[Press Release] EPA Sued Over PFAS ‘Secrecy’ Reporting Loopholes

Earthjustice | January 20, 2022

Read the full press release from Earthjustice

“WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, three national advocacy organizations represented by Earthjustice, sued the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in federal court to force the agency to close illegal loopholes that let chemical plants and military bases across the United States avoid disclosing their PFAS emissions into the environment during manufacturing or use of these cancer-causing chemicals.

Under Congress’s 2020 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), PFAS manufacturers and polluters must report on nearly 200 PFAS they manufacture, use or release. The information is compiled by EPA in a public database called the Toxics Release Inventory, or TRI. But due to recently created EPA loopholes, chemical companies and the military can keep the PFAS they produce or dump in the environment secret.

‘Thanks to EPA’s loopholes, communities, scientists and lawmakers don’t know which PFAS are being used, in what amounts, or to what extent companies are dumping PFAS in our air or water,’ said Laurene Allen, a National PFAS Contamination Coalition leadership team spokesperson, and resident of Merrimack, New Hampshire, where known PFAS-polluter Saint Gobain Performance Plastics operates a major facility. ‘PFAS remain largely unregulated, so communities depend on accurate reporting to figure out how to advocate for themselves. EPA must close these loopholes immediately and force companies to accurately disclose their PFAS pollution.'”…

This content provided by the PFAS Project.