Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are commonly known as “forever chemicals” due to their very strong carbon-fluorine bonds, which are extremely difficult to break down or degrade. Since the 1940s, PFAS have been manufactured and used in the United States in various consumer and industrial products, including nonstick kitchenware, firefighting foam and protective equipment, and water-resistant gear or fabrics including rain jackets and umbrellas. Numerous studies on PFAS have demonstrated characteristics of persistence, bioaccumulation, and toxicity. Because of their widespread use and persistence, many PFAS substances have been found in humans, environmental media, and animals all over the world. Exposure to PFAS has been linked to harmful health effects in humans, such as increased susceptibility to various types of cancer, and increased risk of thyroid, kidney, and liver diseases. There is growing research that has identified further potential impacts, including immune effects, certain malignancies, cardiovascular disease, and developmental and reproductive impacts.

As interns at the Rockefeller Institute’s Center for Law and Policy Solutions this semester, we researched PFAS state legislation activity nationwide during 2023. The Institute’s existing PFAS Policy Dashboard provides an overview of PFAS legislation from 2016–22. This research, as well as the Institute’s previous report Parts Per Trillion,  assisted in updating the dashboard by identifying and coding PFAS legislation introduced or enacted (passed) in 2023.

In total, we identified 180 pieces of introduced legislation, 44 of which were enacted as laws. Those bills and laws were then coded using the 38 different issue types defined in the dashboard, resulting in a total of 425 codes. Of the 38 different issue types, we identified eight as the most common for 2023: appropriations, consumer products, drinking water, study or recommendations, firefighting foam or protective equipment, packaging or food packaging, remediation, and monitoring and detection.

In addition, those states with the most legislative activity, that introduced the most bills, on PFAS included: Minnesota, Maine, Massachusetts, California, Illinois, and New Hampshire. We also looked at New York for comparison, given our location in the state. By studying state legislation on PFAS, we hope this work: contributes to the body of knowledge identifying the array of policy issues it entails; helps focus on solutions that have been proposed and implemented; and advances knowledge on legislative trends and approaches across different states and legislative years. Taken together with the prior data for years 2016–22 in the PFAS Policy Dashboard, the dashboard now reflects a total of 665 bills and 189 enacted laws across the seven years considered.

Methodology

Since the PFAS Policy Dashboard covers data from 2013–22, we focused on information from 2023. We replicated the database’s existing methods (as detailed in the Dashboard);  however, for 2023, there is one additional data point included in the database that refers to the definition of PFAS used in a bill or law.

It is important to note that the findings don’t reflect the totality of any state’s actions on PFAS, but more specifically reflect legislative activity for the year considered.

PFAS Laws and Legislations by State in 2023

In 2023, 31 states introduced 180 bills and 20 states enacted 44 PFAS-related laws. There was an uneven distribution of legislative activity with respect to PFAS regionally across the U.S. This variation appeared more uneven when we looked solely at enacted laws as opposed to all introduced bills (see maps below). There could be several explanations for these variations. Potential factors may include: if there is a greater history of industrial manufacture or utilization of PFAS; if there has been significant public attention to cases of contamination; prior legislative action in a given state, or the partisan make-up of the legislature and the executive, among others. Unfortunately, this sort of analysis was beyond the scope of our research, though further work could examine this variation.

Figure 1: PFAS Legislation Introduced by State in 2023

Figure 2: PFAS Legislation Enacted by State in 2023

States with the Most PFAS Bills/Laws in 2023

Given the variation across states, we focused on the six states with the most legislative activity in 2023 (see below), as well as New York, given that it is our home state. Those six states included: Minnesota, Maine, Massachusetts, California, Illinois, and New Hampshire. Of additional note, while Washington State had just three bills introduced in 2023—far fewer than the states listed above—it passed more than some of them with four laws enacted (the additional bill was technically introduced, prefiled, in 2022). Below is a summary of the legislation introduced and enacted in those states.

Figure 3: PFAS Legislation by State

Figure 4: PFAS Laws by State

• Minnesota

  • ► 18 bills introduced

  • ► 3 laws enacted

  • ► The most common issue type among bills introduced in Minnesota, as in other several other states, were appropriations bills (10). Other issue types most frequently assigned to Minnesota legislation included study or recommendations bills (8), consumer products (4), and drinking water (5).

  • ► Example of enacted law: HF 2310/SF 2438 (Chapter 60 of 2023) is an omnibus bill that appropriated related to environment and natural resources for the 2024 and 2025 fiscal years. Among other things, it appropriated funds towards remediation, public water treatment systems, monitoring and detection of PFAS contamination, and develop new methods to detect and dispose of PFAS.

• Maine

  • ► 14 bills introduced

  • ► 6 laws enacted

  • ► Most common issue types: appropriations (5), study or recommendations (5), consumer products(5).

  • ► Example of enacted law: LD 217/HP 138 (Chapter 138 of 2023) makes changes related to reporting requirements and exemptions to an existing law related to manufacturers of products containing PFAS and prohibitions of the sale or distribution of such products.

• Massachusetts

  • ► 14 bills introduced

  • ► 1 law enacted

  • ► Most common issue types: firefighting foam or protective equipment (5), appropriations (4), drinking water (4), remediation (4), study or recommendations (4 bills).

  • ► Example of enacted law: HB 4040 was an omnibus budget bill (for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2024) that, among other things, appropriated funds for PFAS testing, remediation, and mitigation for certain localities in Massachusetts.

• California

  • ► 12 bills introduced

  • ► 3 laws enacted

  • ► Most common issue types: appropriations (5), consumer products (5), drinking water (5), packaging (3).

  • ► Example of enacted law: AB496 (Chapter 441 of 2023) expands the list of chemicals or ingredients included in existing state law that prohibits the act of manufacturing, selling, delivering, holding, or offering for sale of any cosmetic products that contain the chemicals listed in the bill. The expanded list includes several PFAS.

• Illinois

  • ► 11 bills introduced

  • ► 3 laws enacted

  • ► Most common issue types: consumer products (3), wastewater (3), fire fighting foam or protective equipment (3), study or recommendations (3).

  • ► Example of enacted law: HB 3508 (Public Act 103-0351 of 2023) amends the PFAS Reduction Act to require the state Environmental Protection Agency to establish a PFAS disposal program. The program will take back firefighting foam containing PFAS from fire departments for five years or until the State Fire Marshall no longer finds foam containing PFAS reported. The program “shall” provide resources for proper destruction and disposal but is subject to appropriations.

• New Hampshire

  • ► 11 bills introduced

  • ► 2 laws enacted

  • ► Most common issue types: appropriations (5), drinking water (3), monitoring and detection (3), consumer products (2), private wells (2).

  • ► Example of enacted law: HB 391 (Chapter 44 of 2023) amends existing law related to data sharing between the Department of Environmental Services and Department of Health to change the reporting requirements. This includes changing the reporting from 6 months to yearly, and including the requirement that the annual report is submitted to the commission on the environmental and public health impacts of PFAS.

• New York

  • ► 7 bills introduced (tenth most along with Vermont & Michigan)

  • ► 2 laws enacted

  • ► Most common issue types: consumer products (4), liability (2), recycling (2).

  • ► Example of enacted law: SB 1322/AB 994 (Chapter 11 of 2023) prohibits the sale of apparel and outdoor apparel containing intentionally added PFAS for severe wet conditions beginning in 2025 and 2028 respectively.

PFAS Laws and Legislations by Issue Type in 2023

By analyzing 2023 legislation and laws nationwide, certain issue types emerged more frequently than others. Notably, appropriations, consumer products, drinking water, packaging (including food packaging), firefighting foam and protective equipment, remediation, and study or recommendations were among the most common.

2023 State PFAS Laws and Legislation by Issue Type

• 1. Appropriations

  The appropriations issue type appeared most frequently of all the issue types in 2023, with 61 bills total, 23 of which were enacted as laws. Of those laws, the states with the most enacted were: Maine (4), Michigan (3), Minnesota (3), California (2), and Washington State (2). These bills established or appropriated funds for a variety of capital projects, research, and programs to address PFAS. One of Maine’s enacted laws (LD 424), for example, appropriates funding for the Maine Solid Waste Management Fund to address and mitigate PFAS contamination. However, many of the appropriations bills included not only provisions related to PFAS, but numerous other unrelated items—with some of these bills being larger omnibus packages and state budget bills.

• 2. Consumer Products

  Consumer products were the second most frequent issue type across all states, with 43 bills in total, nine of which were enacted as laws. Of those nine laws, two were enacted in Maine, two in New York, and two in Washington State, while the remaining three were spread across California, Minnesota, and Oregon. New York’s S1322/A994 (Chapter 111 of 2023), for example, extended existing prohibitions related to apparel to prohibit the use of PFAS in outdoor apparel for severe wet conditions. Other enacted laws related to consumer products included provisions restricting PFAS in carpets or rugs, cosmetic products, bottled water, mattresses, automotive products, cleaning products, cookware, fabric treatment, and children’s products. Some of these focused on a single type of product, while others pertained to several types or categories of products. The most frequently mentioned products in enacted laws related to consumer products were carpets and cosmetics.

• 3. Drinking Water

  The third most recorded issue type was drinking water. Like appropriations, drinking water has been one of the most frequent issue types for legislation in prior years covered by the dashboard. There were 41 proposed bills for 2023 that pertained to drinking water, 13 of which were enacted as laws. California (5), Minnesota (5), and Massachusetts (4) had the most legislation introduced related to drinking water, while California and Minnesota had the most enacted at two each. Several of the bills passed reflected broader state budget bills that included appropriations related to PFAS in drinking water. These tended to focus on remediation, or monitoring and detection.

Definitions

Of the 49 bills or laws for which a specific definition was included in 2023, 40 bills defined PFAS as organic chemicals having at least one fully fluorinated carbon atom, with many, if not most, referring to them as a class of chemicals. Of those remaining, five defined them as having at least two fully fluorinated carbon atoms, with some referring to them as a group of chemicals and/or outlining exceptions, and four defined PFAS as a specific list of compounds, with some including only PFOA and PFOS while others cited compounds for which there were existing EPA detection methods. Of the 10 enacted laws during 2023 that included a definition, five had definitions of one fully fluorinated carbon atom.

Conclusions

Overall, during 2023 we saw the continued increase in PFAS legislation at the state level. This included more significant legislative activity in certain states, including Minnesota, Maine, Massachusetts, California, Illinois, and New Hampshire. It also included attention to both issue types that have been broadly addressed in prior years, such as drinking water and appropriations, as well as those that have increased over time, such as consumer products, firefighting foam or protective equipment, and packaging and food packaging. In addition to these observations, we newly considered the definition of PFAS included in any of the legislation considered for 2023. This analysis showed that the majority (40 out of 49) of the bills introduced that included definitions used a definition akin to a class of chemicals containing at least one fully fluorinated carbon atom. While of the laws enacted, half of the chaptered bills (5 out of 10) used a “one fully fluorinated” definition.Given our research with respect to 2023 state PFAS legislation and laws and the broader PFAS Policy Dashboard, there are a number of areas needing further research and consideration. For example, further work should consider how each type of definition is being used with respect to different forms of legislation and issue types. Likewise, given the uneven distribution of legislation across states, further work might consider the regional and state-to-state variation of legislative activity and the factors that may influence this. Given the variety of legislation within each issue type, further work could also determine whether different approaches to legislating particular issue types have been more or less successful. Finally, all of these considerations would benefit from looking at them within and across each of the years covered by the PFAS Policy Dashboard.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

The authors were Center for Law & Policy Solutions (CLPS) research interns for the spring 2024 semester.