Make Rigorous Environmental Regulations Law!

Make Law To Stop EPA Administrator Zeldin From Continual Efforts To Gut Environmental Regulations! A nine-page watered-down document that downplays risks and fails to protect communities is not a replacement for a comprehensive, science-based assessment of the dangers of PFAS contamination or the need for polluter accountability. These comments are in reference to docket EPA-HQ-OW-2026-2509. EPA’s decision to replace its scientific assessment of PFAS contaminated sludge used as fertilizer puts our food, water, families and rural communities at risk. PFAS contamination is preventable if industries treat their waste and wastewater treatment plants use their existing authority to stop pollution at its source—before it ever reaches sewage sludge, farmland, or drinking water. Preventing pollution at the source is the most effective and affordable way to protect communities and ensure polluters bear the cost of their pollution—not our farms, families and communities. EPA must hold industrial polluters accountable for treating their own waste before it reaches farmlands and contaminates water supplies. EPA should not allow preventable PFAS contamination of food and water to continue. Nor should it force farming families and downstream communities to bear the costs of pollution they did not create. We are alarmed by EPA’s decision to replace its risk assessment. This action is part of this administration’s broader pattern of weakening protections against toxic PFAS pollution and limiting accountability for polluters. Federal agencies recently entered into a weak settlement with Chemours that imposes minimal penalties and allows the company to largely avoid meaningful responsibility for widespread contamination, while EPA leadership has elevated industry influence by appointing Chemours executives to its Science Advisory Board. At the same time, EPA has moved to eliminate and delay national drinking water standards for several PFAS chemicals, threatening the safety of communities nationwide. Together, these actions signal an alarming retreat from science-based safeguards and a troubling pattern of prioritizing polluters over people. Thanks, A Constituent Disgusted With The Way Republicans Are Throwing Away Democracy, And Returning The Country Back To An Age Of Racism & Poverty Of The Dark Ages.