The Biden administration laid out a sweeping strategy on [October 18] for grappling with widespread contamination from toxic “forever chemicals” that aims to stop future contamination at its source.
Prized for their water-resistant properties, PFAS have been used in everything from nonstick cookware to outdoor gear to food packaging to firefighting foam for decades. But the strong bonds that make them so useful also make the chemicals virtually impossible to break down in the environment, and the substances have been found in thousands of drinking water supplies across the country.
After evidence accumulated showing some of the earlier PFAS were linked to health problems, industry voluntarily phased them out of use. But those chemicals were largely replaced with newer substances that research now suggests may be associated with similar harms.
The Biden administration plans to require chemicals manufacturers to conduct aggressive health and environmental testing of the chemicals. Importantly, the approach to testing would group more than 2,000 individual PFAS into about 20 different categories of similar substances, allowing the agency tomore swiftly draw safety conclusions about more chemicals.
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“The American Chemistry Council supports the strong, science-based regulation of chemicals, including PFAS substances. But all PFAS are not the same, and they should not all be regulated the same way,” the American Chemistry Council, the trade group representing the chemicals industry, said in a statement. ACC believes the new EPA plan “reinforces the differences” between different chemicals in the class, according to the statement.
