Rep. Mike Lajoie
Maine’s legislature faces an urgent policy dilemma with how the state should move forward to enforce a new law regulating the presence of PFAS, sometimes referred to as “forever chemicals,” in the economy.
There is an emerging consensus that action must be taken to improve the PFAS in Products program. So much so that the legislature’s Environment and Natural Resources Committee held sessions to better understand the landscape and enhance how Maine responsibly manages certain PFAS without unduly harming the communities we serve.
It has become clear that implementing Maine’s first-of-its-kind law regulating the presence of PFAS in Products poses serious, often insurmountable, challenges to an array of businesses and critical services that citizens depend on, without adequately addressing environmental concerns. Some of the most pressing topics for the legislature’s consideration include how to define PFAS in a way that targets high-risk and high-emissive substances, while ensuring the program effectively focuses on adequately addressing contamination issues while protecting Maine’s economic strength.
Admittedly, the national conversation surrounding PFAS regulation has evolved since Maine first tried to tackle this issue. It’s now clear that the federal government and many states are moving towards a risk-based approach that acknowledges the essential role that certain compounds defined as PFAS under Maine’s law play in our lives, while moving forward on responsible approaches to remediation.
Maine’s current statute banning all PFAS is overly broad, creates confusion and could inadvertently limit access to federally regulated applications — like inhalers or refrigerants for organs and medicines — that are critical for health care. These compounds are pervasive in many other mission-critical applications (like electric vehicles, cooling and heating houses, hospitals and nursing homes) and the reality is the unintended consequences of a broad ban to human health have not been fully studied or understood by state policymakers.
While an amendment was recently passed to extend Maine’s PFAS reporting deadline from January 2023 to January 2025 after the Department of Environmental Protection was forced to grant thousands of extension requests from businesses, this confusion and disarray underscores the urgent need for the Environment & Natural Resources Committee to continue working on the law during the second session of the legislature.
Rather than a sweeping ban on the entire PFAS class, Maine should narrow the law’s scope and prioritize compounds with high-risk profiles. Minnesota, another state that is addressing comprehensive PFAS policy, has committed to prioritizing PFAS management based on a substance’s potential risk. A risk-based approach like Minnesota’s would increase our law’s effectiveness, support timely implementation, and provide the community with the much-needed guidance on how to identify PFAS compounds with potentially harmful characteristics as opposed to compounds that are low-risk and approved by federal regulators.
Most recently, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued a final rule to require PFAS reporting under the Toxic Substances Control Act, which took a step towards focusing on commercially active PFAS. While more clarity is needed on this newly released rule, it is evident that the federal government is also moving towards a risk-based approach that focuses on commercially active substances, rather than indiscriminately banning all PFAS.
The federal rule also used a narrower, more targeted definition of PFAS than Maine’s; that’s a huge problem for large and small businesses alike who will be expected to comply with both regulations. Maine would be well served to follow this federal approach to more efficiently allocate limited government resources and help businesses effectively comply with reporting rules.
As lawmakers, we have an obligation to reexamine the PFAS in Products program to ensure it works as intended, but the clock is ticking to take action and we have no time to lose.
State Rep. Mike Lajoie lives in Lewiston.
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