Click here to watch Ranking Member Capito’s questions.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Ranking Member Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), Ranking Member of the Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee, participated in a hearing titled, “Examining PFAS as Hazardous Substances.” Capito reiterated her support, and the widespread consensus, for passive receiver protections to ensure the original polluters pay for the cleanup of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), also known as “forever chemicals.”

HIGHLIGHTS:

ON PURPOSE OF THE HEARING: “This is a public forum to get into sort of the nitty gritty of what we've been trying to work on in private by getting stakeholders from every single aspect of this issue. To the chairman's credit, we've had two very major roundtables to understand the issue as well as we possibly can. So now we're honing in on it and so I guess my final comment would be, I think there was agreement that…‘passive receivers’ are not what we're aiming at here. We're aiming at the polluter pays, the polluters should pay [for] the cleanup.

IF EVERYONE AGREES THE POLLUTERS SHOULD PAY, LET’S PUT IT IN STATUTE: “And so, Mr. Faber has said that it will be written into the verbiage that the [passive receiver] you know, water systems and wastewater systems and landfills, are not where we're aiming here not to be held liable. If we all agree on that, why wouldn't we just agree on putting it in the statute and making it a bright line and making it very clear?”

Click HERE to watch Ranking Member Capito’s questions.

Click HERE to watch Ranking Member Capito’s opening statement.

Click HERE for a complete list and links to the letters of support for ‘passive receiver’ protections.
 

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