By Freda Ross
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is proposing changes experts said would weaken reporting and monitoring rules for toxic “forever chemicals” known as PFAS.
Thousands of such synthetic chemicals are used in everything from nonstick cookware and waterproof clothing to firefighting foam and have been linked to cancers, thyroid disease, immune dysfunction and developmental harm in children. Previously, the Biden administration required all manufacturers using PFAS chemicals to report usage data by this year.
Betsy Southerland, a retired EPA scientist and member of the Environmental Protection Network, said the changes would extend the timeline and offer exemptions to some companies.
“What this new rule does is say, no, we’re going to give you at least another year,” Southerland explained. “Furthermore, we’re going to exempt many of the people who would have had to report their PFAS use.”
The Trump administration has also filed a motion to vacate portions of the EPA’s 2024 rule setting drinking water limits for the chemicals, seeking to eliminate enforceable standards for four different types of PFAS.
Southerland argued the agency is playing catch-up on determining what PFAS chemicals are in our environment and how dangerous they are to humans, noting that right now, scientists are able to detect just a fraction of specific PFAS chemicals in the environment.
“It’s taken EPA a number of years to just be able to monitor 40 PFAS chemicals in our water and sediments,” Southerland pointed out. “We need to know what other PFAS chemicals beyond these 40 we can measure for.”
The EPA recently set limits on six PFAS chemicals, based on mounting scientific evidence of harm to human health. According to the Environmental Working Group, nearly 70 million acres of farmland across the U.S. could be contaminated by PFAS.
This story was originally published by Public News Service.