Read the full article by Rachel Frazin and Sharon Udasin (The Hill)
Second in a four-part series.
“State-level efforts to help victims of ‘forever chemical’ exposure get compensation have met resistance from both governments and industry — and this pushback has been particularly effective in Republican-led states.
In Vermont, an official in the governor’s office coordinated with a lobbyist in ‘watering down’ a bill that aimed to make polluters pay for health screenings, emails obtained by The Hill show.
And in Michigan, a bill aiming to add more time to the clock to allow people to sue over contamination has languished in the Republican-controlled legislature.
While these pieces of legislation would have applied to multiple varieties of contamination, they’re often discussed in reference to a class of toxic forever chemicals known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) — a class of thousands of compounds that have been linked to health issues including kidney cancer and thyroid disease.
…A recent modification to New York law — which received widespread bipartisan support in Democrat-dominated chambers — allowed plaintiffs such as Loreen Hackett to get compensation for contamination in her community in Hoosick Falls, N.Y.
…While New York amended its statute of limitations for chemical contamination in general, an approach that other states such as New Hampshire and Maine are taking is to create PFAS-specific exceptions that give longer statutes for just these types of claims. Because they don’t leave companies on the hook for other types of contamination, these PFAS-specific changes make the relative liability smaller for the business community.”…
Check out the prior article in the series.