Marina Schauffler, a Maine resident, is the author of “Inescapable: Facing Up to Forever
Chemicals,” published in March by Johns Hopkins University Press.

In fractious times, it’s newsworthy when Americans speak nearly as one. That happened in a recent poll by the Pew Charitable Trusts gauging levels of public concern about harmful chemicals in food, drinking water and consumer products.

Among more than 5,300 respondents nationwide, at least 83% stated that government “needs to do more to identify and regulate harmful chemicals found in everyday products” and that the companies producing those chemicals “cannot be trusted to ensure product safety without government oversight.” Respondents overwhelmingly wanted corporations telling consumers more about the chemicals in their products.

Notably, these views held consistently across political affiliations (and the unaffiliated), among all age ranges, and in every region of the country. Public health, it seems, is a great unifier.

The realization that insidious chemicals threaten our water quality and taint local foods has engendered a shared sense of outrage among Mainers over the injustice of toxic trespass. Legislators have responded with numerous measures over the past seven years to address ubiquitous contamination of people, farmland, waters and wildlife by the per-
and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) used in more than a thousand consumer products
despite known and serious health threats.

Many other states are stepping up as communities across the nation contend with the costs of removing PFAS from municipal waters, the impacts on exposed firefighters and affected residents, deaths of cows on ranches and farms where sludge was spread, hunting and fishing advisories around toxic hot spots and the staggering concentration of PFAS near manufacturing and military sites.

As public concern about chemical regulation grows, federal policies are moving in the opposite direction. The current administration has dropped proposed discharge limits on PFAS in wastewater, rolled back limits on several PFAS compounds in drinking water and canceled research grants investigating impacts of toxic chemicals on food safety and public health.

The U.S. government has rarely challenged the chemical industry’s “right to make a dollar at whatever cost,” biologist Rachel Carson wrote in 1962, but now corporate priorities and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency actions are nearly indistinguishable.

Nor has Congress stepped up to protect public health. Important PFAS bills before Congress — like the Relief for Farmers Hit with PFAS Act — languish without action. Among 130 congressional bills related to PFAS introduced between 2019 and 2022, just four became law and “none of these addresses the underlying responsibility of industry,” according to a 2023 report by the nonprofit Food and Water Watch.

Over those four years, lobbyists for six major PFAS manufacturers (and two historical ones) spent $55.7 million, the report noted.

Hard-working state legislatures are trying to address the far-reaching and costly effects of widespread chemical contamination.

The Maine Legislature recently approved measures to expand household well testing for renters (LD 493), to require that insurers cover PFAS blood testing (LD 582), and to improve monitoring and controls on landfill leachate (LD 2070).

But the extensive work needed to protect people from dangerous and enduring chemicals should not fall solely to states. Without marked change at the federal level, Americans cannot get the cleaner food and water they overwhelmingly want—and they deserve.