At the same time as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) publicly touts increased oversight of new PFAS and other chemicals, it is also quietly expediting approval of new PFAS “permanent chemicals” for use in the semiconductor industry.
As U.S. semiconductor production ramps up, the rushed review could lead to a sharp increase in pollution, including little-studied PFAS, which are toxic and accumulate in the environment and contribute to climate change. There is a high possibility that it will.
Despite the risks, the Environmental Protection Agency is “bending over backwards” for the semiconductor industry, said Mike Beliveau, founder of Bend the Curb, a nonprofit that has worked to pass toxic chemical legislation. says Mr.
“(PFAS contamination) is going to increase more and more,” he said. “No one likes PFAS getting into their drinking water or raining down from the sky. EPA’s permit goes against growing scientific and public concern, and tensions are rising. ”
PFAS are a group of about 15,000 chemicals commonly used to make products resistant to water, dirt, and heat. Because they do not break down naturally and have been linked to cancer, liver problems, thyroid problems, birth defects, kidney disease, weakened immune systems, and other serious health problems, they are called “eternal”. called “chemical substances”.
Semiconductors are essential to electronics used in defense, medical equipment, smartphones, clean energy and more, and the Biden administration is encouraging the industry to domesticate with billions of dollars in incentives. But the industry is a prolific polluter and a major source of unregulated and unmonitored PFAS, creating tension with Biden’s sweeping plan to curb PFAS pollution.
The controversy is a confluence of what environmentalists have said are serious flaws in PFAS regulations. It has sparked debate over the definition of PFAS, political interference in EPA decisions, the rapid accumulation of little-studied PFAS, and the regulatory agency’s black-box decision-making regarding chemical safety and approval.
In early December, the EPA announced it would step up its review of new chemicals as part of the 2016 amendments to the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), the law that governs the use of toxic substances in the country.
Previously, if the EPA did not review a chemical within 90 days, industry could begin selling the chemical, resulting in thousands of substances being sold with virtually no review. .
The law also includes a “small quantity exemption” that allows chemicals to be released to the market in less than 30 days with little scrutiny if they are used in small quantities and do not endanger the health of workers.600 In recent decades, when PFASs were administered in small doses, those that were “lethal if inhaled” or “skin corrosive” were exempted.
The 2016 rewrite of TSCA addressed these issues, but the law was never enforced in the original Trump EPA. The Biden EPA released the report in early December, saying the agency must “promote innovation while ensuring new chemicals are safe for use before they are allowed into commerce.”
“Today, we modernized our chemical reviews and continued to protect people from unsafe new PFAS,” said Michal Friedhoff, EPA’s Chemical Safety Administrator.
But on page 40 of the rule, there are two paragraphs that supporters say violate the rule’s intent. The report points to the “critical role” of PFAS in semiconductor manufacturing, saying the agency has “prioritized” them and that “currently, it is developing these new “We are reviewing the chemical substances,” meaning they are reviewing them in as little as 90 days.
The EPA also claims to have put in place a “framework” to ensure chemical safety, but details are unclear. It also partially justified this decision by claiming that semiconductor PFAS are used in a “closed loop,” contained within facilities, do not endanger workers, and are properly disposed of. are.
But advocates say that’s not true. Robots are used in many chip manufacturing processes in industry, but the facilities emit vast amounts of PFAS waste into the water or air. Some companies capture waste and send it to incinerators that are technically unable to completely destroy PFAS, instead pumping toxic waste into the air around those facilities.
The Biden administration has acknowledged the PFAS waste problem, but still insists the process is “closed loop.”
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“There is no closed system for PFAS,” Belliveau said.
It’s also unclear exactly how the EPA assesses the risks of chemicals. The agency typically relies on industry science, and in other situations to expedite approvals of new chemicals, to assess health and environmental risks “designed to get you to say ‘yes.'” It uses a standardized calculation formula that appears to be . said Tosh Sager, an attorney with Earthjustice, which is litigating the PFAS issue.
If there is health and safety data on new chemicals, it has been developed by industry and much of it is legally confidential and not available to the public.
“You’re innocent until proven guilty, and that’s the fundamental problem,” said Renee Siegel of Chips Communities United, an organization that works with industry and government to improve environmental protections. . “If you have any safety reports, please show them to us. The chemicals will be in our environment and in our blood for a very long time.”
The industry is seeking alternatives to PFAS in an effort to avoid environmental oversight, but development has been slow and difficult. Semiconductor manufacturing is a highly complex process, and PFAS are essential ingredients used in as many as 1,000 steps at the nanometer level.
Recent testing data showed 78,000 parts per trillion (ppt) of PFAS in wastewater from one facility. The EPA legal limit for some common PFAS compounds is 4 ppt.
The process also requires the use of fluorinated gases (PFAS gases) in various processes, but their toxicological risks remain largely unknown. But they often turn into TFA, a toxic greenhouse gas that can remain in the atmosphere for 1,000 years. TFA is often found in air, water, and human blood at higher levels than other PFAS compounds, but independent researchers are only beginning to study it.
Meanwhile, the EPA has changed the definition of PFAS in its regulations to exclude many gases that are considered PFAS by most public health agencies around the world, Sagar said. This exclusion was a priority for the chemical industry and the military.
Chip makers and the Biden administration have argued that the benefits of not hindering the semiconductor industry outweigh the risks. That may be debatable, Siegel said, but added:
“EPA is not doing its job,” Siegel added.
