Between April and June of this year, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed the approval of four new pesticides that qualify as PFAS based on a definition that is commonly used around the world and supported by experts. "What we're seeing right now is the new generation of pesticides, and it's genuinely frightening," said Nathan Donley, the environmental health science director at the Center for Biological Diversity, who published a paper last year showing pesticides are increasingly fluorinated. Fluorination is the process that creates PFAS. "At a time when most industries are transitioning away from PFAS, the pesticide industry is doubling down. They're firmly in the business of selling PFAS." Because the EPA uses a different, narrower definition of PFAS, the agency does not categorize the new pesticides as falling into that category. Under the Trump administration, the [Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention] is being run by three industry insiders. Nancy Beck, formerly an executive at the American Chemistry Council, who previously pushed the EPA to weaken rules on PFAS in consumer products; Lynn Ann Dekleva, a former DuPont executive; and Kyle Kunkler, who has lobbied against pesticide regulations for the American Soybean Association. While the new pesticides are shorter-chain molecules compared to the other longer-chain molecules, they could still stick around in the environment for decades or even centuries.
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