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The Trump administration is quietly carrying out a plan that aims to kill hundreds of bans on highly toxic PFAS “forever chemicals” and other dangerous compounds in consumer goods.
The bans, largely at the state level, touch most facets of daily life, prohibiting everything from bisphenol in children’s products to mercury in personal care products to PFAS in food packaging and clothing.
If successful, the public would almost certainly be exposed to much higher levels of chemicals linked to a range of serious health issues such s cancer, hormone disruption, liver disease, birth defects, and reproductive system damage, the plan’s opponents say.
The Trump Environmental Protection Agency move involves changing the way the agency carries out chemical risk evaluations, which would also pre-empt state laws that offer the one of few meaningful checks on toxic chemicals in consumer products.
The plan could also largely undo California’s effective Proposition 65 law, and could spell the end of meager federal prohibitions, including an early 2024 ban on asbestos.
“This will increase health risks to consumers by exposing them to toxic chemicals,” said an EPA employee who spoke to the Guardian on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.
“It also allows the market for toxic chemicals to continue, because it maintains the financial incentive for them to be made for all these consumer products.”
Although the risk presented by most chemicals in individual consumer products is often low, the public is typically exposed to a wide range of toxic substances throughout the day, and those combined daily exposures over the long term present a serious health risk.
Industry has largely succeeded in heading off federal limits on chemicals in consumer products, in part because, public health advocates say, it has captured parts of the EPA. Still, under Joe Biden, the agency began putting in place some bans, such as on the use of formaldehyde in consumer goods, including leather.
PFAS are among the most widely used and toxic chemicals in consumer products, and many states have zeroed in on the chemical class. Maine in 2021 passed a ban on PFAS for all non-essential uses, while across the country about 15 states have enacted a patchwork of prohibitions for clothing, menstruation products, cookware, food packaging, playground equipment, and cosmetics, among other goods.
Massachusetts and Connecticut banned PFAS in firefighting turnout gear after firefighters demanded action in response to high cancer rates likely connected to the chemicals.
Beyond PFAS, Washington prohibited lead in cookware; Nevada banned flame retardants in children’s toys; and Maryland prohibited some phthalates in cosmetics, among other actions.
“The states are on the front lines and they’ve been stepping up because communities want these laws,” said Sarah Doll, the national director of Safer States, which pushes for state level restrictions on toxic chemicals. “People don’t want toxic chemicals in their homes. Firefighters don’t want to be exposed to PFAS in firefighting foam.”
The state laws are also effective because they create pressure on industry to stop using dangerous chemicals. PFAS is banned for use in clothing in California, Colorado and other states, so it makes logistical sense for producers to stop using the chemicals instead of producing some clothing treated with it and some untreated.
Chemical giant 3M announced it would stop making PFAS in part because state laws banning the chemicals complicates their use.
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The laws’ effectiveness and pressure have put them on industry’s hit list, and the Trump EPA submitted a rule that reworks how risk evaluations are performed.
The Biden EPA approach stated that if any specific use of a chemical – clothing, cosmetics, or food packaging, for example – presents an “unreasonable risk”, the entire chemical should be considered a risk. States can regulate chemicals that are considered an unreasonable risk.
The Trump EPA’s new rule would require the agency to evaluate whether a chemical presents a risk for each intended use. Formaldehyde, for example, has 63 uses. The agency plans to claim most chemicals do not present an “unreasonable risk” in consumer goods because they make up such a small part of products, the EPA employee said.
Industry scored a major victory in a 2016 rewrite of the nation’s laws around toxic chemicals by working in a provision that says if the EPA finds that a substance does not present an “unreasonable risk” then states cannot write laws banning or limiting its use.
“They are going to exclude a huge number of consumer products from being considered for risk management,” the EPA employee said.
They added that an individual television may contain a small amount of PFAS, “but when you produce 50m televisions, it adds up” – especially for the environment, or for workers producing them.
However, the laws will not go into effect overnight. The EPA, with its limited staff, has to regulate one chemical at a time, and the process for each could take as much as three years. In the meantime, more state laws will be passed, and pressure on goods producers to move away from toxic chemicals will continue to mount, Doll said.
“The market is moving, adapting and innovating … and in three years it will to great effect have already shifted,” Doll added. “It’s a potential threat, but I don’t think it’s going to have a chilling effect on states responding to demands from communities on the ground who are saying, ‘We are dealing with this challenge.’”
