Speaker 1: Today, I'm Parts pervillion. What's the federal government's latest plan
Speaker 1: to deal with p fass aka forever chemicals, and perhaps
Speaker 1: more importantly, what's the government's plan to help find the
Speaker 1: money to pay for that p fast plan. Hello, and
Speaker 1: welcome back once again to Parts per billion, the environmental
Speaker 1: podcast from Bloomberg Law. I'm your host, David Schultz. So
Speaker 1: it's been a while since we've talked about p fast
Speaker 1: on this podcast. For the uninitiated, p fast is an
Speaker 1: acronym that stands for eleven syllable phrase that is very
Speaker 1: hard to pronounce for folks like me who haven't taken
Speaker 1: a chemistry class in decades. Suffice to say, p fast
Speaker 1: chemicals have been one of the biggest emerging environmental problems
Speaker 1: for the past few years, and that's because they've been
Speaker 1: used in a variety of applications for a long time.
Speaker 1: We now know exposure can cause serious health problems, and
Speaker 1: their chemical bonds are so strong that it's nearly impossible
Speaker 1: for them to break down in the environment, hence the
Speaker 1: nickname forever chemicals. President Biden is now the third consecutive
Speaker 1: president to grapple with the p fast problem, and earlier
Speaker 1: this month, his administration, led by the EPA, came out
Speaker 1: with a roadmap for how to address p fasts in
Speaker 1: the coming months and years. Bloomberg Law chemicals reporter Pat
Speaker 1: Razuto covered the release of that plan, as she has
Speaker 1: with every other piece of breaking p fast news over
Speaker 1: the past few years. I talked to Pat about what
Speaker 1: the Biden plan would actually do and if there's any
Speaker 1: sense yet of how it's all going to get paid for.
Speaker 1: But first I asked Pat to bring us all up
Speaker 1: to speed on what exactly p fast chemicals really are. Well,
Speaker 1: other than being an unpronounceable group of chemicals, they are
Speaker 1: a huge group of thousands of chemicals. Although thousands the
Speaker 1: EPA knows about six hundred and fifty are actively made
Speaker 1: or used in the US. What distinguishes this group are
Speaker 1: these two types of molecules, carbons and flooring, that cling
Speaker 1: together so tightly Superman is going to probably need help
Speaker 1: to tear them apart. Then, I guess that's why they're
Speaker 1: called forever chemicals. Yes, that is a part of it,
Speaker 1: because once they get into the environment, they just hang
Speaker 1: on and hang on and hang on, and we actually
Speaker 1: don't know what their half life life in the environment
Speaker 1: is and remind me what are they used for. I mean,
Speaker 1: the things that come to my mind are non stick
Speaker 1: pans and firefighting foam. But I get to gather there's
Speaker 1: a lot more uses than just those two things. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: there are, and they are used to give all sorts
Speaker 1: of stuff that people like, you know, smartphones, cafeitters, wires, cables,
Speaker 1: fuel cells, solar panels, and non stick cookware special properties
Speaker 1: like they transfer data really quickly and effectively, they help
Speaker 1: a capeitter stay safely in our bodies for decades, and
Speaker 1: they turn hydrogen and oxygen into electricity. But you know,
Speaker 1: the flip side of all those nice uses of ffasts
Speaker 1: that I mentioned are that pfasts are also associated with
Speaker 1: a host of problems. At least some PFASs are increased cholesterol,
Speaker 1: weaker immune systems, low weight babies, which which might sound
Speaker 1: really good to a mom who's in the middle of
Speaker 1: giving birth, but so having a low weight baby isn't
Speaker 1: a good indicator for its future. So thyroid problems is
Speaker 1: another problem that is associated with certain pfasts, as is
Speaker 1: certain cancers. Wow, but let's talk about the most recent news.
Speaker 1: The reason why we're talking because the EPA just released
Speaker 1: its past roadmap for how to deal with p FAST
Speaker 1: in the environment. Can you just sort of briefly sum
Speaker 1: up within that roadmap and what's supposed to happen in
Speaker 1: the next few years. So, Yeah, this last week, EPA
Speaker 1: and seven other agencies announced the spectrum of actions that
Speaker 1: they are taking. But EPA most particularly to reign in
Speaker 1: the problematic p FAST that we already know about, to
Speaker 1: gather a heck of a lot more information about the
Speaker 1: other thousands, and to be much more careful as we
Speaker 1: allow new p fas to be made and used. Yeah,
Speaker 1: tell me about some of the deadlines that are in
Speaker 1: this plan. What needs to happen, you know, bios specific dates.
Speaker 1: So the things that people have been asking EPA to
Speaker 1: do the longest, so they're going to get the most
Speaker 1: resonants are drinking water limits and hazardous waste designation. So
Speaker 1: by the fall of twenty twenty three, EPA plans to
Speaker 1: issue nationwide limits for two pfats in drinking water, and
Speaker 1: it also buy them intends to declare those same two
Speaker 1: chemicals to be hazardous wastes under super Fund, which will
Speaker 1: trigger nationwide plane ups. Interesting, So I want to get
Speaker 1: into the drinking water stuff in a little bit because
Speaker 1: especially because of how that's going to impact municipal government,
Speaker 1: state and local governments. But first off, I wanted to
Speaker 1: talk about the Biden administration versus the Trump administration. You know,
Speaker 1: we had four years of Trump in office when this
Speaker 1: was an issue. What did the Trump administration do and
Speaker 1: what is the Biden administration doing differently than predecessor. Well, smartly,
Speaker 1: it didn't start with a clean slate. There was a
Speaker 1: lot of groundwork that the Trump administration had laid that
Speaker 1: the Biden administration looked at said this is good. What
Speaker 1: else can we do? The big shift is Trump ran
Speaker 1: and one on an anti regulatory agenda, so his administration
Speaker 1: moved pretty slowly on these chemicals. Biden ran and one
Speaker 1: with an agenda that said government provides essential services. So
Speaker 1: its pace is way faster and the scope of actions
Speaker 1: that it plans to take is much broader. I mean,
Speaker 1: we talked about EPA having plans to regulate a couple
Speaker 1: and just a couple of pfast. But it also in
Speaker 1: that big roadmap that it relieved, it laid out its
Speaker 1: plan to look at those thousands. It can't issue thousands
Speaker 1: of regulations, so it describes specific regulations and other types
Speaker 1: of actions that it's going to be taking to say,
Speaker 1: how can we get as much data as possible about
Speaker 1: those thousands and then put them into buckets. And so
Speaker 1: maybe we proceed with regulations that cover five different buckets
Speaker 1: of these p facts, and we put the least stringent
Speaker 1: regulations on those that seem to be the least toxic,
Speaker 1: and we put the most stringent regulations on those that
Speaker 1: seem to be the most toxica. All right, I want
Speaker 1: to talk about, you know, the costs and sort of
Speaker 1: who's going to pay for this, and I want to
Speaker 1: focus in on two groups municipalities as I mentioned before,
Speaker 1: and the military. The military because they are you know,
Speaker 1: one of the groups that has been singled out for
Speaker 1: using p fast the most through firefighting foam. Does the
Speaker 1: military have a strategy or a plan to be able
Speaker 1: to clean up the p fast that it emitted into
Speaker 1: the environment and to pay for those clean ups. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the military isn't a really interesting situation because the way
Speaker 1: it used p fast, it was used in specialized firefighting
Speaker 1: foams that are used for jet fugle and other really
Speaker 1: dangerous fires, and that's a direct release into the environment,
Speaker 1: and for years and years and years they used the
Speaker 1: foam in all sorts of training. And let's face it,
Speaker 1: one thing the military does is train its staff because
Speaker 1: they have the firefighters out there training and spraying, and
Speaker 1: the group just ran into the water, So they've they
Speaker 1: deposited tons of it into or at least lots of
Speaker 1: it into the environment. And that's why they've got such
Speaker 1: a spotlight into them. It was such a direct environmental use.
Speaker 1: And sadly, there hasn't been a lot of change in
Speaker 1: the financial cost estimates that I can give you on
Speaker 1: It's still estimated at about three billion, but the end
Speaker 1: fact amount is going to depend on a lot of things.
Speaker 1: What technologies are available to treat pfasts right now, we
Speaker 1: don't have p fast treatment technologies. The military is spending
Speaker 1: millions tens of millions to research that, but there aren't
Speaker 1: proven technologies. What cleanup levels will be required for how
Speaker 1: many pfasts. There's so many unknowns it's really hard to
Speaker 1: put a closer tab on it. But we are talking billions,
Speaker 1: not millions. And then let's talk about the municipalities here.
Speaker 1: I mean, oftentimes they run the local water utility in town,
Speaker 1: which means that any new you know, standards or new
Speaker 1: regulations on drinking water, they're gonna have to pay extra
Speaker 1: to be able to meet those standards. Has there been
Speaker 1: any talk of federal assistance to help them do that
Speaker 1: or are they sort of out on their own? Well,
Speaker 1: at the moment, they are largely out on their own,
Speaker 1: although EPA has you know, some grant money that it's
Speaker 1: making available. And remember that it's not the utilities that
Speaker 1: can just you know, pay it all themselves. It's you
Speaker 1: and me who pay water bills who end up having
Speaker 1: to pay for this. So, yes, there is a plan
Speaker 1: for money. We don't know if that plan is going
Speaker 1: to work or not. The Infrastructure built includes ten billion
Speaker 1: dollars to help water. These five billion dollars to help
Speaker 1: small and disadvantaged communities address p fast in their drinking water,
Speaker 1: four billion to help water utilities or to connect well
Speaker 1: owners to local water systems, and another one million dollars
Speaker 1: for wastewater utility. And we should say that infrastructure build
Speaker 1: could be coming up for a final vote as early
Speaker 1: as this week. Finally, let's talk about a story that
Speaker 1: you published actually earlier today, a really fascinating story about
Speaker 1: how the medical community is reacting to p fast exposure.
Speaker 1: Are doctors now kind of looking out for p fast
Speaker 1: exposure in their patients a little bit more than they
Speaker 1: used to? Great questions, and Nope, p fasts were not
Speaker 1: on the curriculum that doctors had to learn when they
Speaker 1: were in medical school, and p fast is not something
Speaker 1: thing that most physicians know about. On people who are
Speaker 1: living in communities where p FEST has been found at
Speaker 1: high levels in their drinking water struggle with the fact
Speaker 1: that they go to their doctors and their doctors go, huh,
Speaker 1: what are you talking about? And no doctor likes to
Speaker 1: be embarrassed about his or her lack of knowledge, so
Speaker 1: in the absence of information is easy to dismiss patients.
Speaker 1: My story focused on one woman, Sandy wind Stealth up
Speaker 1: in Belmont, Michigan, who happen to have a very different physician,
Speaker 1: a very young guy who was very interested to see
Speaker 1: what he could learn, and so he made the extra
Speaker 1: effort to learn about these chemicals and medical tests, pretty
Speaker 1: routine ones that are out there that are available to
Speaker 1: physicians that they can use to monitor the diseases that
Speaker 1: highly exposed PFEST patient and are faced increased risk of kidding. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that's what I really liked your story today
Speaker 1: because it focused on this one doctor who had a
Speaker 1: really progressive approach to treating p fast exposure. But it
Speaker 1: sounds like this doctor is the exception, not the rule. Yes,
Speaker 1: now there is an effort. A group of universities and
Speaker 1: affected communities teamed up and they came out with some
Speaker 1: two page guidance is this summer in July. One of
Speaker 1: the guidance documents is aimed to help ordinary people like
Speaker 1: you and me understand how p fasts could affect their health.
Speaker 1: And the other is designed in really simple language to
Speaker 1: be something a patient can hand his or her doctor
Speaker 1: and say, here's what I'm concerned about, here's what a
Speaker 1: here can be done about it. What do you think?
Speaker 1: And the goal what people who have been exposed to
Speaker 1: high amounts of these chemical fits want is to start
Speaker 1: that conversation. All right, Well, that was Pat Rizzuto speaking
Speaker 1: to us from Bloomberg Law headquarters in Arlington, Virginia. Pat,
Speaker 1: it's always a pleasure to speak with you. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much, Thank you, David. And that'll do it for
Speaker 1: today's episode of Parts Pervilion. If you want more environmental
Speaker 1: News check us out on Twitter. We use the handle
Speaker 1: at environment just that at Environment, nothing else. I'm at
Speaker 1: David B. Schultz if you want to chat with me
Speaker 1: about pe Fass or anything else. Today's episode of Parts
Speaker 1: per Billion was produced by myself, David Schultz. Parts per
Speaker 1: Billion was created by Jessica Coombs and Rachel Dagle and
Speaker 1: is edited by Rebecca Baker and Chuck McCutcheon. Our executive
Speaker 1: producer is Josh Block. Thanks everyone for listening. For our
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