"Regulations prohibiting the practice were written during the final days of the Biden administration. But Republicans in the House are moving to cut off funding to keep them from going into effect."
"Republicans are quietly moving to kill proposed regulations for PFAS-contaminated sewage sludge that is spread on farmland as fertilizer, a practice that has sickened farmers across the country, destroyed their livelihoods and contaminated food and water supplies.
The Biden administration in its final days issued a draft health risk assessment level for some PFAS in sludge that would have dramatically limited the use of the substance, also called biosolids, as fertilizer, if finalized and implemented.
Then, in early June, a waste industry trade group met with Environmental Protection Agency leadership to discuss the assessment. In the weeks after the meeting, Republicans quietly slipped a rider into a House appropriations bill that would fund the EPA aims to derail the risk assessment process by cutting off funding. The rider also includes language that appears designed to permanently prohibit funding for the implementation of regulations for some PFAS in sludge.
Public health advocates and some Congress members are now mobilizing to kill the rider, which they say is likely illegal because it pre-empts the Clean Water Act. The attempt to kill the risk assessment is “absolutely insane,” said Kyla Bennett, a former EPA attorney who is now science director for the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility nonprofit."
Tom Perkins reports for Inside Climate News July 28, 2025.
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