1. United States
2. Calif.
3. Letter

Congress needs to investigate the EPA's recent PFAS pesticide approvals and pass a ban on forever chemicals in pesticides. The Trump EPA approved four PFAS pesticides in a single term — diflufenican, epyrifenacil, cyclobutrifluram, and isocycloseram — for use on corn, soybeans, and wheat, the most widely grown crops in the country. These approvals were based on data supplied by the pesticide companies themselves, with no independent, robust studies of how these chemicals behave in ecosystems already under severe stress. That's the part that should alarm you. Insect populations are crashing globally, and cancer rates in humans are rising. Most PFAS pesticides are expected to degrade into trifluoroacetic acid, a persistent probable carcinogen already found in 78% of tested wells in Germany. TFA can linger in soil and water for months to decades. Denmark banned diflufenican over TFA contamination. The European Chemicals Agency flagged TFA as toxic to reproduction. The EPA declared epyrifenacil "not likely to be carcinogenic" — using only the manufacturer's own data. The EPA is supposed to prevent chemicals like these from saturating our soil and water supplies, not approve them at scale. Congress must hold hearings, mandate independent scientific review of these approvals, and ban PFAS pesticides before forever chemicals poison ecosystems and water supplies for generations.