Frederica Freyberg:
In a follow-up to our story last week about contamination of PFAS chemicals in water, Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul has signed on to a letter urging Congress to list the compounds as hazardous substances. Without this designation, the Environmental Protection Agency is limited in its ability to enforce testing and clean-up of contaminated sites. The letter, signed by 22 state attorneys general said, “Public understanding about the serious risks that PFAS contamination poses to human health and the environment is growing. Without federal legislative action to assist states and communities that are responding to this burgeoning threat, the public may lose confidence in the safety of its drinking water sources, consumer products and other routes of exposure to other dangerous levels of PFAS. Currently no federal standard exists to regulate PFAS and Wisconsin’s timeline for passing a standard could be years away.