Gluesenkamp Perez, Maloy Introduce Bipartisan Legislation to Shield Southwest Washington Ratepayers from PFAS Cleanup Costs

Today, Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (WA-03) and Rep. Celeste Maloy (UT-02) introduced the bipartisan Water Systems PFAS Liability Protection Act to ensure that water utilities can continue to focus their efforts on maintaining water quality rather than defending themselves when PFAS polluters seek to dilute their liability.

“PFAS chemicals harm our health and kids’ development – and water utilities are working hard to treat and dispose of these substances,” said Rep. Gluesenkamp Perez. “Our bipartisan bill will prevent water utilities and ratepayers from bearing the brunt of PFAS cleanup costs, which would disproportionately harm small and rural communities – and instead help ensure the companies that produced the chemicals are accountable, not our ratepayers.”

“This legislation protects Utah’s water utilities from frivolous lawsuits as they seek to clean up PFAS chemicals polluting our water,” said Rep. Maloy. “Utah’s utilities work tirelessly to provide clean drinking water to families across the state and should not be held responsible for contamination they did not create.”

In 2022, the EPA formally announced plans to designate two of the most common PFAS – Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and Perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) – as hazardous substances under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA).

This designation could put drinking water utilities at risk of incurring cleanup liability when they take necessary steps to remove and dispose of PFAS deposited into water supplies by upstream polluting industries. In addition, wastewater and stormwater utilities could also be put at risk as they receive PFAS chemicals through the raw influent that arrives at the treatment plan or through municipal stormwater runoff.

While EPA has announced an “enforcement discretion” policy that intends to focus on polluters that are responsible for the contamination and have profited from PFAS, such a policy will be insufficient to ensure that drinking water and clean water ratepayers will be permanently protected from CERCLA legal defense costs and cleanup liability for PFAS.

“We support this legislation which will take a meaningful step in protecting water utilities, who are passive receivers of PFAS, from financial and legal liabilities associated with decades of use of these chemicals in manufacturing and consumer products,” said John Peterson, Executive Director of the Discovery Clean Water Alliance. “PFAS is becoming the environmental challenge of our time. Water utilities can and will play an important role in reducing its prevalence in our environment, but subjecting them to undue financial burden and liability will only hurt the 150,000 residents who rely on – and pay for – our agency’s sewer services.”

“The City of Vancouver provides clean drinking water and wastewater services to nearly 275,000 people in Clark County,” said Vancouver Mayor Anne McEnerny-Ogle. “It’s critical that we continue to invest our resources in identifying the sources and treating for PFAS rather than defending potential legal action for a systematic problem we didn’t create or control.”

“On behalf of the City of Washougal and our 18,000 residents, we support the bipartisan Water Systems PFAS Liability Protection Act and applaud Congresswoman Gluesenkamp Perez for her leadership on this issue,” said Washougal Mayor and State Representative David Stuebe. “Small cities like ours are particularly challenged by the prospect of multimillion-dollar cleanup costs, as we don’t have a large number of ratepayers to help spread burden. And to be fair, the cost belongs to the polluters, not our ratepayers.”

“As not-for-profit, community-owned utilities, Washington public utility districts strive to provide safe affordable service to our ratepayers,” said Liz Anderson, Executive Director of the Washington Public Utility Districts Association (WPUDA). We applaud Congresswoman Marie Gluesenkamp Perez for her leadership on legislation that will help ensure polluters, not the public, pay for PFAS cleanup.”

“Our members provide wastewater services to nearly half of Washington state’s population, and as providers of an essential public service, wastewater treatment plants cannot avoid decades of pollution caused by both industrial and domestic uses of PFAS,” said Kyle Dorsey, Executive Director of the Coalition for Clean Water. “As passive receivers of PFAS, we should not be held liable, nor should our ratepayers, for a problem not of our making.”

“Removing harmful chemicals like PFAS from drinking water, wastewater and stormwater is central to the public health and environmental protection mission of our members,” wrote the Water Coalition Against PFAS in a letter of support for the legislation. “The ‘Water Systems PFAS Liability Protection Act’ will support the mission of providing clean and safe water while ensuring that water system ratepayers are not burdened by unwarranted liability through a misapplication of CERCLA’s ‘polluter pays’ principle.”

Full text of the legislation is available here.

Rep. Gluesenkamp Perez previously introduced the legislation in the 118th Congress.

The Congresswoman has helped bring back home more than $12.9 million for water and wastewater projects across Southwest Washington. An interactive map of community investments she has supported can be found at gluesenkampperez.house.gov/invest.