMMISSION

The Consumer Product Safety Commission’s (CPSC) FY 2024 budget request of $212.6 million
would be a significant 39% increase from the FY 2023 enacted level of $152.5 million. The
Committee opposes any additional funding for the CPSC while the agency continues its blatant,
unlawful escapade to ban gas stoves in the United States. As you are likely aware, CPSC
Commissioner Richard Trumka, Jr. has called gas stoves a “hidden hazard” and pushed the
CPSC to pursue a ban (or de facto ban) of the popular household appliance. Notably, on March
1, 2023, the CPSC approved a “Request for Information” (RFI) to “solicit information from the
public on chronic hazards that might be associated with gas ranges and proposed solutions to
those potential hazards.” This is the clear first step in the CPSC administrative process to ban gas
stoves. With that understanding, the CPSC brazenly requests additional funding to hire 22
additional staff to investigate “new, existing, and hidden” hazards, including “chronic hazards,”
which is the exact language the CPSC uses to describe its ongoing review of gas stoves.  

Ranking Member Cruz sent letters dated January 25th and March 15th to CPSC Chairman
Alexander Hoehn-Saric and Commissioner Trumka seeking the details on the agency’s
overreach and ongoing regulatory efforts regarding gas stoves. The letters also requested
documents, but the agency has not been fully responsive or compliant with these requests.

On May 16, 2023, the Committee’s Ranking Member Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Chairman James
Comer (R-KY) of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee sent a joint letter to
Chairman Hoehn-Saric noting missing responsive documents and subsequently sent another
request to ensure complete production of these documents. The CPSC has only just provided the
Committee and House Oversight Committee with documents, which are currently under review.
Consequently, the Committee does not recommend consideration of additional CPSC funding
that would empower this agency while, at a minimum, the Committee continues its investigation
of the agency’s efforts to ban gas stoves.

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The Committee also does not support the CPSC’s additional funding request for diversity,
equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, which includes an intent to hire four additional full time
equivalent (FTE) positions for DEI efforts, noting that the CPSC should be focused on carrying
out its statutory mandate to protect the safety of the American public from consumer product
death or injury, regardless of demographics, rather than wasting taxpayer dollars in pursuit of
undefined workforce “equity.”

Finally, given the justifiable mistrust that many Americans have with the CPSC after the
agency’s alarming effort to ban gas stoves, the Committee urges your committee to preserve any
existing riders that curtail CPSC’s regulatory authority at this time.

FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION

The Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) FY 2024 budget request of $590 million would be a
37% increase from FY 2023 enacted levels. According to the FTC, the purpose of the requested
increase is to “maintain its high level of performance” by hiring an additional 310 FTE positions
to further the agency’s enforcement and rulemaking activities.

The Committee recognizes the FTC’s important statutory mission to prevent unfair methods of
competition and protect consumers from unfair or deceptive acts or practices as well as the
necessity to keep pace with new technologies in an evolving marketplace. However, in
considering the FTC’s request for additional funds, the Committee cannot ignore the current state
of affairs at the FTC with a leadership that is taking the agency down an alarming path of
regulatory activism and overreach. Former Republican FTC Commissioner Christine Wilson
stated the following when announcing her resignation: “I refuse to give [the Chairwoman] any
further hint of legitimacy by remaining.”1 It is shocking that in the most recent Federal Employee
Viewpoint Survey only 49% of FTC staff (down from 87% during the prior administration) agree
that “senior leaders maintain high standards of honesty and integrity.” The Committee has
recently started a probe into falling employee morale at the FTC.2   

Healthy debate and deliberation rely on dissenting views and representation. However, there are
currently no Republican commissioners on the five-member FTC, which makes FTC attempts to
aggrandize power and authority even more disconcerting. The Committee opposes the FTC’s
request for additional funds to pursue “competition rulemakings” as well as to hire additional
attorneys to pursue “newly invigorated rulemaking authorities.”3 The Committee is alarmed by
the FTC’s recent rulemaking binge, which is reminiscent of the agency’s flagrant actions in the
1970s that led Congress to temporarily shut down the agency. The Committee also rejects the
view that Congress has ever given the FTC unfair methods of competition rulemaking and is
concerned by the agnecy’s expansive interpretation; such action would enable the FTC to

1
Christine Wilson, Why I’m Resigning as an FTC Commissioner, The Wall Street Journal (February 14, 2023),
https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-im-resigning-from-the-ftc-commissioner-ftc-lina-khan-regulation-rule-violation-
antitrust-339f115d
2
Letter from Ranking Member Cruz to FTC Chairwoman Khan (June 19, 2023),
https://www.commerce.senate.gov/2023/6/sen-cruz-demands-answers-from-ftc-chair-lina-khan-over-toxic-culture-
at-agency
3
Federal Trade Commission Congressional Budget Justification Fiscal Year 2024 (March 13, 2023),
https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/p859900fy24cbj.pdf?utm_source=govdelivery

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unconstitutionally regulate whole swaths of the U.S. economy with no congressional policy
judgments. The Committee is highly skeptical that competition rules or the use of “newly
invigorated rulemaking authorities” would comply with the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent
decision in West Virginia v. EPA.  

The FTC’s budget request also seeks additional funding within the Bureau of Competition for
workload increases, including the increased workload surrounding merger enforcement and
substantial merger activity. The Committee would note that the FY 2021 Hart-Scott Rodino
Annual Report shows that despite increased filings and an increase in Second Requests,
enforcement numbers under the current FTC leadership are down compared to the prior
administration. The Committee believes this, in part, is attributed to the FTC leadership’s
abandonment of the bipartisan 2015 Competition Policy Statement, which reflected decades of
legal precedent, including adherence to the consumer welfare standard and the rule of reason,
instead choosing to adopt a competition policy that Commissioner Wilson dubbed an “I Know It
When I See It” approach that could even prohibit conduct that does not violate current antitrust
laws.  

The Committee also struggles to understand the FTC’s claim that it does not have sufficient staff
to pursue its mandate to enforce U.S. laws when it has willingly decided to send the staff it
currently has to Brussels to implement the European Union’s new “consumer protection”
regulations, which primarily target U.S. companies.4 Moreover, it appears that the FTC plans on
using official FTC funds for this mission.5 The FTC’s decision to send officials of the American
government abroad to help enforce another government’s laws raises a plethora of concerns. At
the least, the FTC should focus on its work in the United States before complaining that it lacks
sufficient money while absconding to Brussels.

The Committee believes the FTC could achieve significant cost savings and use its current
resources effectively if it simply refused to prioritize cases that seek to advance overreaching
legal theories that are unlikely to be sustained in court. Instead, the FTC should focus on
enforcement actions that prioritize protection of the American consumer and encourage
competition in the marketplace. For these reasons, the Committee does not support the
Commission’s request for a budget increase.

FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) FY 2024 budget requested no additional

funding for the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), a $14.2 billion low-income broadband
subsidy program funded in the Infrastructure, Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA). The ACP was the
successor to the Emergency Broadband Benefit (EBB), a program created specifically to
subsidize broadband service for low-income consumers during the pandemic when Congress
thought the funds might help to ensure connectivity for children during a prolonged period of

4
Justice Department, Federal Trade Commission and European Commission Hold Third U.S.-EU Joint Technology
Competition Policy Dialogue (March 30, 2023), https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-federal-trade-
commission-and-european-commission-hold-third-us-eu-joint-0
5
Federal Trade Commission Congressional Budget Justification Fiscal Year 2024, p. 65 (March 13, 2023),
https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/p859900fy24cbj.pdf

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isolation from school and to mitigate lost household income from significantly high
unemployment. Despite the pandemic being over and the FCC not submitting a request for
additional taxpayer money, FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel has now called for new
appropriated funds for ACP.6 Unfortunately, the program has been plagued by waste, fraud, and
abuse, and data indicates that the subsidies have been ineffective in promoting broadband
adoption among low-income Americans.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) and the FCC’s Office of Inspector General (OIG)
have issued multiple warnings about widespread fraud in the ACP. On January 18, 2023, the
GAO released a report revealing that the ACP is not effectively detecting fraud. The report found
the program’s enrollment database had duplicate subscribers (over 2,500), partial or mismatched
Social Security numbers (874,000 or over 10%), subscribers allegedly receiving fixed broadband
at post office and commercial mailboxes, subscribers with broadband providers’ retail locations
as their primary or mailing addresses, and missing or invalid address information (over 289,000
with missing secondary address information and over 514,000 with invalid secondary address
information).

Further, on September 8, 2022, the FCC’s OIG sent an advisory regarding a scheme where the
same qualifying child’s information was being used to fraudulently enroll households in the
program. The most egregious example identified in the advisory was that more than 1,000
Oklahoma households were enrolled based on the eligibility of a single benefit qualifying person,
a 4-year old child who receives Medicaid benefits. Failures on the part of the FCC may be to
blame for this rampant abuse; according to a recent letter from the FCC OIG, the FCC, “failed to
implement several important recommendations intended to enhance and safeguard the integrity
of the [subsidies].7

In addition to fraud, data so far suggests that the program has been ineffective and that the vast
majority of tax dollars have gone to those who already subscribed to broadband prior to
receiving the subsidy. Earlier this year, for example, the FCC reported that in surveying ACP
recipients only 16% of respondents indicated they had no internet subscription prior to
subscribing with ACP dollars.8 The CEO of a broadband provider that is the country’s largest
recipient of both EBB and ACP funds recently confirmed that “[t]he vast majority of the [ACP]
customers we have were already existing customers who are now benefiting from that benefit.”9
Simply put, through ACP, taxpayers are predominately subsidizing people who were already
buying Internet on their own dime. Therefore, the Committee urges you to reject any requests for
additional funding for this program at this time.

6
House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Communications and Technology Holds Hearing on Federal
Communications Commission Oversight (June 21, 2023), https://plus.cq.com/doc/congressionaltranscripts-
7776817?0
7
FCC IG Response Letter to Chairwoman Rodgers and Ranking Member Cruz (May 30, 2023),
https://s3.amazonaws.com/warren-news.com/pdf/880931
8
See FCC response to GAO in GAO, Affordable Broadband: FCC Could Improve Performance Goals and
Measures, Consumer Outreach, and Fraud Risk Management, GAO-23-105399 (Washington, D.C.: January 18,
2023).
9
Nicole Ferraro, FCC data shows Charter is largest ACP provider at $910M, Light Reading (May 1, 2023),
https://www.lightreading.com/broadband/fcc-data-shows-charter-is-largest-acp-provider-at-$910m/d/d-id/784641.

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 CONCLUSION

For the above reasons, Ranking Member Cruz asks the U.S. Senate Financial Services and
General Government Appropriations Subcommittee to reject the aforementioned administration
requests when crafting the FY 2024 appropriations bill.