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Michigan members of Congress push for clean-up of PFAS

"Faucet" by Joe Shlabotnik is licensed with CC BY 2.0. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

Two Michigan members of Congress are hopeful for action on legislation to speed the clean-up of PFAS contamination sites.

PFAS are a family of industrial chemicals linked to serious health problems.

Democrat Debbie Dingell and Republican Fred Upton today [Tuesday] introduced the PFAS Action Act.  

Dingell says this is a national crisis.

“PFAS is an urgent public health and environmental threat," said Dingell. " It has been that way for a long time.  And the number of contamination sites nationwide is growing at an alarming rate, including at our military bases.”

The bill would establish a national drinking water standard for select PFAS chemicals and would give the Environmental Protection Agency direction to act on cleaning up contaminated sites in Michigan and across the country.

The bill is similar to legislation passed by the last Congress that died in the US Senate.

Steve Carmody has been a reporter for Michigan Public since 2005.