The U.S. Capitol on Sunday, Jan. 21. Credit: Mike Scarcella/ ALM

The Trump administration is considering Peter Feldman, a senior counsel on the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee, to fill a vacancy on the Consumer Product Safety Commission, according to sources familiar with the matter.

Feldman, a Republican who has spent the last seven years on Capitol Hill, would take the seat Commissioner Joseph Mohorovic vacated last year before joining the regulatory group at Dentons.

The White House was expected to announce a product-safety commission nomination by the end of January, according to two sources with knowledge of the timeline. Feldman declined to comment Thursday, as did the White House. A Commerce Committee spokesperson did not return a message seeking comment.

Feldman has taken a lead role in the Senate Commerce Committee's oversight of the product safety commission, which is tasked with protecting consumers from hazardous products and punishing companies that are late to report dangerous defects. In 2017, companies agreed to pay more than $20 million in civil penalties to resolve allegations over late reporting defective products and, in the case of Home Depot's $5.7 million settlement with the agency, selling products that were subject to a recall.

As a Capitol Hill staffer, Feldman could face a smoother path to confirmation than the Trump administration's picks for two other seats on the five-member commission.

Peter Feldman (April 2010). Photo by Diego M. Radzinschi/NATIONAL LAW JOURNAL

Those nominees—Ann Marie Buerkle, the agency's acting chairwoman, and Dana Baiocco, a partner at Jones Day—were both approved by the committee last year on party-line votes. Because they were not confirmed by the end of 2017, they were renominated earlier this year. Last week, the Senate Commerce Committee again voted 14-13 to approve both nominations.

Trump elevated Buerkle, a Republican commissioner appointed under the Obama administration, to the role of acting chairwoman in February 2017. Since then, Buerkle has been only a nominal leader as Democrats prolonged their majority and left her on the losing side of votes approving multimillion-dollar penalties and advancing new regulations. Democrats control the agency 3-1 now, blocking any deregulatory push.

Feldman, if he is nominated and confirmed, would serve out the remainder of Mohorovic's term, which is set to expire in October 2019. Like Buerkle, who received a nomination last year for a fresh seven-year stint that would begin in October 2018, Feldman could be renominated before the fall of 2019 for a new term.

Feldman joined the Senate Commerce Committee staff in 2011 with a background in Republican politics. He formerly was a legal associate on the National Republican Congressional Committee, and he worked on U.S. Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign.

A graduate of American University's Washington College of Law, he had previously been a legislative assistant for former U.S. Sen. Mike DeWine, an Ohio Republican who is now running in the state's gubernatorial race. If he wins the nomination, he could face Richard Cordray, the former director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, in a rematch of the 2010 Ohio attorney general's race.

 

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