EPA’s PFAS Report Card: D-
It’s been just over a year since the Environmental Protection Agency announced its PFAS Action Plan, the federal government’s blueprint to tackle the alarming ‘forever chemical’ problem in the United States. It hasn’t gone well.
To mark the anniversary, legislators reviewed the progress made in the past twelve months, and no one is excited about where we’re at. Delaware Senator Tom Carpenter authored what he termed as a report card, giving the EPA D- for its progress. Apparently, he’s giving the EP credit for turning the report in with its name spelled correctly.
The most marked shortfall of the EPA’s plan was the failure to pass legislation that would include PFAS in regulation, which would allow for more testing and harsher penalties. The final version of the PFAS bill, which did pass the House in 2019, failed to include listing PFAS under the promised guidelines.
In his report, Carpenter pointed out that, under the Trump administration, the EPA had focused on rolling back regulations in a number of industries and undid numerous Obama-era protections, all while failing to follow its own timeline to tackle PFAS. Even the successful version of the bill, as weakened as it is, now sits on the desk of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. There are literally hundreds of bills trapped there and little hope that this will see the light of day anytime soon in Congress’ upper chamber.
In the meantime, states around the country have had to address PFAS on their own, without guidance or supplemental funding from the federal agency designed to offer those two things. These state governments have opted to push for their own PFAS limits, administered their own testing, and even relied on cities and counties to sue polluters in their communities. These are battles that will be litigated again and again dozens of times across the country, wasting time and resources that would have been better directed to clean-up and supporting the affected communities.
As the nation inches ever-closer to Presidential election, it’s vital that every voter look hard at a candidate’s position on PFAS and their support of a strong, active, and committed Environmental Protection Agency that is staffed, funded, and directed to do its job. Without it, the burden to protect families and communities falls too heavily on cities and local governments ill-prepared to fight the massive corporations who have done wrong.
