NORTH CAROLINA — The state’s most influential business association is urging the Department of Environmental Quality to delay its efforts to introduce new PFAS water standards in North Carolina.
READ MORE: EPA announces new PFAS standards for water utilities, but fails to address NC chemical industry
ALSO: NCDEQ secretary visits Wilmington to address local concerns about PFAS, Chemours
The North Carolina Chamber of Commerce is the largest business advocacy organization in the state. It works closely with a coalition of affiliated divisions throughout North Carolina, including the Wilmington Chamber of Commerce, as well as the national Chamber of Commerce.
On April 22, the North Carolina Chamber sent a letter to DEQ Secretary Elizabeth Biser requesting the agency delay its proposed PFAS surface and groundwater standards submitted to the Environmental Management Commission, an appointed body that oversees and creates rules for DEQ.
The proposed state standards are separate from new PFAS rules the Environmental Protection Agency announced last month. The EPA introduced the first-time legally enforceable maximum contaminant levels (MCL) for six types of PFAS:
- PFOA 4.0 parts per trillion (ppt)
- PFOS 4.0ppt
- GenX chemicals 10ppt
- PFNA 10ppt
- PFHxS 10ppt
- Mixtures of GenX, PFNA, PFHxS, and PFBS meeting a hazard index standard of 1
DEQ is proposing state groundwater and surface water standards to complement federal MCLs. Under DEQ’s new proposed rules, PFAS manufacturing companies would be required to implement filtration technology to limit emissions. A number of PFAS-producing companies in the state currently emit the compounds without limitations, a subject of controversy demonstrated by a recent draft permit for auto-manufacturing company Lear Corp.
In the letter, state chamber president Gary Salamido argued CNBC’s 2023 ranking for North Carolina as the number one state for business in the country — which factors states’ liability and regulatory climates into its methodology. He indicated it can be maintained while protecting the environment, but more research is needed to understand the economic ramifications of PFAS regulations.
“The businesses in our state, including those in manufacturing, have a proven track record of supporting North Carolina’s economic vitality and doing so responsibly,” Salamido wrote. “It is important that we do not hastily pass regulations without fully accounting for both the positive benefits and potential negative impacts proposed rules would have on the state and its business community.”
Salamido also argued more research is needed to understand how the EPA’s new PFAS standards would intersect with proposed state regulations. He cited the Hardison Amendment, which prevents the state from enacting stricter standards than the federal government.
Biser countered by differentiating between the roles of the EPA and the state. Under the Safe Drinking Water Act, the EPA establishes maximum-contaminant levels for substances that must be met by public water systems. However, the Clean Water Act delegates enforcement and implementation of drinking water standards to states.
New federal regulations are ensuring water utilities monitor six PFAS compounds, but does not address chemical manufacturing companies producing PFAS at the source. The DEQ is expected to regulate source pollution through discharge elimination permits, but North Carolina does not currently have water standards for PFAS.
“The Cape Fear Public Utility Authority has spent $46 million, and Brunswick County has spent over $100 million to address Chemours-related PFAS in their systems,” Biser wrote. “These costs, compounded by annual operating and maintenance costs, have had a direct impact on ratepayers — which include members of the business community — who are now having to pay more to treat contamination that they did not cause.”
Biser noted to Salamido in the letter that financial impact studies have been carried out as they are mandated for Environmental Management Commission review. The DEQ argues PFAS standards would benefit the state economy by lessening the burden on taxpayer-funded utilities. The DEQ sent out the letters to media this week stating it wanted to clear up “misinformation” and “urge action” for protecting public health and their financial well-being.
Cape Fear River Watch executive director Dane Sargent argued the chamber has had sufficient time to consider the business impact of PFAS regulation and noted they’ve repeatedly opposed bills to introduce new enforcements.
“We are grateful for DEQ Secretary’ Biser’s proactive response to the chamber’s woefully inaccurate and frankly appalling assertion that North Carolina manufacturers … have a proven track record of supporting North Carolina’s economic vitality and doing so responsibly,” she said. “We think the hundreds of thousands of North Carolina residents poisoned by PFAS since 1976 would disagree.”
In a separate May 1 letter to the Environmental Management Commission, Biser expressed disappointment that several appointees of the 15-member board refused to include DEQ’s PFAS groundwater standards proposal as an action item at their upcoming May meeting. The EMC also requested more time to gather information, but Biser argued the DEQ already provided sufficient information in multiple presentations and cost-benefit analyses provided since November 2023.
The North Carolina Chamber is one of the state’s most influential lobbying groups, having spent $840,282 in 2023. Nonprofit Carolina Forward found the chamber was North Carolina’s biggest lobbying principal in 2022 with $887,625 in total expenditures.
The business association has lobbied against other efforts to introduce PFAS regulation, such as the PFAS Pollution and Polluter Liability Act, introduced by local representatives Ted Davis Jr., Frank Iler, and Charles Miller. The bill would have authorized DEQ to recoup PFAS reduction costs from chemical manufacturers as well as implementing “technologically feasible” PFAS water standards.
The chamber argued the bill would hurt the state’s business liability and regulatory predictability climate. It also opposed Rep. Deb Butler’s Break Free From Plastics & Forever Chemicals Act.
Both bills failed to progress out of initial committees. In its 2023 legislative review, the chamber notes the bills were “sidelined by chamber opposition.”
Butler told Port City Daily she was disappointed in the chamber’s position on PFAS.
“We have to be able to stop contamination when we see it,” Butler said. “We have to know where it’s coming from. And any attempt to squelch that capacity is wrongheaded.”
The state chamber sent a statement to Port City Daily on the issue, touting a “transparent” and “open process” in government engagement and business advocacy when it comes to regulations.
“The business community is made up of the people who live in communities across our state, these people, and these businesses, pay the bills and enjoy the clean air and water with their families,” the chamber wrote. “We all want a healthy environment that balances economic growth. Petitioning our government for that certainty and predictability and attempting to better understand the costs we will pay should never be categorized as misinformation.”
The national Chamber of Commerce — ranked as the country’s top lobbying organization by nonprofit OpenSecrets — began a formal campaign in March to push against broad PFAS regulation.
In a statement, the chamber’s senior vice president Marty Durbin said the organization supports the cleanup of old PFAS substances no longer essential to commerce. But it also seeks to ensure the availability of innovative PFAS-producing products Durbin believes are “the backbone of the economy.”
Durbin was previously the vice president of federal affairs for the American Chemistry Council, the chemical industry’s biggest trade group. The ACC and chamber have worked together to push against the EPA’s recent designation of two PFAS compounds, PFOA and PFOS, as hazardous substances, broad definitions of the compounds used to determine policy, and a number of other proposals to regulate PFAS.
The national chamber also filed a brief in support of Chemours in the company’s ongoing lawsuit against the EPA to rescind PFAS health advisory levels. It named Chemour’s parent company, DuPont, as a finalist for its 2020 Citizens Award for its efforts to provide communities with “increased access to clean, safe drinking water.”
The national and North Carolina chambers are tax exempt 501c(6) organizations. Neither report donors in their annual 990 forms, and the national chamber has repeatedly opposed proposed requirements for donor, lobbying, and campaign finance disclosures, such as the DISCLOSE Act.
According to its most recent annual IRS filing, the North Carolina Chamber received $2.1 million from unspecified contributors and $3.9 million from membership dues in 2022.
North Carolina Chamber members include businesses that produce or rely on PFAS, such as Charlotte-based multinational Honeywell International. The company gave $5,000 to the state chamber’s political action committee in January.
PCD reached out to the Wilmington Chamber to ask their position on PFAS policy but did not receive a response by press. Local and state chambers do not always have the same goals as the national chamber.
Butler argued the North Carolina Chamber’s efforts are short-sighted as PFAS contamination jeopardizes long-term business success in the state.
“I wish the chamber would focus on good, clean tech, hospitality and other clean sectors of our economy rather than always supporting dirty technologies,” Butler said. “That’s just not the best path forward for North Carolina.”
Tips or comments? Email journalist Peter Castagno at peter@localdailymedia.com.
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