[CPEO-MEF] PFAS: "A proposal to designate PFOA and PFOS as hazardous substances has been sitting at the White House for more than a year."

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

DID THE WHITE HOUSE STOP THE EPA FROM REGULATING PFAS?
A proposal to designate PFOA and PFOS as hazardous substances has been sitting at the White House for more than a year.

By Sharon Lerner
Intercept
September 29, 2020

THE CHEMICALS ARE linked to cancer, reproductive and developmental harm, liver problems, and immune dysfunction. They stay in the body for years - and persist in the environment indefinitely. And they’ve contaminated thousands of sites around the country, including hundreds where the military used firefighting foam laced with the chemicals. Yet somehow the industrial compounds PFOS and PFOA - part of a family of chemicals called PFAS - are not hazardous, according to the Trump administration.

Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency promised to designate the two chemicals as hazardous substances more than two years ago. And staff completed its work on the policy change in September of last year, according to agency insiders. But the proposed change to the law, which would help hold polluters liable for billions of dollars of costs of cleaning up the toxic chemicals, has stalled at the White House.

At a summit on the PFAS chemicals held on May 22, 2018, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt pledged that the agency would designate PFOS and PFOA as “hazardous substances.” While seemingly a mere technical tweak, the change in the official categorization of the chemicals, which were used for nonstick coatings and in firefighting foam and have contaminated industrial areas and military sites, would help “to get accountability,” as Pruitt noted at the time.

…

For the entire article, see
https://theintercept.com/2020/09/29/epa-white-house-pfas-pfoa-pfos/

--

Lenny Siegel
Executive Director
Center for Public Environmental Oversight
A project of the Pacific Studies Center
LSiegel@cpeo.org
P.O. Box 998, Mountain View, CA 94042
Voice/Fax: 650-961-8918
http://www.cpeo.org





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