A U.S. sailor uses a hand pesticide sprayer as part of a demonstration in this 2018 file photo. (Photo by Spc. 3rd Class Katie Cox)
Advocates who were fervent supporters of a bill to ban a type of pesticide in Maryland are so spooked by House changes to the bill that they want to quash it altogether rather than push for amendments.
The House last week gave unanimous approval to House Bill 386, which would prohibit the sale and use of pesticides containing PFAS, the “forever chemicals” linked to serious health issues, beginning in 2032.
But the House version changed the definition of PFAS from the original bill to severely limit the pesticides that would be affected and, advocates fear, would open the door to a relaxation of PFAS standards elsewhere in state regulations.
“It’s just that damaging,” said Bonnie Raindrop, coordinator of Maryland’s Smart on Pesticides Coalition. “It takes a lot. I mean, we wouldn’t do that lightly.”
But a lobbyist representing pesticide manufacturers said the original definition in the bill was overly broad when it came to pesticides. She called the House bill a reasonable compromise.
PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, is the name for an expansive group of manmade compounds known as “forever chemicals” because of their incredibly strong carbon and fluorine bonds, which make them degrade very slowly in the environment and the human body.
The original bill used a prior definition of PFAS from state law that only requires one fluorinated carbon atom. But the amended version would require PFAS to have two or more fluorinated carbon atoms, which could undermine the prior definition, said Ruth Berlin, executive director of the nonprofit Maryland Pesticide Education Network, which facilitates the Smart on Pesticides group.
Berlin said the change would reduce the number of affected pesticides from 66 to six — and those are rarely used in Maryland anyway, according to the Network’s research.
In a news release, the Network called the amended bill a “dream bill for the pesticide industry.”
The amended definition has the support of organizations including CropLife America, which represents pesticide manufacturers. CropLife argues that shorter-carbon-chain PFAS do not pose the same threat as longer-chain compounds.
“The one-carbon definition is just the basic chemical structure of a PFAS,” said Lindsay Thompson, a lobbyist representing CropLife. “The one-carbon definition for PFAS does not communicate risk.”
Thompson said that the amended bill would only apply this new definition to pesticides.
But pesticide safety groups worry it would later spread to other uses, meaning that prior PFAS laws passed in Maryland — banning PFAS from firefighting foams, for instance — could be impacted by a new definition, narrowing their scope, Berlin said.
“If that becomes Maryland law, anything that we’ve passed so far is then able to be countered in court,” Raindrop said. “So it’s a very dangerous situation.”
Berlin said she is also worried that if the definition takes hold in Maryland, it could spread to other states. That’s part of the reason she wants the bill to fail in its entirety.
“We can’t take even this much of a chance that something like that would happen,” Berlin said.
The House bill now heads to the Senate’s Education, Energy and the Environment Committee, where a companion bill by Sen. Benjamin Brooks (D-Baltimore County) has been heard. Brooks said he is concerned about altering the previous definition in state statute.
“It’s narrow. I don’t want to set a precedent. And I didn’t want to necessarily deviate from what we already have set up in statute,” Brooks said Tuesday morning.
Brooks said he was meeting with House lawmakers to understand the amendments and come to a conclusion.
The PFAS definition from the original bill resembles that of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Raindrop said. It is also used by 22 other states, she said.
Thompson said the current definition in the bill draws from amendments to the federal Toxic Substances Control Act in September 2023. She said the new definition was supported by an ad-hoc working group of lawmakers and other stakeholders, and ought to be respected.
“We are standing behind our good-faith negotiation and the compromise that came out of the House,” Thompson said.
Since roughly the 1950s, thousands of different PFAS compounds have been used widely in consumer products — from nonstick cookware to dental floss and carpeting — because of their heat-, water- and oil-resistant properties. But those same properties have driven concern that the broad chemical class poses a threat of environmental degradation and health harm.
Several PFAS compounds, including PFOA and PFOS, have since been linked to health harms including kidney and testicular cancer, increased cholesterol levels and pregnancy-induced hypertension and preeclampsia, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency last year set its first mandatory limits on the allowable concentration of those PFAS compounds in public drinking water.
The Maryland bill would have phased out PFAS in pesticides beginning in 2026 at schools and other locations. The amended House bill would have the ban take effect all at once, in 2032.
Berlin said advocates were willing to compromise on the locations and the date. But changing the definition of PFAS was a bridge too far.
“This is not a compromise. This would be a sell-out,” Berlin said.