California legislators reject PFAS pesticide ban but weigh increased oversight

California lawmakers have rejected legislation that would have phased out pesticides containing per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). Instead, they are considering a revised version of A.B. 1603.

Despite the failure to approve a ban in the senate, advocacy group and bill cosponsor the Environmental Working Group (EWG) says the measure, one of the first of its kind in the country, sets the stage for future state-led efforts to address PFAS in pesticides.

At its core, A.B. 1603 has exposed a broader regulatory divide over PFAS. Industry groups argued that pesticides should continue to be evaluated individually through the US Environmental Protection Agency’s risk-based registration process. Supporters of the bill countered that PFAS should instead be regulated as a chemical class, arguing that evaluating thousands of structurally related compounds one at a time is impractical and leaves potential gaps in oversight.

The bill represents “a growing concern and interest in regulating PFAS chemicals as a class,” Susan Little, the EWG’s California legislative director, tells C&EN. The actions “reflect the state legislature’s relationship with the state’s agricultural industry . . . not its concerns about PFAS,” Little says.

Legislative effort sees several revisions

Introduced in January by Assembly Member Nick Schultz, a Democrat, the bill originally proposed restricting all pesticides containing intentionally added PFAS. As it moved through the legislature, lawmakers limited the proposed restrictions to certain agricultural uses and established a longer-term phaseout timeline. Amendments also shifted the bill’s emphasis from an outright prohibition toward a more forgiving approach that emphasized disclosure and monitoring requirements.

Opponents of A.B. 1603, such as the Western Plant Health association (WPH) and CropLife America, argue that the measure targets individual PFAS molecules that do not meet the EPA’s definition of PFAS, applying the PFAS label too broadly. WPH’s president and CEO Renee Pinel told C&EN in June that the bill “designates safe general-use products as restricted-use pesticides . . . and has no basis in science. Rather than engaging in a constructive dialogue with our industry, [Schultz] has chosen to adopt the talking points of activist groups who are pushing an antipesticide political agenda rather than a sound public-health agenda.” Pinel called the bill “catastrophic” to the state’s agriculture industry and said that despite the amendments made in the legislature, WPH would “continue to be opposed.”

Debate centers on how PFAS should be regulated

Supporters of A.B. 1603 say the debate should not hinge solely on whether individual pesticide ingredients meet a narrow PFAS definition. The EWG’s Little points to two widely cited studies by international teams of academic and government scientists positing that PFAS should be managed as a class because many of the compounds share properties such as environmental persistence, and she notes the impracticality of evaluating thousands of chemicals one by one. “The increasing body of scientific evidence linking PFAS to health harm continues to grow and implicate the entire class as problematic,” she says.

Others say regulation of PFAS-containing pesticides requires a more balanced approach.

“The debate highlights a challenge that regulators are facing nationwide: how to address PFAS concerns using a risk-based framework that protects public health while preserving access to important agricultural tools,” Erin Brooks, partner at the law firm Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner (BCLP), tells C&EN. “For growers, manufacturers, and distributors, predictability and decisions rooted in science remain essential. Increased disclosure and continued evaluation may help ensure future policy decisions are informed by actual exposure and risk data rather than broad assumptions about an entire class of compounds.”

But Little argues that risk data for PFAS pesticides don’t exist—at least not on the scale that clears them for safety. “You can’t regulate what you haven’t measured,” Little continues, “and right now the toxicity data on many of these PFAS pesticides, and by-products like trifluoroacetic acid [TFA], simply don’t exist at the scale needed to justify spraying them on millions of acres of food crops.” She notes that the EPA recently proposed nationwide water monitoring for ultra-short-chain PFAS including TFA, which forms after the use of many PFAS pesticides, according to the EWG.

Supporters see groundwork for future legislation

The EWG remains optimistic, however.

“California lawmakers are willing to address PFAS as a class and have done so now over eight times in regard to specific product categories,” Little says of state bills in recent years that have adopted PFAS restrictions on food packaging, cosmetics, textiles, and more. Prior to the EWG’s research on PFAS contamination in California produce, the state’s Department of Pesticide Regulation hadn’t identified or acknowledged PFAS in pesticide formulations, she claims, “nor had state agencies been aware of the state’s PFAS pesticide use.”

A.B. 1603 “broke ground” on the issue of PFAS in pesticides and began the discussion in the legislature, she adds. “Far-reaching proposals like A.B. 1603 are rarely enacted upon first attempt; when lawmakers are confronted with new information, as they were here, they often start incrementally and keep the conversation going.”

Other states have had more success with sweeping efforts to regulate PFAS, Little continues. “States such as Minnesota and Maine have taken action to address PFAS in all products,” and many other states have introduced and passed PFAS bans as well, she notes. A spokesperson for MultiState, a government-relations firm that tracks PFAS legislation, declined to comment but notes that because “states are not in legislative session, it will be 5–6 months, with an intervening election, before most legislatures will next consider any policy issues.”