Perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) are man-made compounds that do not occur naturally. They’re created during the manufacture of Teflon and in the creation of a type of fire-fighting foam mostly used by the military. Wide use over a period of decades means that they’re present in drinking-water systems in many areas of the country, particularly in regions containing military bases or chemical plants. They’re also directly linked to multiple kinds of cancer, to high blood pressure, heart disease, and a host of ailments. And ... the EPA is not going regulate them, despite requirements that such chemicals be regulated under the Safe Drinking Water Act.
Preventing the regulation of these chemicals has been a long-term project for the Trump EPA. In 2018, then-EPA administrator Scott Pruitt blocked a public study of the chemicals. Preventing that study’s release meant that, in the most technical sense, the agency wasn’t required to move, even though other studies had already demonstrated the danger, and legislators, both Democratic and Republican, were urging the EPA to take regulatory action. And it wasn’t as if the EPA study hadn’t found a problem with these chemicals. It had. But Pruitt and Trump fought to keep those results under wraps, refusing to release the report for months before finally allowing it to escape in June.
White House officials were concerned at the time not about the very real public health effects of the chemicals, but about the bad publicity that might result from suppressing the report. However, Politico reports that Trump’s EPA has apparently recovered from the dire threat of a “public relations nightmare” and is getting on with the task—of definitely not regulating chemicals of which the toxic effects have been demonstrated, and that continue to represent a threat to millions.
Failure to regulate the chemicals means that water companies will not be required to test for PFOS and PFOA. There will not be a required standard to meet. And, most critically for Team Trump, it will be much more difficult to take legal action against chemical companies such as 3M, which is responsible for generating the chemicals in bulk, or the military for the health damage the chemicals have already created. Across the country, communities had been looking forward to the regulation of these chemicals as a start toward remediating the high levels that remain in the drinking water of millions. Instead, there will be neither regulations nor funds to begin that effort.
Had the EPA listed the chemicals, it would have become the responsibility of 3M and other chemical firms to cover much of the cost of cleaning up those chemicals; and it would have forced the firms to address lawsuits over cancers and other diseases caused by the chemicals’ presence in water systems. Instead, the orchestrated stall is forcing states to look at piecemeal legislation, which can be tough to do when the areas where the chemicals represent the greatest threat to drinking water are also those where the chemical industry has the greatest influence.
The failure to regulate PFOA and PFOS may not yet have generated the kind of public firestorm that worried Trump officials — but it has generated some heat. It might be enough to even spark a very rare event: Republican senators voting against a Trump nominee.
Coal lobbyist Andrew Wheeler, who has been acting administrator of the EPA ever since Scott Pruitt was finally forced to step down by his ongoing series of scandals, is set to face a committee vote on his nomination to officially become EPA administrator on Feb. 5. Though there are still enough Republicans in the Senate willing to follow Trump off any cliff, enough to ensure that Wheeler will likely pass a final vote, it’s possible there could be a defection on the committee, which would be enough to deny Wheeler its blessing—before Mitch McConnell inevitably moves the nomination to the full Senate anyway.
An estimated 110 million Americans are currently exposed to dangerous levels of these chemicals, levels that would fall above a regulatory standard—if there was one.