James in 2021 Kenny and his husband were in a big box store where they bought furniture when the sales associate asked if they wanted to add fabric protectants. Kenny, Cabinet Secretary for the New Mexico Environmental Division, was asked to look at the product data sheet. Both he and his husband were shocked to see eternal chemicals listed as protective agents.
“I think of your normal, everyday New Mexicans going by. Let the furniture last a little longer. It’s not safe,” he says. “It just happens because they tried to sell it to the Environment Secretary.”
Last week, the New Mexico Legislature passed a bill that Kenny hopes will help protect consumers in his state. If signed by the governor, the law ultimately bans consumer products that add PFA (personal and polyfluorinated alkyl substances), colloquially known as “eternal chemicals” as being sold in New Mexico for sustainability in the environment.
As health and environmental concerns about eternal chemicals are mounted nationwide, New Mexico will join a small but growing state that is moving towards restricting PFAS for consumer products. New Mexico is now the third state passing the PFA ban passing through Congress. The other 10 states have bans or restrictions on PFA added to certain consumer products, such as cooking utensils, carpets, apparel and cosmetics. This year, at least 29 states (recorded numbers) have PFA-related bills before the state legislature. analysis A network of state-based advocacy organizations addressing issues relating to potentially unsafe chemicals among the bills by Safer States.
The chemical and consumer products industry is lobbying state legislatures to increase counter attacks and advocate product safety in state legislatures, and in one case they are suing to prevent the law from coming into effect. Some of the key exemptions made in New Mexico highlight some of the big fights the industry hopes to win in state houses across the country.
PFA is not a single chemical, it is in thousands of classes. The first PFA was It has developed The 1930s. Thanks to their non-stick properties and unique durability, their popularity has grown in post-war industrial and consumer use. Chemicals quickly became ubiquitous in American life, coating cooking utensils, preventing furniture and carpets from being dyed, and acting as a surfactant for firefighters.
Submitted in 1999 by a West Virginia man Litigation Against us, against chemical giant DuPont, claiming that contamination from the factory is killing his cows. The lawsuit reveals that DuPont had been concealing evidence of the negative effects of PFA on workers from the government for decades. Since then, the chemical industry has paid billions of dollars in settlement fees around PFAS lawsuits: 2024, American multinational 3M I agreed to pay The company did not accept responsibility, but between $10 billion and $12.5 billion for US public water systems that detected PFA in water for supply and future testing payments. (DuPont and its independent chemical company Chemours continue to deny any misconduct in lawsuits that include the original West Virginia lawsuits.)
