Congress proposes scrapping PFAS measures that protect public servants and others

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Congress is proposing to reverse measures that protect military service members, firefighters and others from harmful PFAS chemicals.

The Senate draft of the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act proposes lifting a moratorium on military incineration of waste products consisting of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), and reverses a ban on the use of two types of hazardous PFAS chemicals in cookware, carpet, and other products supplied for service members and their families on military bases.

In a House draft, lawmakers seek to extend a deadline for the Department of Defense (DOD) to  phase out the use of firefighting foam made with PFAS. The legislation would additionally allow the military to resume purchasing the foams, which it is currently prohibited from doing. The firefighting foams made with PFAS have been linked to a wide range of cancers.

August 28 marked the deadline for filing amendments to the House bill.

Evan Davis, the director of government affairs at the International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF), said the group is “very much opposed” to pushing back the phaseout deadline. IAFF represents the interests of fire fighters and medical workers, including those employed those employed by the military. The group has been lobbying for PFAS protections from the DOD.

“From our perspective, the PFAS-free alternative is out there. DOD has recognized that it’s equally effective,” Davis said. “So we don’t see why DOD needs to have this delay in the implementation timeline.”

While Davis said IAFF is “mostly comfortable” with a proposed measure to require new firefighting gear offer protections laid out by the National Fire Protection Association, he expressed concern that the proposal doesn’t specify which version of the standard gear would have to meet.

“It would theoretically open up the possibility for DOD to get the PFAS-laden gear…meeting an older version of the standard,” he said.

The bills also aim to slash the DOD’s spending for environmental cleanups, including for PFAS, by nearly $200 million even though the chemicals have been found in the groundwater at hundreds of military sites.

“They are cutting funding down to record low levels at a time when funding is needed the most,”said Jared Hayes, senior policy analyst at the Environmental Working Group (EWG).

The estimated cost for cleaning up contamination at former and current military sites stands at around $51 billion, more than doubling since the DOD began investigating PFAS contamination less than a decade ago. The toxic chemicals have been detected in the groundwater of 630 military sites, with over 30 DOD sites continuing to detect PFAS in drinking water above the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)’s limits, according to EWG.

The US Senate Committee on Armed Services and the House Armed Services Committee did not respond to request for comment.

In May, the EPA under President Trump announced plans to drop limits set under the Biden administration on four PFAS chemicals in drinking water while delaying the deadline for drinking water systems to comply with limits on two others, perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS).

Congress is considering restricting federal funds for finalizing and implementing an EPA draft risk assessment on PFAS in sewage sludge often used to fertilize farmland, resulting in a growing contamination crisis across the US. The administration has also cut almost $15 million in funding for research on Farm Country’s PFAS crisis.

And, the New York Times reported Thursday that Steven Cook, a senior EPA appointee and former chemical industry lawyer, has proposed rewriting a rule that requires companies to clean up PFAS – the same rule he sued to block in his former role earlier this year.

“Serious health repercussions”

The draft bill’s proposal to lift the moratorium on burning PFAS-laced firefighting foam and waste is of particular concern to environmental and human health advocates.

The move would directly impact Rachel Meyer, the Ohio River Valley coordinator for the nonprofit Moms Clean Air Force, who lives with her family just a few miles from the Arcwood (previously Heritage) incinerator in East Liverpool, Ohio. Past incineration of PFAS at the plant may have contaminated the community’s air and soil, she said.

“I shudder at the thought of my six-year-old daughter going out to play and breathing in PFAS,” said Meyer. “Repealing the DOD moratorium on incinerating PFAS could have serious health repercussions for people and families living nearby.”

The proposal to repeal the moratorium fails to put in place requirements on how plants should safely incinerate the chemicals, said Betsy Southerland, a former EPA senior scientist and a former director in the agency’s Office of Water. If PFAS waste isn’t burned at high enough temperatures, the process can form toxic products that fan out for miles into surrounding areas, “so you’re actually spreading the contamination rather than containing it,” she said.

The EPA noted in its 2024 interim guidance for PFAS destruction and disposal that “emissions from thermal treatment activities may contain PFAS if adequate combustion conditions are not achieved or if adequate acid gas scrubbers or other pollution control devices are not used.” The EPA said in the document that it plans to conduct research to better understand PFAS pollution near incinerators.

In a related measure, the Senate draft proposes permitting the Secretary of Defense to destroy PFAS using technologies permitted or approved by either federal or state agencies.

“The concern I have is, if a state agency permits them, they may not be following these precautionary principles that EPA laid out in the most recent guidance on how to dispose safely of PFAS,” said Southerland.

The Senate bill also contains a provision that Southerland considers a positive step forward – a requirement for DOD to file two cleanup-related reports. The first report would assess how quickly site assessment is moving forward to determine whether cleanup action is necessary, while a second would assess interim measures taken at sites where a health risk has been identified, such as providing bottled water and filtration systems.

“What people are concerned about with these PFAS-contaminated DOD sites is that years go by and they say they’re still assessing it,” said Southerland. “This is trying to put Congressional pressure on them.”

(Featured image by Getty Images for Unsplash+).