A pair of U.S. lawmakers are calling for regulators to crack down on a family of chemicals that are used in a host of products, including the lithium-ion batteries that power electric vehicles.

The calls for action from two Democrats who’ve long pushed for tougher chemical regulation follow an investigation by The Examination, Columbia Journalism Investigations, the Post and Courier and Belgian public broadcaster RTBF. The reporting found that top chemical suppliers for EV batteries have been accused of misleading regulators, hiding information and contaminating communities while previously making similar, related products.

Sen. Jeff Merkley and Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. said that protecting communities from forever chemicals — or PFAS — is their top priority and urged regulators to use the full extent of their power to curtail widespread contamination and hold polluters accountable. 

“PFAS are found in everything from construction materials to cookware to basic household supplies – this isn’t an EV problem, it’s a PFAS problem,” said Pallone Jr., a Democrat from New Jersey on the House Energy and Commerce Committee. “Our PFAS Action Act gets at the heart of this public health disaster. These are toxic, dangerous chemicals and they have absolutely no business going unrestricted.” 

Pallone sponsored a bipartisan bill, the PFAS Action Act, last year that would require the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to set drinking water standards, establish air pollution protections, require comprehensive health testing, and limit the release of these chemicals into the environment. While the agency already designated a handful of PFAS as hazardous earlier this year, the bill, if enacted, would force the EPA to determine whether it should designate all PFAS, individually or in groups, as hazardous within five years. The legislation, initially introduced in 2019, passed twice in the House but failed in the Senate.

The chemical giant Solvay Specialty Polymers agreed to pay $394 million this past March to the state of New Jersey for allegedly contaminating the drinking water of thousands of people with some of the highest levels of ‘forever chemicals’ ever recorded while making PVDF — a key polymer. 

Yet, just a month later Syensqo, the new parent company of Solvay Specialty Polymers, broke ground on a plant expansion in Augusta, Georgia, where it is to make PVDF exclusively for EV batteries — and, with help from a $178 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy.

Neither Pallone Jr. nor Merkley, a Democrat from Oregon, would speak specifically to the federal government’s grant to Syensqo for its expansion in Augusta.  

Meanwhile, demand for PVDF is soaring. Six years ago, less than 10% of PVDF global production was for batteries, with the rest used for pipes, cable coatings, electronics and other uses. Today, more than 40% of PVDF manufactured is used in EV batteries. And by 2028, global production of PVDF is expected to double, JP Morgan data show. 

‘Real risks’

Syensqo maintains that its products will be made with different, safer methods, but experts aren’t convinced that enough precautions are in place. They said that the transition to EVs, while critical to lowering planet-warming emissions, must not repeat the harms inflicted by industry in the past.  

“The overwhelming scientific evidence shows that PFAS contamination is widespread and poses real risks to people,” said Kristie Ellickson, a researcher at the Center for Science and Democracy at the nonprofit Union of Concerned Scientists. “The transition to electric vehicles is vital but we have to do it with transparency and care for communities and not replicate the harms imposed by the oil and chemical industries." 

The DOE, which administers the taxpayer-funded grant program, said that Syensqo went through a “rigorous merit-based selection process” before being chosen as a recipient for a PVDF plant expansion in Augusta, Georgia. Syensqo will have to “consider and ideally improve local environmental impacts.” It will also need to obtain and comply with all permits necessary for the operation. 

The DOE said that it won’t release the $178 million grant at once. Instead, they will release the funds in chunks as long as the company is in compliance with its duties. 

“The project must meet clearly identified milestones and metrics, including around the community benefit agreements, before any funding is released,” a department spokesperson wrote in an emailed statement. “Since the funding isn’t released in a whole sum, we have the opportunity to monitor any issues, including permit noncompliance, that may arise, and can stop future funding if requirements are not met.”   

Merkley,  who sits on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and also serves as the head of its chemical safety subcommittee, said that the government already has the necessary tools to tackle ‘forever chemicals’ but that the EPA needs adequate funding if it is to do its job effectively. 

In 2016, Merkley helped overhaul the Toxic Substances Control Act, the chief law which determines how the federal government regulates chemicals, by stripping language from the original 1976 bill that authorized the EPA to restrict compounds which threatened public health but only in a way that was “least burdensome” to industry. The amendment allowed the top environmental watchdog to toughen its regulatory strategy. 

“Protecting our communities from dangerous ‘forever chemicals’ is a top priority of mine,” Merkley said in an emailed statement. “The EPA must effectively implement this landmark chemical safety reform law, and, in turn, Congress must fully fund the agency in charge of protecting our health and environment. Our industries and regulators must make sure we are prioritizing public health and the environment.”

Sens. Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, who represent Georgia, and U.S. Rep. Rick Allen, who represents Augusta, did not respond to requests for comment. Gov. Brian Kemp, too, declined to answer questions.

EPA attempts to address PFAS pollution

In 2021, the EPA developed its PFAS Strategic Roadmap aimed at employing the “full breadth of its tools, resources, and authority to protect public health and deal with widespread contamination.” 

In 2023, it launched an initiative to tackle newly emerging uses of PFAS, including lithium-ion batteries, which requires extensive testing in cases where significant releases or consumer exposure is expected. Earlier this year, the agency designated some of the most dangerous PFAS (PFOA and PFOS) known to date as hazardous. It finalized its first national drinking water limit for a handful of PFAS and provided $21 billion to safeguard water systems against PFAS and other contaminants, among other things. 

And next year, the EPA will get a much greater sense of the uses of ‘forever chemicals’ under a new rule that requires manufacturers and importers of PFAS and products that contain them to report information related their chemical identity, uses, volumes, byproducts, environmental and health effects, worker exposure, and disposal since 2011. 

But when asked specifically about holding polluters to account, the agency was less detailed.

“The EPA is committed to investigating and taking appropriate action when the agency becomes aware of a situation that poses a serious risk to human health or the environment,” an agency spokesperson said in a statement to The Examination and media partners.

Despite recent strides, the agency regulates merely a fraction of the more than 10,000 chemicals considered as PFAS. Exposure to small amounts of some may decrease fertility, weaken immune systems and delay development. Others have been linked to kidney disease, liver issues or prostate, ovarian and testicular cancers. Scientists don’t have enough toxicity data for them all, but advise caution. 

But for Tracy Carluccio,  deputy director of the Delaware Riverkeeper Network, the only real way to effectively address the issue is to ban the whole lot. 

“It’s disgraceful that despite all that has happened to uncover the truth about forever chemicals … people are still being exposed and these companies are still making tons of money on manufacturing that spews out these toxic compounds – even in some cases, attracting new government funding,” she said. “To me, it’s infuriating.”