Pro-polluter PFAS bill would leave taxpayers holding the bag

PFAS foam on a lake in Oscoda, Michigan | Photo by Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy

You may have read about the PFAS bill that recently passed the Wisconsin State Legislature and will likely be vetoed by Gov. Tony Evers. Some legislators have inaccurately said the bill would provide $125 million to communities to deal with PFAS contamination.

The reality is that this bill contains no funding – no help for Wisconsinites concerned about PFAS contamination – and the governor should veto it for that reason alone. But in addition to appropriating no money, the bill limits the ability of the state to hold responsible parties accountable for cleaning up PFAS contamination.

Only the Wisconsin Legislature could come up with this: a PFAS funding bill that includes no funding and that shifts cleanup costs from corporate polluters to taxpayers.

How did we get here?

In the last state budget, Gov. Evers proposed investing over $100 million for PFAS testing and cleanup. Republican legislators responded by setting aside $125 million, initially making it seem like they were surpassing the governor’s proposal. However, there was a catch – the spending authority was removed from the budget, ensuring that the money wouldn’t leave Madison anytime soon.

During the budget process, Sen. Eric Wimberger introduced SB 312, the PFAS funding bill with no funding. The bill was sold as legislation that would spend the $125 million, but it contained no provisions to release any funds for helping communities. Instead, Sen. Wimberger’s bill created loopholes in the state’s toxic Spills Law that favored PFAS polluters. This drew criticism from leaders in Marinette, Wausau, French Island, and other communities affected by PFAS contamination. They did not want legislators to use state taxpayer funds as leverage to pass a bill that would exempt PFAS polluters from responsibility and exacerbate their problems.

Later, Sen. Wimberger made a few amendments to the bill, but additional loopholes were created and existing loopholes were made arguably worse. The bill’s current version is an improvement from its initial form, but it still restricts the state’s authority to mandate cleanup, and it still lacks any spending authority. Even if the governor were to sign SB 312, no money could be spent.

Are Republicans ever planning to release the PFAS money to Wisconsin communities? If they are, SB 312 is certainly not going to get the job done. Some Republican lawmakers have said that once SB 312 is signed into law, a legislative committee, through an entirely separate process, will eventually give the DNR authority to spend the money that was set aside in the budget.

This is not how the legislative appropriations process is supposed to work: locking away taxpayers’ funds, then demanding a separate, harmful bill be passed and signed into law – all before a legislative committee will consider releasing the funds.

The reason Wisconsinites have been put through this shady and convoluted process is that some Republican legislators want to roll back the Spills Law. They believe that holding funding hostage is the way to achieve that. Groups representing the interests of PFAS polluters have long sought to undermine the Spills Law. Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce is currently suing the state to prevent it from using the Spills Law to require polluters to clean up PFAS contamination. Tyco/Johnson Controls is also fighting Spills Law PFAS requirements in court. Why? It may be because that company alone is facing potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in costs to deal with its PFAS contamination.

When you consider that more than 100 contaminated sites have so far been identified in Wisconsin, it’s easy to see what a bad deal it would be to shift financial liability from corporate polluters to taxpayers in exchange for the release of the $125 million.

The poison pills in SB 312 that make it harder to hold PFAS polluters accountable are part of this broader effort to undermine the cleanup requirements of the Spills Law. Gov. Evers should veto SB 312, and the Legislature should release the funding to Wisconsin communities as the governor has repeatedly requested.

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