Pfas Action Act of 2021

Floor Speech

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Mrs. TRAHAN. Madam Speaker, I rise in support of the PFAS Action Act of 2021 because this overdue legislation will save lives.

We know that PFAS chemicals, otherwise known as forever chemicals, have been linked to harmful health effects, including increased rates of cancer.

Yet, for far too long, they have been unchecked and unregulated.

Now, these same chemicals are being discovered at toxic levels in drinking water supplies in communities that I represent and across our country.

In fact, as many as 200 million Americans are currently drinking PFAS-contaminated water, often without even knowing it.

While my home State of Massachusetts has led the way in responding to PFAS contaminations in recent years, including the groundbreaking of a new 10,000-square foot treatment plant in my district in Littleton, most States are falling further and further behind, leaving their residents at risk.

Madam Speaker, we have the ability to change that today.

Passage of the PFAS Action Act will bolster State and local initiatives like those already under way in Massachusetts.

This legislation will provide the resources and policies necessary to clean up contaminated drinking water sites, support families who have been exposed to PFAS chemicals, and take critical steps to prevent future exposures.

I am grateful to Representatives Dingell and Upton, as well as our chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, Mr. Pallone, for their bipartisan work on this issue.

I urge my colleagues to support this legislation, not because it will hurt corporations who want to continue the unregulated use of these dangerous chemicals, but because the health and well-being of the hardworking families they represent are at stake if they don't.

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