Pfas Action Act of 2021

Floor Speech

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Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank Chairman Pallone for yielding, and I thank him for his work on this piece of legislation, along with Mrs. Dingell, a member of the committee. Obviously, the gentlewoman's deceased husband was chairman of this committee and ranking member for many, many years and was a leader in many respects on addressing environmental challenges. This is an environmental challenge. There is no disagreement on that. There, obviously, is disagreement on specifics.

The gentleman who just spoke, in a very knowledgeable and thoughtful way, said he hopes this legislation moves forward, but he is in opposition to it. I understand he does not want it to pass. But his comment was that, hopefully, this would be perfected in the legislative process.

Now, I do not claim to be, Mr. Speaker, an expert on this chemical. I do know, however, that it affects my district, and every single congressional district in our country is affected by this challenge. That is because every district has faced the challenge of PFAS contamination, which has affected nearly 2,800 communities according to an analysis by the Environmental Working Group. I heard a figure of about 9,200 sites as well from the ranking member.

Like countless other districts in the country, Maryland's Fifth District, which I have the privilege of representing, contamination has been detected at military installations. We are proud of our military installations. Pax River is a, I think, world leading air test, research, and evaluation center for naval air, as well as other air, including helicopters of the Army. Also in my district is the Naval Research Laboratory, Chesapeake Bay Detachment.

The citizens surrounding them are concerned, rightly, about what the contamination may have done to the water they and their children drink or bathe in. Thankfully, the defense authorization that we enacted in 2019 required our military to transition away from the use of PFAS chemicals in firefighting fluids, a major source of contamination.

However, the PFAS pollution that has already occurred needs to be cleaned up, and this legislation would set requirements and deadlines for EPA to do so. Our citizens deserve to have that done. We must prevent PFAS chemicals from entering drinking water used by our communities. I think there is no disagreement on that.

PFAS has been called a forever chemical. Apparently, the biological fact of life is that it does not degrade over long periods of time, because they can linger in the human body for a whole lifetime, causing health effects ranging from cancers to reproductive and immune system deficiencies.

For 4 years, the previous administration claimed that it would take action through the EPA to protect Americans from PFAS contamination. Perhaps if they had done so, we wouldn't have this legislation; but they did not do so. They failed to protect the American people from these harmful chemicals. So the committee has acted in this instance and previously.

Now it is time for Congress to act. Again, I am not an expert on this legislation, but I do know that the committee has carefully weighed how to make sure that we move forward, and in the view of people more expert than I, will not preclude every chemical from being utilized in needed and important items that we use every day in our society, but will provide, because of the designation as a hazardous material, that it be cleaned up where it is necessary to do so.

It ensures that EPA finally takes measures to prevent future release of PFAS chemicals into our environment and clean them up where such contamination has occurred.

Therefore, Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to join me, not just because this is so important to the people living in Maryland's Fifth District, but because it is critical to all Americans living in each and every one of our districts.

Mr. Speaker, I encourage the Senate to join us in taking this step to protect Americans' access to drinking water and look carefully at the issues that have been raised by the ranking member, legitimate issues in the sense that, yes, we ought to make sure that we are doing the right thing and that the good is not outweighed by the bad.

In this instance, I think it is very clear that the good of this bill, the objectives of this bill, and the specifics of this bill, will redound to the benefit of the American people and each and every one of our communities, and I urge my colleagues, therefore, to vote ``yes.''

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