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Key Insights<\/p>\n
California lawmakers failed to advance A.B. 1603, a bill that would have phased out pesticides containing per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), after it stalled in the Senate Appropriations Committee.<\/p>\n
The proposal was among the first state-level efforts to regulate PFAS in pesticides; it highlights the tension between California\u2019s ambitious chemical-regulation policies and its influential agricultural industry.<\/p>\n
Opponents, including agricultural-industry associations, maintain that any regulation should be based on chemical-specific risk rather than class-based definitions, but supporters say the bill established a legislative foundation for future PFAS-as-a-class restrictions on pesticides.<\/p>\n
California lawmakers on July 31 effectively killed A.B. 1603<\/a>, a bill that would have phased out pesticides containing per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). The senate failed to advance the bill to a vote before the legislative session ended.<\/p>\n Despite the bill stalling in the senate, advocacy group and bill cosponsor the Environmental Working Group (EWG) says the measure, one of the first of its kind in the country, sets the stage for future state-led efforts to address PFAS in pesticides.<\/p>\n “The debate highlights a challenge that regulators are facing nationwide: how to address PFAS concerns using a risk-based framework that protects public health while preserving access to important agricultural tools.”<\/p>\n Erin Brooks, partner, Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner (BCLP)<\/p>\n Share At its core, A.B. 1603 exposed a broader regulatory divide over PFAS. Industry groups argued that pesticides should continue to be evaluated individually through the US Environmental Protection Agency\u2019s risk-based registration process. Supporters of the bill countered that PFAS should instead be regulated as a chemical class, arguing that evaluating thousands of structurally related compounds one at a time is impractical and leaves potential gaps in oversight.<\/p>\n Despite its failure, the bill represents \u201ca growing concern and interest in regulating\u00a0PFAS chemicals\u00a0as a class,\u201d Susan Little<\/a>, the EWG\u2019s California legislative director, tells C&EN. The actions \u201creflect the state legislature\u2019s relationship with the state\u2019s agricultural industry\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0. not its concerns about PFAS,\u201d Little says.<\/p>\n Legislative effort falls short after months of revisions<\/p>\n Introduced in January by Assembly Member Nick Schultz<\/a>, a Democrat, the bill originally proposed restricting all pesticides containing intentionally added PFAS. As it moved through the legislature, lawmakers limited the proposed restrictions to certain agricultural uses and established a longer-term phaseout timeline. Amendments also shifted the bill\u2019s emphasis from an outright prohibition toward a more forgiving approach that emphasized disclosure and monitoring requirements. Though it passed the California State Assembly and gained approval through several senate committees, A.B. 1603 ultimately stalled in the Senate Appropriations Committee.<\/p>\n Opponents of A.B. 1603, such as the Western Plant Health association (WPH) and CropLife America, argue that the measure targeted individual PFAS molecules that do not meet the EPA\u2019s definition of PFAS, applying the PFAS label too broadly. WPH\u2019s president and CEO Renee Pinel<\/a> told C&EN in June that the bill \u201cdesignates safe general-use products as restricted-use pesticides\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0. and has no basis in science. Rather than engaging in a constructive dialogue with our industry, [Schultz] has chosen to adopt the talking points of activist groups who are pushing an antipesticide political agenda rather than a sound public-health agenda.\u201d Pinel called the bill \u201ccatastrophic\u201d to the state\u2019s agriculture industry and said that despite the amendments made in the legislature, WPH would \u201ccontinue to be opposed.\u201d<\/p>\n Debate centers on how PFAS should be regulated<\/p>\n Supporters of A.B. 1603 say the debate should not hinge solely on whether individual pesticide ingredients meet a narrow PFAS definition. The EWG\u2019s Little points to two widely cited studies<\/a> by international teams of academic and government scientists positing that PFAS should be managed as a class<\/a> because many of the compounds share properties such as environmental persistence, and she notes the impracticality of evaluating thousands of chemicals one by one. \u201cThe increasing body of scientific evidence linking PFAS to health harm\u00a0continues to grow and implicate\u00a0the entire class as problematic,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n Others say regulation of PFAS-containing pesticides requires a more balanced approach.<\/p>\n \u201cThe debate highlights a challenge that regulators are facing nationwide: how to address PFAS concerns using a risk-based framework that protects public health while preserving access to important agricultural tools,\u201d Erin Brooks<\/a>, partner at the law firm Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner (BCLP), tells C&EN. \u201cFor growers, manufacturers, and distributors, predictability and decisions rooted in science remain essential. Increased disclosure and continued evaluation may help ensure future policy decisions are informed by actual exposure and risk data rather than broad assumptions about an entire class of compounds.\u201d<\/p>\n But Little argues that risk data for PFAS pesticides don\u2019t exist\u2014at least not on the scale that clears them for safety. \u201cYou can\u2019t regulate what you haven\u2019t measured,\u201d Little continues, \u201cand right now the toxicity data on many of these PFAS pesticides, and by-products like trifluoroacetic acid<\/a> [TFA], simply don\u2019t exist at the scale needed to justify spraying them on millions of acres of food crops.\u201d She notes that the EPA recently proposed nationwide water monitoring for ultra-short-chain PFAS including TFA<\/a>, which forms after the use of many PFAS pesticides<\/a>, according to the EWG.<\/p>\n Supporters see groundwork for future legislation<\/p>\n The EWG remains optimistic, however.<\/p>\n \u201cCalifornia lawmakers are willing to address PFAS as a class and have done so now over eight times in regard to specific product categories,\u201d Little says of state bills in recent years that have adopted PFAS restrictions on food packaging, cosmetics, textiles<\/a>, and more. Prior to the EWG\u2019s research on PFAS contamination<\/a> in California produce, the state\u2019s Department of Pesticide Regulation hadn\u2019t identified or acknowledged PFAS in pesticide formulations, she claims, \u201cnor had state agencies been aware of the state\u2019s PFAS pesticide use.\u201d<\/p>\n A.B. 1603 \u201cbroke ground\u201d on the issue of PFAS in pesticides and began the discussion in the legislature, she adds. \u201cFar-reaching proposals like A.B. 1603 are rarely enacted upon first attempt; when lawmakers are confronted with new information, as they were here, they often start incrementally and keep the conversation going.\u201d<\/p>\n Other states have had more success with sweeping efforts to regulate PFAS, Little continues. \u201cStates such as Minnesota<\/a> and Maine<\/a> have taken action to address PFAS in all products,\u201d and many other states<\/a> have introduced and passed PFAS bans as well, she notes. A spokesperson for MultiState, a government-relations firm that tracks PFAS legislation, declined to comment but notes that because \u201cstates are not in legislative session, it will be 5\u20136 months, with an intervening election, before most legislatures will next consider any policy issues.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u00a0 Key Insights California lawmakers failed to advance A.B. 1603, a bill that would have phased out pesticides…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":425891,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,3001,37421,3652],"class_list":["post-425890","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-legislation","tag-pesticide","tag-pfas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=425890"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425890\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/425891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=425890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=425890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=425890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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