BANGOR DAILY NEWS • April 26, 2023
Maine lawmakers are dealing with a side effect of a set of first-in-the-nation policies on “forever chemicals,” leading to an interesting alliance between businesses and a top labor Democrat. The Maine State Chamber of Commerce is leading a push to roll back some of the state’s restrictions on the kinds of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, also known as “forever chemicals” or PFAS, increasingly being found in land and water and prompted a major public health crisis and response that generally enjoys support across the political spectrum. The Mills administration has granted more than 2,000 extensions to the reporting requirements that came online in January. The chamber-led bill, from Sen. Joe Baldacci, D-Bangor, and Senate President Troy Jackson, D-Allagash, would delay the reporting requirement until January 2024 and it would flip exceptions to the 2030 phase-out of products containing PFAS by saying the state must make rules determining the products that would be banned.