In ‘Historic’ Step, Biden EPA Moves to Designate Two Forever Chemicals as Hazardous
The Environmental Protection Agency moved Friday to designate two commonly used “forever chemicals” as hazardous under federal law, a long-awaited step that green groups welcomed as important while also warning it is inadequate to address the scale of toxic pollution caused by the increasingly ubiquitous substances.
The EPA said in a press release that it has proposed a rule to formally classify perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS)—part of a long list of chemical compounds known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS)—”as hazardous substances under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), also known as ‘Superfund.'”
“This rulemaking would increase transparency around releases of these harmful chemicals and help to hold polluters accountable for cleaning up their contamination,” the EPA said, noting that the rule would, “in certain circumstances, facilitate making the polluter pay by allowing EPA to seek to recover cleanup costs from a potentially responsible party or to require such a party to conduct the cleanup.”
The agency said it shall publish the proposed rule in the Federal Register in the coming weeks, starting a 60-day public comment period during which the chemical lobby is expected to fight back against the new designation of common PFAS, mostly nondegradable substances that have been linked to cancer and detected in drinking water, soil, human blood, breast milk, and everyday household products.
The American Chemistry Council, a trade group that represents major PFAS polluters such as DuPont and 3M, wasted no time attacking the EPA proposal, calling it “an expensive, ineffective and unworkable means to achieve remediation for these chemicals.”
But environmentalists hailed the proposal as a major improvement over the status quo, under which the EPA has been accused of “doing the bare minimum” to monitor and combat PFAS contamination.
Originally published at Commondreams.org.
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