U.S. regulators on Friday finalized a rule designating two widespread PFAS chemicals as hazardous substances, a step the agencies says will ensure polluters pay to clean up contamination and reduce Americans’ exposure to the toxic chemicals.
Under the federal Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), or Superfund law, the rule will require leaks and spills of these per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) to be immediately reported and will allow for investigation and cleanup of the chemicals.
The finalized rule “enables the agency to use one of its strongest enforcement tools to compel polluters to pay for or conduct investigations and cleanup, rather than taxpayers,” said the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in a press release. “Designation is especially important as delay in addressing contamination allows PFOA and PFOS more time to migrate in water and soil, worsening existing contamination.”
“This is great news for the many communities grappling with PFAS contamination — many of which are also low income and communities of color,” said Tracey Woodruff, an environmental health researcher at the University of California, San Francisco and a former EPA senior scientist.
The move comes days after the EPA announced the nation’s first legally enforceable drinking water limits for the same chemicals, perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS), along with four other PFAS.
So-called “forever chemicals,” which do not break down naturally, have been used for decades in consumer products ranging from nonstick pans to waterproof clothes and stain resistant carpet. Exposure to PFAS has been linked to cancers, liver and heart problems, and immune and developmental damage in children, according to the EPA. The chemicals are found in the blood of almost all Americans.
Making Polluters Pay
Environmental and health advocates celebrated the news, with Jonathan Kalmuss-Katz, an attorney at the nonprofit Earthjustice, saying the measure will make it “a lot harder for Chemours, Dow, and other polluters to pass the costs of their PFAS releases off on impacted communities and taxpayers.”
Some called for further government action to limit exposure to the pervasive chemicals.
“We need our state and national leaders to use every tool in the box to protect our families from exposure to PFAS,” said Stephanie Wein, a clean water and conservation advocate with a Pennsylvania research and policy center through the group Environment America. “That means phasing out their use, stopping their discharge, and holding the chemical industry accountable for the harms they have caused to our health and environment.”
Groups representing U.S. water and waste systems expressed concern leading up to the announcement that such operations, which do not make or use PFAS, could be dragged into expensive litigation as a result of the CERCLA designation if the government does not issue an exemption “passive receivers” of PFAS.
“Without Congressional action, a wave of lawsuits could potentially raise taxes and utility rates on millions of Americans,” Sen. Shelley Capito, a Republican from West Virginia, said at a U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works hearing last month. “This result flips the ‘polluter pays’ principle on its head, turning it into a ‘consumer pays’ model.”
Legislation recently introduced to the Senate proposes a “statutory shield” for water systems under CERCLA for PFAS.
But environmental advocates argue that such an exemption is unnecessary, saying it would eliminate incentives water utilities and others have to properly treat and contain contamination. They also worry an exemption for some sectors would create a slippery slope that would ultimately benefit polluters.
The EPA does not intend to pursue community water systems, municipal storm sewer systems, publicly owned landfills or airports, local fire departments, or farms where sewage sludge (biosolids) are applied to the land, said the agency in an enforcement discretion policy that it released today with the final rule.
The rule will soon be published in the Federal Register and will go into effect 60 days later, said the EPA.
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
Last week, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy