A proposed federal rule calls for forcing companies to disclose whether their products contain toxic “forever” chemicals, the government’s first attempt at cataloging the pervasiveness of PFAS across the United States.
Still, the chemical and semiconductor industries are grumbling about what the EPA estimated is a potential $1 billion cost to comply with the rule. The U.S. chemical industry says it generates more than $500 billion annually. Because PFAS are found in thousands of products — contact lenses, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals such as Prozac, paper plates, clothing, and dental floss, to name just a few — regulators are scrambling to gather data on the scope of the PFAS threat. The EPA data collection proposal is a move in that direction.
That lack of regulation in the U.S. is driving states to take matters into their own hands, pursuing PFAS bans as gridlock and industry lobbying in Washington thwart tougher federal laws. Minnesota’s crackdown on PFAS limits the chemicals in menstrual products, cleaning ingredients, cookware, and dental floss. Maine’s law will ban all avoidable uses of PFAS by 2030. Vermont and California ban PFAS in food packaging.
Just cleaning up PFAS waste at U.S. military bases could cost at least $10 billion. Removing it from U.S. drinking water supplies could add more than $3.2 billion annually to the bill, according to a report commissioned by the American Water Works Association. “People aren’t getting headaches or coughing from exposure to PFAS,” Bennett said. “But they are getting cancer a few years down the line — and they don’t understand why.”
The Semiconductor Industry Association has asked the EPA for an exemption to the proposed reporting requirements because, it maintains, semiconductor manufacturing is so complex that it would be “impossible, even with an unlimited amount of time and resources, to discern the presence of PFAS in such articles.” Other industries have also asked for waivers.