Independent agencies protect Americans and their communities.
By Michael Sozan, J.D.
Senior Fellow, Democracy Policy
The Center for American Progress
By Hayley Durudogan, J.D.
Senior Policy Analyst
The Center for American Progress
Introduction
The federal government’s independent agencies play a vital and often underappreciated role in safeguarding the health, safety, and prosperity of everyday Americans. As prior Center for American Progress publications have explained, Congress set up independent agencies, such as the Consumer Product Safety Commission and National Transportation Safety Board, to achieve goals like protecting children from unsafe products, safeguarding travel on our roads and in the air, ensuring families do not lose their life savings when big banks fail, enhancing workers’ rights, and more. These independent agencies are housed within the executive branch with a core mission: safeguarding the well-being of all Americans. They perform particularly sensitive work that often affects the most critical parts of Americans’ rights and lives—areas that are too important to be subject to political whims.
By law, independent agencies are not under the president’s direct control, unlike, for example, the departments of Treasury or State. Instead, independent agencies are most often helmed by a bipartisan group of leaders, often called commissioners; and the vast majority of agency personnel are nonpartisan experts who help implement complex laws and technical programs in the public interest. These civil servants include safety inspectors, engineers, scientists, doctors, and countless other dedicated professionals. Without detrimental political pressure, agency personnel have more ability to follow the law and achieve results that help all Americans while guarding against corruption that can unfairly benefit the wealthy and well-connected.
Unfortunately, President Donald Trump and his administration have taken numerous steps to weaken the statutorily required independence of these agencies, harming Americans in the process. For example, Trump illegally fired several leaders of independent agencies without cause, in violation of Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, prompting two federal judges to initially order the reinstatement of leaders at the Merit Systems Protection Board and the National Labor Relations Board. A three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals later granted a stay of those orders while the cases are on appeal.
Trump also issued an unprecedented executive order that seeks to neuter independent agencies by placing them under the direct control of his Office of Management and Budget. Moreover, the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by multibillionaire Elon Musk, has helped engineer massive cuts to programs or personnel at several independent agencies. Trump’s actions are undergirded by the extremist and ahistorical “unitary executive theory” and pose massive long-term harms to the work these agencies do for the American people.
This article explores the important work that nine independent agencies do to make Americans’ lives better.
Consumer Product Safety Commission
The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) protects Americans from injury or death due to unsafe products. Since the agency’s creation, the United States has seen an 80 percent decrease in child poisonings, a 43 percent decline in residential fires, a 47 percent drop in fire deaths, and an almost 80 percent decrease in crib-related deaths. There are people walking around today who would not be alive were it not for the CPSC. Just recently, on March 6, the agency issued a recall for bathrobes sold exclusively online by a Chinese manufacturer, finding that the robes “pos[ed] a risk of burn injuries and death to children.” This recall resulted in more than 5,000 purchasers being contacted by Amazon or the manufacturer, warned of the risk, and offered refunds, protecting children from harm.
If the CPSC were to lose its independence, future commissioners could water down safety standards in favor of major corporations, putting Americans at greater risk of death or bodily injury. The average person simply does not have the time or expertise to review the risks of every product they use each day, which is why CPSC specialists are charged with this important work.
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
When consumers are ripped off by predatory practices, such as deceptive fine print buried in hard-to-understand contracts, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) helps by holding big banks, payday lenders, financial institutions, and other corporations responsible. In fighting fraud and manipulation, this agency aims to ensure that financial products and services are fair and transparent so that students, veterans, seniors, and others are not scammed into giving up their hard-earned money. Congress created the CFPB in 2010 in the wake of the Great Recession, which caused American families massive job and home losses. This move consolidated consumer-related enforcement responsibilities that had previously been spread across several different agencies into one. According to the CFPB, among its many accomplishments in the past 15 years, it has returned at least $21 billion to consumers—for example, saving them approximately $6.1 billion a year by requiring updates to banks’ overdraft and fee policies.
Yet in recent weeks, DOGE has targeted the agency for near elimination, sending almost all of its employees home, with Elon Musk writing “CFPB RIP” on his social media account. A severely weakened and politicized CFPB—that has already dropped lawsuits against banks and Big Tech companies and stopped all investigations—is reversing hard-fought consumer victories, helping the president and his corporate allies.
Federal Trade Commission
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) protects consumers from bad businesses, ensuring that Americans do not lose their hard-earned money due to scams or misconduct. The agency was originally founded in 1914 to stop robber barons and their monopolies from harming everyday Americans. Today, it both enforces regulations—for instance, levying fines and suing businesses—and issues new rules to help keep people financially safe. Just last year, the FTC secured $337.3 million in refunds for consumers, including more than $41 million for Texans and $24 million for Californians. In performing important antitrust work, the FTC also recently sued to block two massive American grocery store chains from merging; this suit stopped the merger from going forward and ensured that the companies could not charge even higher grocery prices by taking out the competition.
On March 18, 2025, President Trump illegally fired FTC commissioners Alvaro Bedoya and Rebecca Kelly Slaughter in what one former FTC chair called “a gift to corporate lawbreakers that squeeze American consumers, workers, and honest businesses.” The fired commissioners have since filed a lawsuit asking to be reinstated.
Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) ensures that Americans do not lose their hard-earned money when a bank fails, for example, due to mismanagement or fraud. The agency also supervises banks to help make certain that they follow sound banking practices and avoid risky maneuvers that could harm the public. Congress created the agency following the Great Depression to increase public faith in the banking system, and since its founding, “no depositor has lost a penny of insured funds as a result of a failure.” Today, the FDIC insures up to $250,000 per depositor, providing Americans with peace of mind when it comes to their money. For instance, when Washington Mutual failed in 2008, the FDIC stepped in to ensure the bank’s insured depositors—mostly individuals and small businesses—were made whole.
But if the agency loses its independence—or is shut down altogether as some Trump advisers have expressed interest in doing—future success stories may be few and far between. An FDIC beholden to the president could weaken oversight to the benefit of banks but to the detriment of American families.
National Transportation Safety Board
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigates transportation disasters, such as plane and train crashes, and issues proposals for how to prevent those disasters from occurring again. These recommendations have saved countless American lives. Since its founding in 1967, the agency has investigated more than 153,000 plane incidents as well as thousands of rail, boat, and other transportation calamities. Agency investigators are “on call 24 hours a day, 365 days a year … travel[ing] throughout the county and to every corner of the world in response to transportation disasters.” The NTSB has promulgated more than 15,500 safety recommendations and conducted many safety studies aimed at protecting everyday Americans. For example, following the airline disaster on January 29, 2025, at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, the NTSB issued an urgent safety recommendation advising that all helicopter traffic be prohibited when certain airport runways are in operation.
However, a politically captured NTSB might be reluctant to issue safety recommendations that would negatively affect major U.S. corporations, putting the well-being of millions of Americans at risk.
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ensures that Americans who are treated unfairly by their employers are not fired, transferred to a worse role, or harassed. If a company fires a worker for improper reasons, the agency can investigate and impose penalties on the employer, helping guard against racial, gender, disability, and other forms of discrimination. The EEOC was created in 1964 to enforce the employment discrimination provisions of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Civil Rights Act. Since 1996, the agency has recovered more than $10.5 billion from employers, discouraging companies from breaking the law while also putting money back in workers’ pockets. For example, in 2024, the EEOC won nearly $700 million for victims of employment discrimination—money that compensated workers whose employers violated their rights, “helping make them whole while serving as a warning against future employer lawbreaking.”
Following Trump’s illegal firing of EEOC commissioners Charlotte Burrows and Jocelyn Samuels in January 2025, the agency lacks a quorum, which limits important powers. Instead of helping American workers, the politicized agency is now bolstering the Trump administration’s extremist anti-diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and anti-transgender agenda.
Federal Election Commission
The Federal Election Commission (FEC) plays an important role in enforcing and issuing campaign finance regulations so that foreign governments and wealthy special interests cannot buy American elections. The agency was founded in 1974 in response to allegations of financial misconduct in the 1972 presidential election. Today, the FEC enforces the law that prohibits individual donors from giving more than $3,500 to a candidate’s campaign committee, bars anonymous cash donations of more than $50, and prevents candidates from spending their money on non-campaign-related expenses. The FEC also provides transparency into campaign contributions and expenditures, allowing Americans to see how much money candidates, political action committees (PACs), and party committees have raised and spent.
As former FEC Chair Ellen L. Weintraub—who was fired by Trump in February 2025 in violation of the FEC’s statute—told CAP via email:
An FEC intimidated by the president might skew its enforcement decisions in favor of the president’s allies and against his critics and further weaken regulations, allowing big-dollar donors to increasingly dominate U.S. politics. These threats were already present, but if there’s one lesson we are learning this year, it’s that things can get dramatically worse.
National Labor Relations Board
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is charged with safeguarding workers’ right to organize, join or form a union, and collectively bargain. The agency supervises union elections and investigates unfair labor practices by employers, who too often respond to organizing efforts with fierce resistance and even lawbreaking. Although statutory protections for workers in the United States are weak and must be strengthened, under Biden administration appointees, the NLRB played an important role in boosting workers’ ability to successfully engage in collective bargaining. As CAP’s research shows, union workers’ wages rise by 10 percent, their typical household wealth is 1.7 times higher than that of a nonunion household, and their retirement savings are appreciably higher. Congress worked with President Franklin D. Roosevelt to create the NLRB during the Great Depression in an effort to enforce worker organizing and collective bargaining laws for most private sector workers in the United States.
A politicized NLRB could risk the advances that workers have recently made and give a big advantage to the president’s corporate allies, including Elon Musk, whose attorneys have argued for gutting the agency that has investigated at least one Musk-owned company. Unfortunately, shortly after taking office, President Trump illegally fired NLRB board member Gwynne Wilcox, temporarily preventing agency leaders from doing their jobs and forcing workers to defend themselves. In March, a federal judge reinstated Wilcox after determining Trump illegally fired her without cause, but that was short-lived, as an appeals court temporarily upheld her removal.
Federal Communications Commission
Americans who want to watch their local news, sports, and entertainment programs rely on the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to grant licenses to local broadcasters who supply that important service. Consumers can choose to watch the programs provided by their preferred local broadcasters, including ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox; and the FCC must oversee station licenses consistently with the First Amendment, without regard to a broadcaster’s political ideology. When Congress established the FCC in 1934 to oversee the communications industry, it required the agency to do its work in the public interest.
Yet if the FCC’s commissioners were to become unduly influenced by a president who wants retribution against certain reporters or media companies, the agency could impermissibly threaten to or actually revoke licenses, depriving Americans of their favorite programs. News organizations could also be unfairly scared into providing favorable coverage of the administration. President Trump’s FCC chairman, Brendan Carr, has already started aggressive proceedings against NBC, CBS, and ABC as well as PBS and NPR, but not Fox. Even the conservative-leaning editorial board of The Wall Street Journal proclaimed, “Trump clearly wants to intimidate the press, and it’s no credit to the FCC to see it reinforcing that.”
Conclusion
Independent agencies are a backbone of the executive branch, designed to focus not on politics but on serving American families and communities. Instead of asking, “Is this politically advantageous?” independent agencies ask, “Is this helping the American public?” Despite their vitally important role, independent agencies are now experiencing an unprecedented assault seemingly designed to bring them under the direct control of the office of the president. To best protect Americans’ health, safety, and prosperity, independent agencies must remain immune from undue political interference—with a mission focused squarely on the public interest.
Originally published by The Center for American Progress, 04.03.2025, republished with permission educational, for non-commercial purposes.
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