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Chemistry Writings

Addressing the PFAS Action Act Debate – A Paper

Boyang (Bobby) Zhang

Should the government enact the PFAS Action Act of 2019 (H.R. 535) to address the widespread PFAS contamination?

Named “forever chemicals,” the family of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) containing over 4000 chemicals has silently permeated into people’s lives since its first appearance in the 1930s. Today, their existence can be found in items ranging from grease-resistant microwave popcorn bags to firefighting foam in airports. However, along with their widespread usage, these chemicals have emerged as an urgent environmental concern over the past few years. On January 20, 2020, the controversial H.R. 535 bill, otherwise known as the PFAS Action Act of 2019, was passed by the House in hope of regulating PFASs and mitigating the public anxiety about their adverse health effects. The bill gained massive support from the public, who demands safe drinking water, and passing the bill would give the right to accessing clean water back to the people. Naturally, the urgency of the PFAS crisis — an issue that only gets worse if nothing is done — calls for immediate actions; however, the bill faces a long, rough journey ahead before being legally enacted. Many, including those in the White House, have cast doubt on the effectiveness and feasibility of the bill. In fact, the bill is criticized for failing to consider the administrative and financial consequences once it is passed as well as the reality of insufficient research and lackluster treatment solutions. Even though this issue requires an urgent response, it would be more rational to hold off legislating the bill since the negligence of the act’s real-world feasibility may result in unnecessary administrative burden and unwarranted high costs, and the bill does not fit in the current timeframe which lacks robust solutions and knowledge to tackle the PFAS problem.

To further illustrate the depth of this problem, the PFAS issue drew much public attention since the introduction of the Action Act in early 2019, which revealed an alarming urgency due to the persisting and prevailing presence of PFAS chemicals within commercial products and the environment — especially groundwater. Without strong measures taken, these chemicals would continue to accumulate in the wild. The reason why it is difficult to dispose of these chemicals is due to their molecular structure: the molecules are resistant to degradation due to the strong C–F bond interactions on the fluorocarbon chain while the polar functional group at the end makes the molecules miscible in water (514) (i). While this issue is global, what makes it most alarming for Americans is the fact that the levels of PFAS chemicals are alarmingly high in North America. In a review published on Environmental Science & Technology as early as 2006, Houde showcases that the presence of PFASs can be found in biota and living organisms around the world; however, he points out that a higher level of PFOS, a commonly studied substance in the PFAS family, in blood is found in North Americans than other continents, with the highest value of 73 ng/L found in Kentucky. More recently, major chemical manufacturers have replaced common long-chain PFASs, such as PFOS, with short-chain alternatives due to new regulations and due to the assumptions that the short-chain counterparts would lead to less bioaccumulation. Notwithstanding, in an article studying the environmental impact of short-chain PFASs, Stephan Brendel et al. strongly contend that an “effective regulation is urgently needed,” and even the presumably safer short-chains PFASs “are not of minor concern.” The study displays how the high mobility of short-chain PFASs allows them to distribute quickly into water and soil, and that they are as resistant as the long-chain counterparts to decomposition, suggesting they are, in fact, no safer than traditional PFASs. Due to the current rising usage of short-chain PFAS and its superior permeability in the environment, these warning signs further intensifies the pressing need for a set of regulations that will contain the spreading of PFAS and reduce the PFAS existence in the environment.

In addition to the adverse impacts PFAS have on the environment, the pressing health concern of PFAS is also calling for the government to take action. Several compounds in the PFAS family are confirmed to have accumulative negative effects on human health by leading to many diseases including cancer, and the PFASs have been found excessively in drinking water across the U.S. A review of the toxicity and human exposure pathways published last year by Sunderland et al. provides a holistic picture of PFAS impact on human health. The article offers evidence that six diseases such as high cholesterol, thyroid disease, and cancer are linked to PFOA, another widely studied substance in the PFAS family. Even more worrisome, the study highlights that it is more likely for children to suffer from immune issues due to PFASs (138-40). It also underlines how the occurrence of diseases increases with higher, longer exposure to accumulating and persistent PFAS chemicals. To make matters worse, the review reports about six million Americans are supplied with water higher than the advisory level released by the EPA, and there are many other alarming cases of high PFAS level in domestic drinking water (134). A study in 2012 also addresses the looming picture of PFAS contamination, that PFOS and PFOA have a synergic effect with some common pollutants such as Hg2+, Cd2+, and 2,4-D, further stressing PFAS as a severe threat to public health (Rodea-Palomares). As a result, the PFAS crisis does not allow further “delayed action” as it “has resulted in widespread human exposures and risks and lessons should be learned from this example” (Sunderland 142), and the Action Act is urgently needed to stop PFAS from entering the market.

Undeniably, a set of regulations dedicated to the PFAS issue would be helpful to alleviate some public anxiety; nonetheless, the current PFAS Action Act idealizes the solution and faces numerous challenges before being effective. While the bill expects EPA to regulate most of the PFAS family, study their toxicity, and establish drinking water standards and guidelines of disposal (H.R.535), PFAS lacks thorough research on health effects in order to properly determine a complete set of standards, and such research is both immensely time- and cost-consuming. McCarthy et al. point out four knowledge gaps in the PFAS studies. They highlight that the major data gap is “the study of the toxicity of PFAS compounds other than PFOS and PFOA.” In accordance with McCarthy, Sunderland et al. also emphasize that there is a “paucity of toxicity data” associated with “the full-diversity of individual PFASs” in their review. There is also an emerging issue that the myriad PFAS precursors, novel derivatives, and custom molecules have made the study of PFAS family increasingly tricky, while these alternative PFASs is speculated to be as equally harmful (142). As a result, the massive PFAS family, including the newly emerging members, are poorly studied at this moment, and therefore regulations and standards can hardly be made. 

Aside from omitting the lack of understanding towards the PFASs, the bill can further worsen the situation by imposing serious financial burdens on various sectors. Currently, analytical methods for PFOA and PFOS have “relatively high cost” since they require advanced equipment and trained analysts (Pontius 15). In fact, according to the budget estimate released by the Congressional Budget Office, the cost — which includes funding for PFAS research — to comply with PFAS Action Act is projected to be 715 million dollars in 2020-2024. The report also states that there are “significant uncertainties” in estimating cost spent on PFAS toxicity studies as well as the number of substances regulated. The shortage of research compared to the vast number of chemicals and the associated indefinite high cost make the Action Act hardly feasible to take effect in the near future. Furthermore, the limitations of current treatment technologies may exacerbate the budget issue — it is unknown how much time and funding would be invested before there is a superior solution. Pontius, in his comprehensive review, discusses the best available technology (BAT) for PFOA and PFOS treatment. Conventional methods chosen by water plants such as coagulation, sedimentation, filtration, oxidation, and membrane processes are found to be ineffective for PFAS removal. While some experiments found success with anion exchange and granulated activated carbon adsorption, they have major disadvantages that prevent them from being cost-efficient and utilized in large-scale (Pontius 12-14). At this moment, the uncertain timeframe of research and the lack of an effective treatment solution create a least favored situation for the act to be rushed into place, and the constraints in technology put the government in an awkward position since the limitations make it harder to comply with the regulations.

In response to the legislation of the bill, the administration released a statement in January 2020, arguing that the bill “would set problematic and unreasonable rulemaking timelines and precedents, and impose substantial, unwarranted costs.” In this regard, the statement is not wrong considering that hurried regulations would lead to unspecified responsibilities for the water suppliers, PFAS producing industries, and government agencies largely due to the variety of sources of PFAS pollution. PFAS contamination in drinking water is often associated with the use of aqueous film-forming foams (AFFF) in airports, military sites, and fire departments (Roy 3). Humans are also exposed to PFAS from myriad sources, including consumer products, air pollution, seafood, and agriculture, directly and indirectly (Sunderland 132-35) (ii). Such a complex range of sources has made it challenging to track down parties liable and effectively enforce any regulations. 

It is indeed disheartening that the PFAS Action Act cannot be enacted right away to address the urgent PFAS problem; and, understandably, a response of some sort should still take place since there are lives at stake. However, as an attempted response, the bill is hardly feasible in the sense that it requires assets that people do not possess at the moment. More importantly, it may not stop the adverse health effects since, under the pressure of these hasty regulations, companies can still get away through various loopholes. It is undesirable to blindly take actions that only provide a false promise of protection for human health. The PFAS issue is a complex one without an instant remedy. These chemicals are so prevalent and essential to people’s lives that banning the chemicals outright is simply unrealistic. Upon carefully weighing the consequences of whether passing the bill, the future would more promising if the act is held off to allow proper research to gain fuller understandings of the chemical family and to allow more time necessary for the fruition of a response that is efficient and beneficial in the long run. 

Select Bibliography

  1. Brendel, Stephan, et al. “Short-Chain Perfluoroalkyl Acids: Environmental Concerns and a Regulatory Strategy Under REACH.” Environmental Sciences Europe, vol. 30, no. 1, 2018, pp. 1–11.
  2. Buck, Robert C, et al. “Perfluoroalkyl and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances in the Environment: Terminology, Classification, and Origins.” Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management, vol. 7, no. 4, 2011, pp. 513–41.
  3. Congressional Budget Office. “S. 1507, PFAS Release Disclosure and Protection Act of 2019.” 25 Nov. 2019, https://www.cbo.gov/publication/55893. Accessed 28 Jan 2020.
  4. Houde, M, et al. “Biological Monitoring of Polyfluoroalkyl Substances: A Review.” Environmental Science & Technology, vol. 40, no. 11, 2006, pp. 3463–73.
  5. McCarthy, Chris, et al. “Ecological Considerations of Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS).” Current Pollution Reports, vol. 3, no. 4, 2017, pp. 289–301.
  6. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. “Toward a New Comprehensive Global Database of Per and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFASs).” OECD Environment, Health and Safety Publications, 2018, https://www.oecd.org/officialdocuments/publicdisplaydocumentpdf/?cote=ENV-JM-MONO(2018)7&doclanguage=en. Accessed 28 Jan. 2020.
  7. Pontius, Frederick. “Regulation of Perfluorooctanoic Acid (PFOA) and Perfluorooctane Sulfonic Acid (PFOS) in Drinking Water: A Comprehensive Review.” Water, vol. 11, no. 10, 2019.
  8. Rodea-Palomares, Ismael, et al. “Toxicological Interactions of Perfluorooctane Sulfonic Acid (PFOS) and Perfluorooctanoic Acid (PFOA) with Selected Pollutants.” Journal of Hazardous Materials, vol. 201-202, Elsevier B.V, Jan. 2012, pp. 209–18.
  9. Roy, Nikki D, et al. “Regulatory Challenges Posed by Emerging Contaminants.” Water Resources Committee Newsletter, vol. 20, no. 1, 2018.
  10. Sunderland, Elsie, et al. “A Review of the Pathways of Human Exposure to Poly- and Perfluoroalkyl Substances (PFASs) and Present Understanding of Health Effects.” Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology, vol. 29, no. 2. 2019, pp. 131–47.
  11. United States, Congress. “Summary: H.R.535.” https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/535. Accessed 28 Jan. 2020.
  12. United States, Executive Office of the President. “Statement of Administration of Policy.” 7 Jan. 2020, https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/SAP_HR-535.pdf. Accessed 28 Jan. 2020.

Endnotes

[i] Molecular structures of PFOA and PFOS are provided below:

Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA)
Perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS)

[ii] From Sunderland et al. (“A Review”), the illustration describes an overview of PFAS exposure pathways for humans.