By Journalist Kennedy Thomason (OSU).
Sen. A. Gardner (OBU) fields questions in the Senate.
Sen. A. Gardner (OBU) passed his bill, “Stand up to PFAS” Act (OBU-002), today.
The bill deals with perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, PFAS. It bans the intentional addition of PFAS in “certain products being manufactured and sold within the State.” It also requires manufacturers using PFAS to report themselves to the Department of Environmental Protection and that educational materials and research be available to Oklahoma residents.
“These are cancer-causing chemicals of which are fairly new,” Gardner said. “There currently exists over 12,000 of these chemicals which we have so far discovered and new forms of them are being discovered every day.”
The 11 page bill goes into detail about the regulations and reporting of PFAS in Oklahoma, along with the penalties for the use of PFAS.
Gardner supported his bill with researched evidence.
“These are also known as “forever chemicals,” and in many studies, they have been found in 98% of humans’ blood serum samples so far,” Gardner said. “That may be scary to you, and it should be.”
There was discussion among the senators about the bill. A common concern was how to replace PFAS when they are a frequently used chemical.
“I do support the bill,” Sen. Koehn (NWOSU) said. “We’ve some of the things like it like asbestos, that are hazardous materials that we’ve used for a while and found out are bad. There is no reason to not get rid of a cancer-causing material. We do need to find something to replace it, obviously, and quickly since it is one of the effective chemicals for fire fighting foam. But, regardless, it needs to be gotten rid of, so I will be voting yes.”
Economic concerns were also discussed.
Sen. Bell (OU) said she was unsure of the economic impact on Oklahomans.
“This bill talks about expressing concern to the public, making sure that corporations are transparent, which I think is very awesome and important,” Bell said. “However, I think that so far from my understanding, I think that it could potentially be an economic issue because Oklahoma will begin lacking in certain commodities that corporations outside of Oklahoma could buy.”
“Stand up to PFAS” Act passed in the Senate.