Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I rise with concerns about the troubling pattern of legislating national chemical policy based upon emotions rather than scientific fact, including in this NDAA. I am referring specifically to certain anti-science, anti-practicality, and potentially anti-soldier provisions involving this bill related to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, otherwise known as PFAS. PFAS is not one well-known substance; it is actually a class of thousands of different chemicals of which we know very little about. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, there is no precise, clear definition of what constitutes a PFAS substance, with the lowest total of several estimates of PFAS encompassing more than 5,000 substances. The dots on this chart represent the scope of 5,070 substances identified on the Environmental Protection Agency's current PFAS master list. The 29 dots that are highlighted represent those individual PFAS for which EPA has a reliable scientific method to test their presence in drinking water. Finally, the two red dots are the only two that we think are problematic to human health, and that is PFOA and PFOS. Some of the uses of specific PFAS chemicals the Federal Food and Drug Administration has approved for use: heart stents, in this case, for patients suffering from artery blockage; and occluders for infants suffering from the congenital heart condition known as an atrial septal defect, which plugs a hole in the heart.…”