Political Quotes

“As I said, I rise in opposition to the Ross amendment, and I urge my colleagues to join me. This amendment would be an implementation nightmare for the EPA, and the regulated stakeholders would have no choice but to comply or try to comply. The current provisions of the Toxic Substances Control Act require the EPA to issue final regulations compelling anyone who manufactured PFAS--back to 2011--to report detailed information about the chemical and its manufacture to the EPA. Last fall, the EPA already proposed regulations to implement TSCA section 8(a)(7) and began taking public comment on it. The proposed regulation uses a definition of PFAS that is structural, and the agency believes it will capture 1,364 PFAS chemicals. The Ross amendment would massively expand the EPA's definition of PFAS to any PFAS containing at least one fully fluorinated carbon atom. Just going off of EPA's master list of PFAS, the number of PFAS covered could jump from slightly over 1,300 to more than 12,000--that is a 10- fold increase. In addition, the Ross amendment makes no changes to the deadline the EPA must issue these regulations, meaning the EPA will have to scrap its current rulemaking and expedite a new one that gives very little opportunity for public input. Furthermore, under this amendment, the universe of new parties that would need to report is unknown and could be huge.…”