States-PFAS

States

California Advances Bills Targeting PFAS, Chemical Use In Products

California’s Senate and Assembly are advancing several bills to ban PFAS from certain products, and restrict other chemicals in food and consumer products, though the state’s $12 billion budget deficit has created a new layer of uncertainty over whether bills with significant price tags will be enacted. “These bills reflect growing momentum in California to close dangerous loopholes in chemical safety,” said Bernadette Del Chiaro, a senior vice president of the Environmental Working Group (EWG), which is a cosponsor of...

Senate Floor Analyses Of SB 682

Assembly Floor Analyses Of AB 794

Assembly Floor Analyses Of AB 1148

Senate Floor Analyses Of SB 646


State Regulators Criticize Lack Of Guidance From EPA On PFAS Actions

NEW YORK -- State PFAS regulators are raising concerns about the lack of guidance and information they have received from the Trump administration on PFAS regulations, such as recent changes made to the Biden-era drinking water rule, amid continuing efforts to tackle contamination at the state level despite significant costs. “I think all of the states right now are having some challenges interacting [with EPA],” Joaquin Esquivel, board chair of the California State Water Resources Control Board, said during a...

Maine Authorizes Regulators To Set First-Time PFAS Limits For Food

Maine could become the first state to set PFAS limits for food after the governor signed legislation to allow agriculture regulators to establish and codify such maximum levels, shortly after the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) also indicated it is considering whether to set federal thresholds in response to a citizen petition. Maine Gov. Janet Mills (D) signed the legislation, LD 130 , May 9 after the state legislature voted “under the hammer” -- a vote that assumes approval unless...

3M, New Jersey Reach $450 Million Deal For Manufacturer’s PFAS Liability

PFAS manufacturer 3M has reached a proposed settlement of up to $450 million with New Jersey over long-running PFAS cleanup and natural resource damages (NRD) claims, as well as the state’s claims over the company’s production of firefighting foam under multidistrict litigation (MDL) -- the largest such PFAS settlement in the state’s history. 3M’s decision to settle comes just a week before a federal court is set to hold the first of a series of mini-trials focused on the New...

Industry Urges EPA To Limit State PFAS Actions, But Lawyers Say It’s Unlikely

An industry group is urging the Trump EPA to regulate PFAS, likely through TSCA, in a way that would preempt the growing swath of state regulations of the chemicals, such as product prohibitions, but lawyers and other regulatory experts say it is unlikely the agency in the near future would be able to restrict or limit any state actions. “Right now, I’m at a loss to know . . . how state activities could be curtailed, or whether there could...

North Carolina’s PFAS Source Reduction Plan Stalls Due To Incomplete RIA

A North Carolina regulatory oversight panel has declined to take action on a proposed PFAS source reduction plan to tackle surface water contamination, criticizing state regulators for dragging their feet on developing a regulatory impact analysis (RIA) that was ultimately not approved by the state budget office in time for the panel’s meeting. “I’m rather disconcerted in the department’s performance on development of the RIA,” said Michael Ellison, an environmental consultant and member of the North Carolina Environmental Management Commission’s...

West Virginia Contests EPA’s Termination Of EJ Grant For PFAS Work

West Virginia officials are contesting EPA’s termination of a $1 million grant intended to develop PFAS action plans and identify and address PFAS sources in untreated water under state and federal mandates after the agency canceled it as part of its sweeping elimination of environmental justice (EJ) grants. West Virginia’s Department of Environmental Protection (WVDEP) April 11 filed a grant termination dispute with EPA, after the federal agency March 12 terminated the state’s $1 million government-to-government grant, a WVDEP spokesman...

Minnesota PFAS Reporting Program Will Burden Producers, Lawyers Say

Minnesota regulators have issued a proposed rule requiring manufacturers to request information from their supply chains about their products’ PFAS content “until all required information is known,” an approach that legal experts say imposes a high burden on producers, far beyond the due diligence outlined under EPA’s TSCA reporting program. “The idea that information can be obtained from the entire supply chain, if only requested enough times, seemingly ignores the reality of a global supply chain creating complex products,” law...

Tennessee Bill Adopts ‘Sound Science’ For PFAS Rules But Drops Key Limit

Tennessee lawmakers have approved an industry-backed bill that requires the use of “sound science” when crafting PFAS and other environmental rules, setting a precedent for other states where local and national industry groups hope to encourage the adoption of scientific standards already found in EPA’s statutes and prevent the use of overly conservative studies. But Volunteer State lawmakers approved the bill earlier this month after they dropped a key provision that could have further limited the use of some studies...

Regulatory Patchwork On PFAS Refrigerants Creates Industry Uncertainty

Varying federal and state definitions of PFAS, and whether those definitions include refrigerants, are creating regulatory uncertainty for industry, experts say, especially as more states weigh bans on PFAS-containing refrigerants amid ongoing hurdles toward implementing alternatives to such refrigerants. Maine and Minnesota, for example, define per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) to include substances “with at least one fully fluorinated carbon atom.” These would include trifluoroacetic acid (TFA), the PFAS often produced by refrigerants like hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) and hydrofluoroolefins (HFOs). These...

North Carolina Bill Seeks Enforceable PFAS Limits After Voluntary Plan

A North Carolina GOP lawmaker has introduced legislation requiring state regulators to set enforceable discharge standards for PFAS, a measure aimed at strengthening state requirements after a regulatory panel advanced a highly criticized voluntary source-reduction plan while continuing to delay enforceable PFAS water quality standards. State Sen. Michael Lee (R) March 25 introduced SB 666 , a bill that requires the state’s Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) by Oct. 1, 2025 to develop “[s]cience-based concentration limits for commonly detected PFAS,...

Wisconsin Governor Seeks Narrow PFAS Liability Exemptions In Spills Law

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers (D) is proposing to exempt owners of residential and agricultural land contaminated by PFAS-containing sewage sludge from liability under the state’s spills law, moving a step closer to state Republican lawmakers who have reintroduced legislation with broader exemptions for “innocent landowners.” But prospects for an agreement appear uncertain, as one local environmentalist notes that the reintroduced GOP legislation retains language from legislation Evers vetoed last year that appears to exempt many more responsible parties from some...

Maine Adopts First-Time Rules For ‘Currently Unavoidable’ PFAS Uses

Maine has become the first state to adopt rules for determining which products are “currently unavoidable uses” (CUUs) of PFAS and are hence exempt from its upcoming product prohibitions, forging ahead with a regulation that has remained largely unchanged despite significant criticism from industry on several of its provisions. “Yes, this is going to be a little complicated, especially going forward, but it always was going to be,” one member of the Maine Board of Environmental Protection (BEP) said during...

Maine Gives Industry Two More Years To Secure Waivers From PFAS Ban

Maine regulators have agreed to give manufacturers an additional two years to secure exemptions from the state’s upcoming ban on products containing PFAS, though they have otherwise declined to grant a host of other industry requests to ease its implementing rule, which is slated for approval early next week. Maine’s Board of Environmental Protection is slated to meet April 7 to consider adopting the Department of Environmental Protection’s (DEP) proposed rule to implement the state’s amended per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances...

California Bill To Ban Most PFAS Uses Clears Panel, But Faces Uphill Battle

A California Senate environmental committee has passed a bill to ban the sale of products with intentionally added PFAS that are not deemed to have “essential uses” and for which no other alternatives exist, but the measure faces an uphill battle given strong opposition by industry and business groups and doubts about its feasibility. “We’re going to continue to work on this -- there is certainly some refinement that has to happen. But the scope and size of this problem...

Industry Group Narrows Challenge To Minnesota’s PFAS Cookware Ban

A group representing cookware manufacturers has narrowed its challenge to Minnesota’s law banning PFAS-containing cookware, even as the group urges a federal district court to preserve its suit challenging the prohibitions in the face of the state’s attempt to dismiss it. According to a March 31 statement filed by counsel for Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) Commissioner Katrina Kessler, the Cookware Sustainability Alliance (CSA), which represents cookware manufacturers, designers and engineers, has dropped two of its four arguments -- which...

Industry Touts Waivers In New Mexico PFAS Product Ban As State Model

A coalition of industry stakeholders is urging the New Mexico governor to sign into law a recently approved bill that would ban the sale of many PFAS-containing consumer products, touting the measure as a possible model for other states that have struggled with such bans given the broad range of waivers it provides for many products and chemicals. The New Mexico bill, HB 212, “takes into account issues that other states have confronted when attempting PFAS legislation,” the Sustainable PFAS...

In First, New Mexico Exempts Fluoropolymers From PFAS Product Bans

New Mexico is poised to enact a comprehensive ban on the sale of consumer products with intentionally added PFAS, joining states like Maine and Minnesota that have similar laws, though New Mexico’s bill appears to be the first such measure to exempt products containing fluoropolymers, which are often used in cookware. HB 212 , also known as the “Per- and Poly-Fluoroalkyl Substances Protection Act,” March 14 cleared the New Mexico House of Representatives on a 62-1 vote and then cleared...

New Mexico Plans To Regulate Discarded AFFF As Hazardous Waste

The New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) plans to regulate discarded firefighting foam containing PFAS as “hazardous waste” under legislation that is expected to soon be signed into law, bolstering its legal tools in its fight to require the Defense Department (DOD) to address PFAS contamination at its bases under state and federal hazardous waste authorities. The New Mexico Senate March 20 voted 35-7 to approve HB140 -- first-time state legislation that lists discarded aqueous film-forming foam (AFFF) containing intentionally added...

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