The US Chamber of Commerce opposes a “defensible” ban on “Forever Chemicals.”

Mark Behrens, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Institute of Legal Reform, said the bill was intended to regulate artificial chemicals, including those often referred to as “eternal chemicals” or PFAs.

“The key here is not to stop regulatory actions,” Behrens said. “We all want clean air, clean water, and (a) clean environments. That’s important, but the bill just says that these decisions need to be based on the best science available, so regulators aren’t based on whimsical or pseudo-science.”

The bill says it says we will regulate it even if we don’t know that this substance has no chance of causing harm,” he said. If science shows that “urgent chemicals” have an impact on human health, regulators can intervene.

However, researchers argue that trustworthy scientific research has already shown PFA exposure to increase health risks.

Exposure to seven PFAs monitored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is associated with reduced antibody responses, abnormal levels of fat in the bloodstream, and an increased risk of kidney cancer in adults. National Scholar of Science, Engineering and Medicine. It is also associated with reduced infant growth and fetal growth.

Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skulmetti He filed a lawsuit They claimed that they knew the dangers of PFAs in May 2023, but did not take steps to reduce the risk, causing damage to the state’s property and citizens. The Tennessee lawsuit has been merged with hundreds of similar cases in South Carolina District Court, with multi-district litigation underway.

US Chamber of Commerce Lobbying has begun In March 2024, according to the Chamber website, it opposed “sweep bangs that treat all PFAs the same way and limit access to innovative fluorescent chemistry.”

Chamber Publications It warns policymakers that strict regulations or widespread bans on PFA could disrupt industries employing around 6 million people in the United States. According to one report published by Chamber in August, approximately 192,000 jobs in Tennessee are “dependent” on chemicals.

The Tennessee Chamber of Commerce and the Tennessee Manufacturers Association were among dozens of industry representatives. December 2024 letter The Trump administration is partly seeking a rollback of “overly strained and invisible regulations on PFAS chemicals.”

A similar bill has been introduced West Virginia Legislature this year.

PFA regulations

Suzanne Fenton, a professor of biological sciences at North Carolina State University and professor of biological sciences at the Center for Human Health and Environment, said PFA and its impact on human health has been studied in the lab for more than 20 years.

According to a report by National Academies, areas contaminated by PFA have been discovered all over the world. Chemicals are released from places where they are manufactured, used, or disposed of, and transported by stormwater runoff to other water bodies, including groundwater.

“Today, all children are born with some PFA in their bodies, but that wasn’t 20 years ago,” Fenton said.

Report: “Eternal Chemicals” in Northeast TN pose long-term risks to local drinking water

11 states It sets limits for certain types of PFA in drinking water. Tennessee is not one of them. The Tennessee Department of Environmental Protection is Sampling 29 PFA All in the state Public drinking water systems It is expected to be completed in the summer of 2025.

The state was also chosen to receive $26.7 million With federal funding under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act to address PFA in drinking water. Under former President Joe Biden, the Environmental Protection Agency has proposed designating two PFAs as dangerous goods, but the future of these efforts is unknown under President Trump’s administration.

“Eternal Chemicals” were detected in 60% of rivers and lakes tested in northeastern Tennessee. Sierra Club Report It was released in January 2024.

Tracey Woodruff, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of California, San Francisco, studies how chemicals affect health, pregnancy and child development. She said PFA lasts a long time and accumulates in the environment.

Woodruff is one of the first synthetic insecticides compared to dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane, the permanent effect of DDT. She said traces of the chemical can still be seen in people who have been banned for about 50 years.

“Even if we have a signal of harm, it’s really important to act on these lasting, bioaccumulated chemicals because their health effects – their exposure – are forever… and it’s really the masses who have to pay for the cleanup,” she said.

Sen. Charlen Oliver, a Nashville Democrat, said at a meeting on Feb. 26 that he understood the bill essentially required evidence that chemicals had hurt people before the state stepped in.

Behrens said the bill requires lawmakers who create regulations based on human health to show that they have been “justified by science,” but “there is nothing that people have to show that they have been injured.”

Behrens looked at the regulatory history of asbestos and tobacco. When doctors began to increase cancer cases, researchers looked into the cause and acted upon regulators to determine the cause, he said.

“It sometimes takes years for the government to catch up with technology and science. This bill seems to be hamstringing the government even more so that it can respond to real-time emergency, pandemics and more,” Oliver said.

The committee voted 7-2 to move the bill to the Senate Energy, Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee on positive recommendations.

The House Agriculture and Natural Resources Subcommittee will take up a bill sponsored by Jackson Republican Sen. Chris Todd on March 5th.

What makes science “sound”

Regarding the provisions of the bill that studies published in journals charging author fees cannot be used as a regulatory basis, Behrens said it intends to exclude unreliable “predatory journals.”

Both Fenton and Woodruff Environmental health perspectivea journal that has published scientific research since 1972. They agree that predatory journals, or journals they are trying to publish, are the issue. They agree that peer-reviewed research is the criteria for decision-making.

The publication process in a reputable, reliable journal “can take several months to ensure that the details of the work are transparent and clear,” Fenton said. Typically, each submission is peer-reviewed by at least three experts in the field that are not collaborating with the author of the paper. The process is anonymous.

Woodruff said many journals will charge processing fees because pushes to publish journals have led to the cost of being transferred to researchers.

Reproductive Health and Environmental Program at the University of California, San Francisco Published recommendations and guides To “protect the integrity of science, stop corporate interference in regulatory decision-making, use available science and protect the health of all.”

The principles include identifying industry conflicts of interest in research funding and accounting.

“Using these systematic review methods is about a consistent, transparent approach to assessing evidence bases, and then using empirically-based tools for how to assess research bias will catch studies that are not commonly performed and identify defects,” Woodruff said.

Behrens said the U.S. Chamber of Commerce would work with sponsors of the Language Adjustment Bill to make it clearer about the bill’s intention to exclude predatory magazines when necessary.

“I don’t think there’s a question about my intentions,” he said. “That may go beyond the details of how it is expressed.”