By Mike Tony, Charleston Gazette-Mail
The U.S. House of Representatives has again passed legislation aimed at protecting Americans from industrial chemicals whose extensive contamination and deleterious health effects have left a toxic legacy in West Virginia.
Overcoming opposition from two of West Virginia’s three House members, the sweeping legislation seeking to restrict water and air pollution from per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) approved by the House last week would require the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to establish a national drinking water standard for certain types of these substances.
PFAS are known as “forever chemicals” because they don’t break down in the human body and the environment. They can be found in food, household products and drinking water.
The bill, HR 2467, would implement a drinking water standard within two years for at least two of the most extensively found PFAS, perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS), and designate those two PFAS as hazardous substances under the EPA’s Superfund program that allows federal authorities to respond to releases or threatened releases of such substances…
