Scientists and North Carolina co-petitioners implore EPA’s Regan to act on PFAS
Source: Center for Environmental Health
Today, 67 of the nation’s leading PFAS science experts submitted a letter to the newly-confirmed EPA Administrator Michael Regan calling on him to institute a class-based ban on all PFAS except essential uses.
“PFAS are one of the most important public health challenges facing the Biden-Harris Administration. Given the known persistence, mobility, bioaccumulation, and toxicity of many PFAS, and that EPA has identified over 9,000 PFAS compounds, it is critical to regulate them as a class and to eliminate non-essential uses,” said Linda Birnbaum, Scientist Emeritus and Former Director, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and National Toxicology Program Scholar in Residence, Duke University
“The EPA should use testing authority under TSCA to require toxicity testing of the many PFAS that are widely present in the environment and people. Strategically-directed in vivo toxicity testing and human studies will provide necessary information to support a class-based regulatory approach and to validate in vitro and in silico screening approaches that are being developed,” said Ruthann Rudel, Director of Research at Silent Spring Institute.
Additionally, six public health and environmental justice organizations— Center for Environmental Health, Cape Fear River Watch, Clean Cape Fear, NC Black Alliance, Democracy Green and Toxic Free NC—delivered a letter to Regan. As a life-long North Carolina resident, they’re asking him to call upon his first-hand knowledge of the health threats facing the state’s racially diverse communities to reverse Trump’s denial of their January petition.
“We are hopeful that Administrator Regan, who knows North Carolina’s plight to address PFAS all too well, will recognize EPA’s duty to act. He can demonstrate his commitment to environmental justice by reversing the decision of Trump’s EPA,” said Alexis Luckey, Executive Director, Toxic Free North Carolina.
For more information about the petition, visit the Center for Environmental Health.