Citizens for Sensible Safeguards (CSS) is a coalition consisting of almost 300 public interest organizations, including groups from labor, environmental, consumer, health, low-income, human needs, educational, and religious communities. As laid out in the CSS Statement of Principles, the coalition was created to help preserve public protections that, over the last 20 years, have made our workplaces safer, our environment cleaner, our communities healthier, and our society more accessible.

With the advent of the 104th Congress and the Contract With America, federal protections have come under constant attack, being labeled as examples of "big government"and, as a result, targeted for "reform." CSS has made its principle aim the guarantee that vital community and environmental safeguards will not be sacrificed in order to reduce the size and scope of the federal government. Through grassroots networking and education, media campaigns, and Congressional and Administrative briefings, CSS has taken a lead role in educating the public on the importance of its public safeguards and defeating or modifying proposals that undermine them.

Since its inception, CSS has been successful in preserving necessary safeguards on several occasions. The coalition's efforts vastly changed Contract With America provisions for unfunded mandates and reauthorization of the Paperwork Reduction Act. It stopped a proposed regulatory moratorium that would have prevented the creation of any new public protections and stalled a comprehensive regulatory bill that would have impeded the entire regulatory process. In addition, the coalition continues to actively defend community and environmental protections against extreme budget riders and issue-specific bills that would eliminate the government's ability to issue and enforce important safeguards.