House Set to Vote on Legislation Requiring Government to Act on PFAS

The U.S. House of Representatives is expected to vote Friday on sweeping legislation that seeks to force the federal government to regulate PFAS chemicals and require their cleanup at contaminated sites, including Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst.

The legislation, known as the PFAS Action Act, is a compilation of several bills related to the chemicals, which have become a growing concern across the nation, particularly in communities with water contaminated with the compounds.

Nicknamed "forever chemicals" because they persist in the human body and the environment for decades or even hundreds of years, PFAS exposure has been linked to several health problems, including testicular and kidney cancer, high cholesterol and thyroid disease.

Despite the health concerns, the Trump administration has been slow to regulate the chemicals, which can be found in firefighting foams used by the military and at commercial airports, as well as a variety of household products, including non-stick cookware, food containers, floor waxes and many water- and stain-resistant upholsteries.

The PFAS Action Act would set deadlines for EPA to set a drinking water standard for two of the most common PFAS chemicals and require the agency to add the chemicals to its hazardous substance list, making them eligible for Superfund cleanup funding.

Supporters of the legislation expect it to pass the House easily. But its chances of becoming law appears slim, as Republicans in the Senate have said it is too overreaching and President Donald Trump has threatened to veto it.

House Democrats intend to push it through anyway, arguing that it is too important an issue to ignore.

"We know about this problem and we know we have to do a lot more to clean it up in our environment," said Rep. Dan Kildee, a Michigan Democrat who co-chairs the bipartisan congressional PFAS Task Force, on Thursday during a conference call with reporters, where he criticized the Trump administration for failing to live up to its own self-imposed deadline to set a federal limit on the chemicals.

Last February, David Ross, assistant administrator in the EPA's Office of Water, told members of Congress that the agency planned to consider a nationwide drinking water standard and list some PFAS as hazardous substances under the Superfund law, "by the end of the year."

"It's important for Congress to act because the Trump administration has not," Kidee said. "In threatening to veto this important bill, President Trump and his administration are siding with corporate polluters."

Joining Kildee on the call were numerous other lawmakers from the PFAS Task Force, including New Jersey Rep. Andy Kim.

Kim, whose district includes Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, said the legislation was about moving forward to address a potential threat to the environment and public health.

The military has been investigating PFAS contamination at the joint base and has tested more than 250 private drinking water wells, although it has found just five above a health advisory level for the chemicals. It has also identified contamination at two on-base water wells on the Lakehurst side of the installation.

"I've heard from people in my community. They're concerned about PFAS and they're concerned about their drinking water," Kim said during the call. "It's about keeping our men and women in the Armed Services safe, keeping our joint base safe and keeping people in the surrounding communities safe."

The legislation is the latest attempt by lawmakers to address PFAS contamination nationwide.

Last year's National Defense Authorization Act — an annual, must-pass military policy law — included language authored by Kim to require the use of firefighting foams with PFAS chemicals to be phased out by 2024 and for the military to perform blood tests on any current and former service members or civilian workers who may have been exposed to it. But the final House-Senate compromise signed into law dropped provisions pushed for by some House Democrats to require the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to declare the chemicals "hazardous" and require the military to fund cleanup of PFAS contamination on and off their installations.

Kildee said the House Armed Services chair Adam Smith agreed to drop those stronger provisions based on the promise that they would be considered in legislation early in the new year.

In its veto threat, the White House said the legislation would bypass the EPA's establish process for creating safe drinking water standards and impose "substantial, unwarranted costs" on the federal, state and local governments, as well as key stakeholders.

"The EPA, through its PFAS Action Plan, is taking extensive efforts to help communities address PFAS nationwide. In this work, the EPA, along with other federal agencies, continues to follow the statutorily mandated regulatory processes to evaluate and determine the appropriate actions needed to protect the health of the American people, including actions to protect the safety of our drinking water," the White House Office of Management and Budget wrote.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated the bill would increase the federal deficit by more than $320 million over the next decade if it becomes law and also impose more than $246 million in unfunded mandates on state and local governments and the private sector.

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