U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell/YouTube Washington — Members of Congress are pushing hard on the Environmental Protection Agency to get tougher on regulating water contamination from fluorinated chemicals, including those used in making fluoropolymers.
At a Sept. 6 hearing in Washington, one of the first held by Congress on the issue, a bipartisan collection of lawmakers pressed the EPA on its plans, and a panel of state regulators urged Washington to set national standards and beef up funding for cleanups.
PFAS in Michigan is scaring people more than the Flint water did."
A community group from North Carolina, Clean Cape Fear, for example, urged lawmakers to set standards for a newer type of PFAS, the fluorochemical compound GenX, used by Chemours as a PFOA replacement at manufacturing plants in the fluoropolymer supply chain in Fayetteville, N.C., and in Europe.
We need to move beyond GenX, PFOA and PFOS… and regulate all PFAS as a class of highly toxic chemicals."
A few states have set their own standards at much lower levels, often below 20 ppt for PFOA.
States are also setting new, low standards for other PFAS chemicals used in plastics.
New Jersey regulators on Sept. 4 adopted a drinking water standard of 13 parts per trillion for perfluorononanoic acid (PFNA), a processing aide in manufacturing some high-performance plastics.
As well, the New Jersey DEP said PFNA has its strongest links to liver damage and high cholesterol in people.
One member of Congress said the emerging regulations around PFAS chemicals are much stricter than for other drinking water contaminants.