Top Senate Dem Visits Horsham, Pushes PFAs Bill

HORSHAM, PA — The top-ranking Democrat on the U.S. Senate's committee on the environment visited Horsham on Monday to push for a bill that would speed the government's cleanup of areas impacted by toxic PFA chemicals.

Sen. Tom Carper, D-Delaware, joined Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey for a roundtable discussion on the issues of PFAs. The discussion took place just miles from the former Willow Grove Naval Air Station, where firefighting foam containing the chemicals is believed to have seeped into the groundwater, contaminating neighboring water systems.

Carper, who has criticized what he calls the Trump administration's slow response to the issue, has sponsored the PFAs Action Act, on which Casey has joined as a co-sponsor.

The bill would require the Environmental Protection Agency to classify PFAs as a hazardous substance, making them eligible for cleanup under the federal Superfund law. The bill also would require polluters to pay or undertake remediation for introducing PFAs into the ecosystem.

Carper also criticized Trump for proposing cuts to the EPA's budget which would reduce its manpower by almost one-third.

"We need to ensure that EPA has the resources it needs to handle this growing national challenge, but we also need to understand that addressing PFAs contamination is not just a money matter," Carper said. "It’s not esoteric. Today’s roundtable was a sobering reminder that this is an issue about people who are suffering and will continue to suffer without urgency from this administration."

In February, the EPA said it will begin setting limits this year on two man-made chemicals that fall under the umbrella of PFAs. They are found widely in soil and water and have been linked to cancer and other illnesses.

Critics, who had pushed the administration to act, say the timetable laid out under the announcement is too slow.

In March, Carper and three other Senate committee ranking members requested documents from the EPA, the Department of Defense, the Department of Health and Human Services and the federal Office of Management and Budget related to the interagency review of EPA’s February 2019 "PFAS Action Plan."

Later that month, after Carper’s staff learned that the Department of Defense may be pressuring EPA to weaken the stringency of PFAs groundwater cleanup guidelines to 400 parts per trillion, he encouraged EPA to resist pressure from other agencies and to finalize groundwater cleanup guidance at the drinking water Lifetime Advisory Limit of 70 parts per trillion.