On the recordJanuary 9, 2020
I thank the gentleman for yielding. I rise in full, enthusiastic support for this legislation which is long overdue. For decades, chemical corporations like 3M and DuPont knowingly manufactured products containing forever-toxic chemicals known as PFAS. Our Federal Government has confirmed that PFAS can adversely affect growth and learning in children, lower a women's chance of getting pregnant, increase cholesterol, hinder the immune system, interfere with hormone regulation, and even increase the risk of cancer. As a cancer survivor myself, and as chairwoman of the Appropriations Committee Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Subcommittee, I find it unconscionable that I have veterans coming to me to complain that their families are dying due to the Department of Defense's decades-long use of these chemicals. As a member of the Oversight and Reform Committee, I have told 3M and DuPont to their faces that I don't know how they sleep at night. They poisoned our water and contaminated the bloodstream of millions of people all for profit. It is past time that the Federal Government step up and do something about it, and we do that here today. I commend Congresswoman Dingell for her work and so many of my colleagues who have fought so far and so long, including the chairman.
