UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Federal Trade Commission

WASHINGTON, D.C. 20580

Office of Acting Chairwoman

Rebecca Kelly Slaughter

OPENING STATEMENT OF 

ACTING CHAIRWOMAN REBECCA KELLY SLAUGHTER 

Before the United States Senate

Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation

Hearing on Strengthening the FTC’s Authority to Protect Consumers 

April 20, 2021

Chair Cantwell, Ranking Member Wicker, and Members of the Committee, thank you for 

inviting us here today. I am grateful for your continued support of the Federal Trade Commission 

and for the opportunity to testify about strengthening our authority to protect consumers. I know 

our staff, who have been working diligently throughout the pandemic, share my appreciation for 

your interest in the work we are doing and the challenges we face.

Americans are struggling. Yesterday the Commission issued a report identifying the 

major challenges consumers have faced and continue to face as a result of the pandemic: health 

and safety concerns, economic distress, and increased susceptibility to digital harms.1 While all 

Americans have confronted these challenges, we know that Americans from communities of 

color and lower income communities have been hardest hit.2

I will focus my remarks today on how the FTC is applying the resources and authority 

Congress has given us to address these concerns and highlight the areas where I believe 

strengthening our authority is most critical. 

 1 Press Release, Fed. Trade Comm’n, One Year into COVID-19 Pandemic, New FTC Staff Report Highlights 

Agency’s Ongoing Efforts to Protect Consumers (Apr. 19, 2021), https:

//www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2021/04/one-year-covid-19-pandemic-new-ftc-staff-report-highlights. 2 See, e.g., Ryan Zamarripa and Lorena Roque, Latinos Face Disproportionate Health and Economic Impacts From 

COVID-19, Center for American Progress (Mar. 5, 2021), 

https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/economy/reports/2021/03/05/496733/latinos-face-disproportionate-health-e

conomic-impacts-covid-19/; Poll: 61% of U.S. households with children report facing serious financial problems 

during the coronavirus outbreak, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health (Sept. 30, 2020), 

https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/press-releases/poll-61-of-u-s-households-with-children-report-facing-serious-fin

ancial-problems-during-the-coronavirus-outbreak/ (“Many of these problems are concentrated among Black and 

Latino households with children, households with children that have annual incomes below $100,000, and 

households with children that have experienced job or wage losses since the start of the outbreak.”); Margery Austin

Turner and Monique King-Viehland, Economic Hardships from COVID-19 Are Hitting Black and Latinx People 

Hardest. Here Are Five Actions Local Leaders Can Take, Urban Institute (Aug. 12, 2020), 

https://www.urban.org/urban-wire/economic-hardships-covid-19-are-hitting-black-and-latinx-people-hardest-here-are

-five-actions-local-leaders-can-take.
2

Using our Current Tools to Take on Today’s Challenges

The Commission is profoundly grateful for the funding boost we received in our annual 

appropriation and particularly in the American Rescue Plan. Even before the pandemic, the 

growing problems in both consumer protection and competition requiring enforcement attention 

were stretching our resources to the breaking point. That situation was dramatically exacerbated

in the last year. We are working quickly to use the new money to hire staff and strategically fund 

our data collection and outreach efforts, with a specific focus on ensuring that we are reaching 

our hardest hit communities.

When Congress gives us new authority, we will take it seriously and put it to use 

responsibly. We welcomed the COVID-19 Consumer Protection Act, which provided us with 

new civil penalty authority regarding certain COVID-19 deceptive acts or practices. Just last 

week—only four months after the law was passed—we announced our first action seeking 

penalties under this new authority, targeting deceptive COVID-19 marketing of vitamin D and 

zinc products.

I want to emphasize that when it comes to our current efforts and authorities I am a strong 

proponent of a growth mindset: I challenge myself and the Commission at every turn to look at 

all the tools we have and find ways to deploy them with greater effect.

Strengthening FTC Authority

I recognize, however, that there are limits to the growth mindset: the FTC faces 

significant obstacles when it comes to our authority and resources. Among the most urgent 

challenges we face is a judicial attack on our ability to provide monetary relief to consumers 

under Section 13(b) of the FTC Act. We use 13(b) in a broad range of cases including 

telemarketing fraud, anticompetitive pharmaceutical practices, data security and privacy, scams 

that target seniors and veterans, and most recently, COVID-related scams. Section 13(b) 

enforcement cases have returned billions of dollars to consumers, including $11.2 billion in 

refunds to consumers during just the past five years.

Returning money to consumers who have been harmed is among the most important 

things we do, but the courts are dramatically curtailing our ability to deliver that relief. And right 

behind the cases challenging our redress authority under 13(b) is a line of cases challenging our 

ability to get injunctive relief. Enforcement actions will slow and redress for consumers will dry 

up if Congress does not act quickly to affirm our full authority under Section 13(b).

Along with 13(b), our other most pressing challenge remains resources. As I noted, we 

are incredibly grateful for the additional funding provided to the Commission, but we still remain 

significantly under-resourced and over-leveraged. Even before the recent merger wave, we were 

averaging twice as many annual merger filings as we had been ten years ago, while our employee 

count remained flat. In fact, we had 50% more employees at the beginning of the Reagan 
3

administration as we do today. And our filing rates keep going up.

3 On the consumer protection 

side, there is similar growth in both breadth and depth of problems in the markets, especially 

digital markets, that require enforcement. But our ability to keep up with this volume of work 

against large, sophisticated companies without substantial increases in resources will be limited. 

In addition to restoring 13(b) and augmenting resources, I want to note additional ways 

that I believe Congress could strengthen our ability to deter illegal conduct and return more funds 

to consumers. Specifically, I would welcome broader civil penalty authority, establishment of a 

consumer redress fund, and independent litigating authority for our civil penalty cases. 

Conclusion

In closing, I want to thank you for the opportunity to discuss our work, and reiterate my 

commitment to you: when Congress choses to vest the FTC with resources and authority, we will 

use it responsibly and effectively to protect the American people. 

I look forward to answering your questions.

 3 To increase transparency regarding its merger review workload, the FTC publishes the number of monthly HSR 

filings on its website. See Fed. Trade Comm’n, Premerger Notification Program, 

https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/premerger-notification-program. These numbers are preliminary and subject to a 

year-end audit, and final numbers are published in the FTC/DOJ Annual HSR reports.