NORTH CAROLINA — After years of efforts to pass similar legislation, Rep. Ted Davis successfully spearheaded a bill to make Chemours liable for PFAS contamination costs through the House. He is now calling on local officials Sen. Michael Lee — who expressed support for the bill — and Sen. Bill Rabon to use their influence to push it through the Senate.
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The House voted 104-3 to pass Rep. Ted Davis’ PFAS Pollution and Polluter Liability bill Wednesday evening. The bill, H.B. 569, would require PFAS manufacturers to pay for water utility treatment technology upgrades deemed necessary to keep the chemicals below federal drinking water standards.
Davis introduced similar versions of the bill for the past three years, but earlier versions did not make it through the House. Last year’s legislation died after making it past the House environmental committee.
Last year, Davis expressed uncertainty if the bill would move further amid opposition from powerful lobby groups representing PFAS manufacturers including the North Carolina Chamber. The PFAS liability bills were “sidelined by NC Chamber opposition,” in 2022, 2023, and 2024 according to the lobby group’s annual “How They Voted” reports.
Port City Daily reached out to the North Carolina Chamber to ask about the bill but did not receive a response by press. However, their website notes they will no longer engage with PCD due to what they interpret as “sensationalized” and “inflammatory” coverage of the lobby group’s involvement with PFAS and 1,4-dioxane regulation.
“The reason I’m doing this is because I give a damn about people,” Davis said. “And the NC Chamber is totally against this. They said: ‘This is bad for business.’ Well I said: ‘If you wanted to bring a business to North Carolina — and you have a family which includes children and employees — do you think you’d want to come in and open a business when you don’t have clean drinking water?”
Davis lists representatives’ growing awareness about PFAS health issues as a reason the bill was able to move through the House for the first time.
“I think more of the Republicans have learned more about it and were more open,” he said. “There was still a lot of opposition, but I was able to talk to people and get them to support the bill.”
The local representative negotiated with House leadership to narrow the bill’s scope to gain support. The amended bill requires public water systems to have incurred at least $50 million to address PFAS in order to be eligible for reimbursement. Only PFAS manufacturers that entered a consent order to limit contamination — a provision singling out Chemours — and directly discharged PFAS into surface water would be liable under the amended legislation.
Davis’ bill comes amid CFPUA and Brunswick County’s ongoing lawsuit against Chemours and DuPont to recover costs and damages from PFAS pollution in the Cape Fear region.
CFPUA spokesperson Cammie Bellamy told Port City Daily the utility has spent more than $82.7 million on actions related to Chemours’ PFAS contamination. This includes the costs to finance, construct, and operate new granular activated carbon filters at Sweeney, legal expenses, and regular testing for PFAS in raw water from the Cape Fear River and treated water.
“We’re grateful to Rep. Davis for his diligent efforts on behalf of his constituents and our customers to hold polluters such as Chemours accountable for the costs to deal with their pollution,” Bellamy said.
Meanwhile, Brunswick has paid more than $170 million for its long-delayed reverse-osmosis system aimed at treating PFAS. The Northwest Water Treatment Plant’s most recent November results show several PFAS compounds remain above maximum contaminant levels in finished water, including PFOS at 9.96 ppt and PFOA at 5.09 ppt.
Brunswick County spokesperson Meagan Kascsak said the county similarly supports Davis’ bill, co-sponsored by Rep. Frank Iler (R-Brunswick).
“I can’t tell you what the Senate’s going to do,” Davis said. “But I would think if I was Michael Lee or Bill Rabon and I’m running for reelection next year, I’d think they would want their constituents that are ratepayers to know that they support them, and not polluters. I mean, that’s up to them. That’s their choice. But I’ve clearly shown I don’t support polluters. I support the ratepayers.”
Sen. Michael Lee gained new influence as Senate Majority Leader — the third highest ranking member of the General Assembly —last month. He told Port City Daily he supports Davis’ liability bill and will work to move it through the Senate; he added he has not yet reviewed Davis’ PFAS foam bill but will do so.
“Thanks to Rep. Davis for sticking with this,” Cape Fear River Watch executive director Dana Sargent said. “The NC Chamber has bragged about opposing it for years while our local businesses have been suffering. We’re looking to Senator Lee to help convince his colleagues that multi-billion dollar corporations that have polluted us for decades should be responsible for these payments.”
Brunswick’s long-time senator, Bill Rabon, described himself as one of the five most powerful members of the senate a decade ago. He is chair of the Senate Rules and Operations Committee — an influential position over which bills move forward in the General Assembly.
“It’s up to Rabon as the rules chairman to decide what if any committees [the bills] will go too,” Davis said. “It would then be my responsibility to go to those committees and present the bill. If it makes it to the floor, I would hope that Michael Lee or Bill Rabon would be the ones to [present it].”
Another PFAS bill introduced by Davis — The Responsible Firefighting Foam Management Act — passed the bill unanimously last week. The bill, which would ban the use of PFAS-containing fire foam for training purposes, made it through the House in previous sessions but died in Rabon’s senate committee.
“[Davis’ fire foam bill] died in the senate multiple times,” Sargent said. “It’s such a low-hanging fruit and it is offensive to our heroes that the state has repeatedly opted to allow them to practice with toxic chemicals.”
Lee filed a separate PFAS bill in March — the 2025 Water Safety Act — directing state regulators to enact PFAS discharge limits, safe water standards for seven specific compounds, and over $80 million for mitigation and research.
“We’ve been pressuring state leaders for nearly eight years to protect us from PFAS and make polluters pay,” Clean Cape Fear co-founder Emily Donovan said. “We applaud Rep. Davis for getting the polluter pay bill approved in the House. We now call on Sen. Lee and his immense power and influence to codify originally worded PFAS water standards and make the polluters pay for clean up. Until these bills become law they are just words on paper.”
Lee’s bill didn’t move out of the Senate Rules and Operations Committee, but it’s funding provisions — including helping utilities mitigate PFAS with treatment upgrades and researching health impacts, detection methods, and innovative remediation technologies — are included in the senate’s 2025 budget proposal.
“We included over $100 million in this year’s senate budget proposal to support the Water Safety Act, demonstrating our strong commitment to addressing PFAS contamination at the source,” Lee said. “I am actively working with stakeholders and subject-matter experts to refine the policy provisions. My goal is to produce a comprehensive and effective solution that can gain broad support and deliver real protection for North Carolina’s communities and environment.”
Davis said research and mitigation funding included in the budget were insufficient to address PFAS contamination; he urged the senate to take action to implement discharge limits.
“If you read it, a lot of that is study,” Davis said. “PFAS is a very dangerous chemical and we need to be proactive to protect the people that are subject to it.”
