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environmental working group
'Public Health Emergency': Report Calls for Multi-Agency Action to Address PFAS Crisis
"We're at a tipping point, where the next administration must act decisively to avert a public health catastrophe that could define the next decade."
Aug 15, 2024
Environmental Working Group, a research and advocacy nonprofit, released a roadmap on Thursday calling for a comprehensive government program to address the PFAS contamination crisis facing the United States.
The EWG roadmap details the agency-by-agency response the group says is needed to deal with the environmental and public health threat posed by the nearly ubiquitous presence of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), which are linked to many cancers and other serious health conditions.
EWG's plan involves not just steps that should be taken by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) but also the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the departments of Agriculture, Defense, and Health and Human Services, and several other federal agencies.
Scott Faber, EWG's vice president of government affairs, said in a statement that PFAS contamination was "an unfolding disaster that demands immediate and unprecedented action."
"We're at a tipping point, where the next administration must act decisively to avert a public health catastrophe that could define the next decade," he said.
The contamination crisis from the “forever chemicals” known as PFAS is far from over, despite the Biden-Harris administration’s strides combating PFAS pollution. EWG has identified steps the next administration should take to build on successes so far. https://t.co/BQUUNnUTdI
— EWG (@ewg) August 15, 2024
EWG commended the Biden administration for the steps that it's taken to deal with the PFAS contamination crisis. The White House put forth an eight-agency PFAS plan in October 2021 and has implemented key parts, most notably by setting strict national limits on PFAS in drinking water. That rule, finalized in April, faces legal challenges from industry groups.
PFAS are set of roughly 16,000 synthetic compounds that were developed by chemical companies for use in a wide range of products. They can enter the human body—where, as "forever chemicals," they accumulate in bones and organs—through drinking water, food, the skin, or the air. Most Americans have PFAS in their blood.
Reporting by Sharon Lerner, a ProPublica journalist who previously worked at The Intercept, has indicated that 3M and DuPont, two of the major PFAS producers, knew about the dangers and widespread distribution of PFAS but hid them from the public.
In April, the EPA designated two of the most common PFAS, perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS), as hazardous substances under the Superfund law—another move that EWG celebrated.
"But there's much more that must be done," according to the new roadmap, authored by John Reeder, EWG's vice president of federal affairs.
In the roadmap, Reeder, a former EPA deputy chief of staff, called for the agency to double its budget for PFAS—i.e., increase its funding request to Congress—and crack down on industrial discharges, among many other proposals. He also called on the FDA to ban the use of PFAS in food packaging and establish limits on their use in foods. For the Department of Defense, Reeder's plan includes giving defense communities safe water to drink—at least 100 military sites are known to have contaminated water—and end the use of PFAS in firefighting foam.
Such federal action will likely depend on the results of the presidential and congressional elections. Project 2025, a right-wing policy blueprint for a Republican administration, proposes deregulation of PFAS and funding cuts for key EPA functions. Experts inside and outside the agency toldThe Guardian late last month that a victory by Republican nominee Donald Trump would mean PFAS rules would become subject to a great deal of industry influence.
Meanwhile, the scale of the PFAS problem continues to become more clear. Data recently updated by the EPA shows that 7,457 U.S. drinking water locations have PFAS in their supply, putting much of the American population at risk, according to EWG. The EPA has found that there's "no safe level of exposure" to PFOA and PFOS.
"The sheer number of contaminated sites is a red flag that says we are facing a pervasive and devastating crisis," said Tasha Stoiber, a senior scientist at EWG. "More than 130 million Americans are drinking water tainted with PFAS, putting them at risk of severe health issues. This is no longer just an environmental concern; it's a major public health emergency."
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GOP Farm Bill Blueprint 'Puts Big Ag's Profits Over Everyone Else'
"America's farmers and consumers need forward-looking policies that build a sustainable, resilient, and fair food system," said one campaigner.
May 01, 2024
As Democratic and Republican leaders on Wednesday unveiled competing visions for the next Farm Bill, green groups sounded the alarm about the GOP proposal that "slashes nutrition programs and climate-focused conservation funding in order to boost commodity crop production."
U.S. House Committee on Agriculture Chair Glenn "GT" Thompson (R-Pa.) put out a "title-by-title overview" of priorities and announced plans for a legislative markup on May 23 while Senate Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee Chair Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) released the Rural Prosperity and Food Security Act, which includes over 100 bipartisan bills.
"The contrast between the House and Senate farm bill proposals could not be clearer," asserted Environmental Working Group senior vice president for government affairs Scott Faber. "The Senate framework would ensure that farmers are rewarded when they take steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and the House framework would not."
"At a time when farmer demand for climate-smart funding is growing, Congress should ensure that support for farmers offering to reduce nitrous oxide emissions from fertilizer, and methane emissions from animals and their waste, is the Department of Agriculture's top priority," Faber said. "Unless farmers are provided the tools to reduce nitrous oxide and methane emissions from agriculture, farming will soon be the nation's largest source of greenhouse gas emissions."
Friends of the Earth senior program manager Chloe Waterman declared that "House Republicans have proposed a dead-on-arrival Farm Bill framework that puts Big Ag's profits over everyone else: communities, family farmers, consumers, states and local rule, farmed animals, and the planet."
"Senate Democrats are off to a much better start than the House, but they have also fallen short by failing to shift subsidies and other support away from factory farming and pesticide-intensive commodities toward diversified, regenerative, and climate-friendly farming systems," she added. "We are particularly concerned that millions of dollars intended for climate mitigation will continue to be funneled to factory farms, including to support greenwashed factory farm gas."
Both Waterman's organization and Food and Water Watch spotlighted the Ending Agricultural Trade Suppression (EATS) Act, which aims to prevent state and local policies designed to protect animal welfare, farm workers, and food safety—like California's Proposition 12, which the U.S. Supreme Court upheld last year. The Republican bill is opposed by more than 200 members of Congress and over 150 advocacy groups.
"Despicable ploys to undermine critical consumer and animal welfare protections must be dead on arrival," Food & Water Watch senior food policy analyst Rebecca Wolf said in a Wednesday statement blasting the House GOP's priorities.
"America's farmers and consumers need forward-looking policies that build a sustainable, resilient, and fair food system," she stressed. "Instead, House leadership seems poised to take us backwards, trading state-level gains for a few more bucks in the pockets of corporate donors. Congress must move beyond partisan bickering, and get to work on a Farm Bill that cuts handouts to Big Ag and factory farms."
As green groups slammed the GOP's agricultural proposals for the Farm Bill, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) called out the Republican scheme to attack food stamps.
Stabenow's bill "would protect and strengthen the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), our nation's most important and effective anti-hunger program," noted Ty Jones Cox, CBPP's vice president for food assistance.
Meanwhile, Thompson's plan "would put a healthy diet out of reach in the future for millions of families with low incomes by cutting future benefits for all SNAP participants and eroding the adequacy of SNAP benefits over time," she warned.
As Jones Cox detailed:
Thompson's proposal would prevent SNAP benefits from keeping pace with the cost of a healthy, realistic diet over time, which the Congressional Budget Office estimates would result in a roughly $30 billion cut to SNAP over the next decade. The proposal would do this by freezing the cost of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Thrifty Food Plan (the basis for SNAP benefit levels) outside of inflation adjustments, even if nutrition guidelines or other factors change the cost of an adequate diet. The Thompson proposal's modest benefit improvements do not outweigh the harm to the tens of millions of SNAP participants—including children, older adults, and people with disabilities—who would receive less food assistance in the future because of this policy.
"Stabenow's proposal rejects the false premise that improvements in SNAP must come at the expense of food assistance for low-income families who count on SNAP to put food on the table," she concluded. "The Senate framework, which rejects harmful benefit cuts, should be the basis for farm bill negotiations moving forward."
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'Important Step': EPA Finalizes Rule to Clean Up Forever Chemical Contamination
While praising the move, campaigners also said that the agency "must require polluters to pay to clean up the entire class of thousands of toxic PFAS chemicals, and it must ban nonessential uses."
Apr 19, 2024
Environmental and public health advocates on Friday welcomed the Biden administration's latest step to tackle "forever chemicals," a new Superfund rule that "will help ensure that polluters pay to clean up their contamination" across the country.
"It is time for polluters to pay to clean up the toxic soup they've dumped into the environment," declared Erik D. Olson, senior strategic director for health at the Natural Resources Defense Council. "We all learned in kindergarten that if we make a mess, we should clean it up. The Biden administration's Superfund rule is a big step in the right direction for holding polluters accountable for cleaning up decades of contamination."
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS)—called forever chemicals because they remain in the human body and environment for long periods—have been used in products including firefighting foam, food packaging, and furniture, and tied to various health issues such as cancers, developmental and immune damage, and heart and liver problems.
"This action, coupled with EPA's recent announcement of limits on PFAS in drinking water, are critical steps in protecting the public."
As part of the Biden administration's "PFAS Strategic Roadmap," the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rule designates perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) as hazardous substances under the Superfund law—the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act.
"President Joe Biden pledged to make PFAS a priority in 2020 as part of the Biden-Harris plan to secure environmental justice. Today the Biden EPA fulfilled this important promise," said Melanie Benesh, vice president for government affairs at the Environmental Working Group (EWG).
David Andrews, EWG's deputy director of investigations and a senior scientist, has led studies that have found that PFAS are potentially harming over 330 species and more than 200 million Americans could have PFOA and PFOS in their tap water.
"For far too long, the unchecked use and disposal of toxic PFAS have wreaked havoc on our planet, contaminating everything from our drinking water to our food supply," he noted. "Urgent action is needed to clean up contaminated sites, eliminate future release of these pollutants, and shield people from additional exposure."
Walter Mugdan, a volunteer with the Environmental Protection Network and the former Superfund director for EPA Region 2, explained that the "landmark action will allow the agency to more strongly address PFAS contamination and expedite cleanups of these toxic forever chemicals while also ensuring that cleanup costs fall on those most responsible—the industrial polluters who continue to manufacture and use them."
"This action, coupled with EPA's recent announcement of limits on PFAS in drinking water, are critical steps in protecting the public from these harmful compounds," added the former official, referencing the first-ever national limits on forever chemicals in drinking water that the agency finalized earlier this month.
As an EWG blog post detailed in anticipation of the new rule earlier this week:
A hazardous substance designation allows the EPA to use money from its Superfund—the EPA's account for addressing this kind of contamination—to quickly jump-start cleanup at a PFOA- or PFOS-polluted site and to recover the costs from the polluters. If a company that contributed to the PFAS contamination problem refuses to cooperate, the EPA can order a cleanup anyway and fine the company if they fail to take action.
[...]
When a chemical is added to the list of hazardous substances, the EPA sets a reportable quantity. Any time a substance is released above that quantity it must be reported. By imposing reportable quantities, the EPA will get immediate information about new PFAS releases and the chance to investigate immediately and, if necessary, take actions to reduce additional exposures. This information is also shared with state or tribal and local emergency authorities, so it can reach communities more quickly.
"For years, communities that have been exposed to these chemicals have been demanding that polluters be held accountable for the harm they have created and to pay for cleanup," Safer States national director Sarah Doll highlighted. "We applaud EPA for taking this step and encourage them to take the next step and list all PFAS under the Superfund law."
Liz Hitchcock, director of Safer Chemicals Healthy Families, the federal policy program of Toxic-Free Future, similarly celebrated the EPA rule, calling it "an important step forward that will go a long way toward holding PFAS polluters accountable and beginning to clean up contaminated sites across the country."
Like Doll, she also stressed that "until we declare the full class of PFAS hazardous and prevent further pollution by ending the use of all PFAS chemicals in common products like food packaging and firefighting gear, communities will continue to pay the price with our health and tax dollars."
Mary Grant, the Public Water for All campaign director at Food & Water Watch, agreed that further action is necessary.
"Chemical companies have attempted to hide what they have long known about the dangers of PFAS, creating a widespread public health crisis in the process," Grant emphasized. "These polluters must absolutely be held accountable to pay to clean up their toxic mess."
"Today's new rules are a necessary and important step to jump start the cleanup process for two types of PFAS," she said. "While we thank the EPA for finalizing these rules, much more is necessary: The EPA must require polluters to pay to clean up the entire class of thousands of toxic PFAS chemicals, and it must ban nonessential uses of PFAS to stop the pollution in the first place."
Noting that it's not just the EPA considering forever chemicals policies, Grant called on Congress to "reject various legislative proposals to exempt for-profit companies, including the water and sewer privatization industry, from being held accountable to pay to clean up PFAS."
"It is an outrageous hypocrisy that large for-profit water corporations seek to privatize municipal water and sewer systems by touting themselves as a solution to PFAS contamination, and yet they want to carve themselves out of accountability for cleanup costs," she argued. "No corporation should have free rein to pollute."
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