Maryland Advocates Thwarted Pesticide Industry Attack on Science and Our Protections from PFAS ‘Forever Chemicals’

2025 bill to protect Marylanders from PFAS-pesticides

Some pesticides are much more dangerous to human health and our environment because they are a PFAS ‘forever chemicals.’ For the second year, our Smart on Pesticides Coalition supported a bill in the 2025 Maryland General Assembly, SB345/HB386 “Pesticides – PFAS Chemicals – Prohibition,” to phase out PFAS-pesticides, products where PFAS is used as the active ingredient. The bill would protect Maryland’s children, pregnant women, families, the elderly, farmland and our environment from the life-threatening damage of PFAS-pesticides by prohibiting their use in the state.

What are PFAS ‘forever chemicals’?

A class of fluorinated chemicals, PFAS are known as forever chemicals because they never break down in the environment. PFAS pollution is a massive problem and emerging remediation technologies are limited and very expensive. PFAS pollution costs will fall to communities, counties, and states as well as health care, and currently not on the industries that pollute. PFAS are already in our drinking water, in the Chesapeake Bay, and in our soil, food, and bodies. Nearly every U.S. resident now carries measurable levels of PFAS in their blood. Every exposure adds to the harmful impacts to our body. Maryland has issued fish consumption warnings for PFAS in 15 fish species in the Bay watershed; PFAS has been found in drinking water in several counties and a number of Maryland schools around the state.

Download the PFAS and pesticides fact sheet.

This is a David & Goliath story

You may be one of the many supporters who responded to our coalition’s action alerts about this bill and we want to thank you for your support! Our efforts this year resulted in both a serious loss, as well as a crucial nationally-impacting PFAS victory.

Unexpectedly, Maryland became ground zero for a pesticide industry attack on the scientific definition of PFAS, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances called ‘forever chemicals.’ PFAS are highly persistent and cumulative, causing cancers including breast, reproductive, liver and kidney cancer, cardiovascular disease, birth defects, high cholesterol, pregnancy complications, and suppress immune function. PFAS contamination is now being recognized as a national crisis.

Our supporters played a critically important role—not just in supporting another groundbreaking pesticide protection effort in Maryland, but this time in beating back a pernicious pesticide industry campaign to strip protections from the public at both state and national levels, starting with Maryland.

We helped draft the Maryland bill (HB386) phasing out PFAS-pesticides in the state, which was supported by a broad coalition of environmental and public health organizations and globally-renowned PFAS scientists.

First the loss – an industry-hijacked bill

Unfortunately, well-resourced chemical industry lobbyists pushed for amendments that radically altered the scientifically-accepted definition of PFAS established by the global Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), co-authored by the U.S. EPA and 36 other nations, currently used by the EPA, Congress, the Department of Defense, and already codified into law by Maryland and 23 other states. The amended bill replaced this definition with a far narrower, industry-favored definition that effectively excludes a huge number of PFAS-containing substances, not just pesticides, from regulatory oversight – with no scientific basis.

Stunningly, despite our well-documented evidence countering the industry false narratives and offering numerous rounds of concessions to HB386 in exchange for removing the unacceptable industry PFAS definition, and as a result of the confusion created by industry lobbyists, the well-intentioned House passed the revised chemical industry-friendly amended bill.

Why this matters: The pesticide and chemical industries’ amended PFAS definition exempts half of the 15,000 PFAS chemicals and 90% of PFAS-pesticides from being classified as PFAS – yet they are still just as dangerous. By excluding this huge group of PFAS chemicals from regulation, this precedent-setting change protects the chemical industry – not people or the environment – by shielding industry products, profits and liability. Given the widespread outcry, as PFAS pollution is being recognized as a national crisis to our drinking water, for polluting farmland, crops and our food supply, our bodies, and with astronomical costs associated with PFAS remediation and health care impacts, the chemical industry is bound and determined to get the industry-friendly definition into state and federal laws.

It gets worse (before it gets better): Since the bill would codify the weakened definition into MD law, it would effectively indemnify PFAS-pesticides and the industry from future PFAS restrictions and liability. It would also threaten the legality of Maryland’s existing PFAS protection laws and affect future protections on all products containing PFAS. This change in Maryland would be used to justify changing the definition in other states and nationally, as part of a nefarious chemical industry game plan to stop other states from passing stronger PFAS protection laws and pave the way for PFAS protections in states and nationally to be undermined and rolled back.

MPEN’s Smart on Pesticides Coalition (SOPC), comprised of 112 organizations and businesses, has worked for three years to educate lawmakers and the public on the harms of PFAS-pesticides and the hundreds of non-PFAS alternatives to replace them. In 2024, MPEN partnered with Johns Hopkins School of Public Health on a study of PFAS in the blood of Marylanders across the state and found that all tested participants had PFAS in their blood, and the majority at levels “having potential for adverse health effects,” according to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM).

PFAS-pesticides, less than 8% of the 14,000 pesticides registered for use in Maryland (and most states), are widely marketed and used in healthcare settings (think ICU’s, NICUs, ERs that cannot be emptied to apply pesticides), schools, homes, for mosquito control and agriculture. Only two other states, Maine and Minnesota, have passed laws phasing out these uniquely persistent PFAS-pesticides. Those laws are now being aggressively challenged by the global pesticide industry, which wants to continue selling PFAS-pesticides in every state in the nation.

In a bizarre turnabout, after making a convincing case for the need to ban PFAS-pesticides, our Smart on Pesticide Coalition, supported by the entire MD environmental advocacy community, had to turn around and fight to kill our own bill in the Senate, to prevent it from becoming law and a gift to the chemical industry – and a disaster for Marylanders and the nation.

Now, the victory! We stopped the industry-amended Maryland bill from becoming law and prevented a destructive pesticide industry effort from becoming a national precedent-setting law.

At the eleventh hour, the industry’s plan came into focus. As noted in a recent article, chemical industry groups are currently pushing EPA to adopt this significantly weakened PFAS definition. An industry letter to EPA stated that EPA should back policies and legislation “proposing a U.S. government-wide PFAS redefinition …which would greatly limit what will be considered PFAS.”

We honestly could not have stopped the industry capture of Maryland without our supporters. We will continue to advocate for needed PFAS pesticide protections in our state. We want to sincerely thank you for your support, this year and in the past – you provided the financial resources that enabled MPEN and its Smart on Pesticides Coalition to stand up to a pesticide industry with very deep pockets – and win against them!

Unfortunately, doing so incurred unexpected significant cost overages that were not part of our already tight budget. It is clear the chemical industry’s agenda is to use its influence in the current administration to maximize profits and neuter public health protections and organizations like ours. Now more than ever, halting these efforts nationally and at state levels is critical.

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Protect yourself from PFAS-pesticides

The good news is we can stop further contamination from known PFAS pesticides. There are numerous pesticides that can easily replace PFAS pesticides for all uses. Our website has numerous pages with least toxic alternatives that are PFAS-free.

Here are some helpful resources to identify and avoid PFAS pollution

• PFAS-pesticides are heavily marketed for use in schools, healthcare facilities, home and lawncare products and for crops. Identify/avoid PFAS-pesticides by their active ingredient,  listed on product labels. Use this list of PFAS-pesticide active ingredients to ID when products are a PFAS. Access the Maryland PFAS-pesticide list.
• Toxic-free North Carolina’s PFAS policy brief, with product list (last pg.)
• NYTimes Article: How to Limit Your Exposure to PFAS (general): 
• EWG: How to Avoid Pesticides While Pregnant
• Forever Chemicals: Top 3 ways to lower your exposure
• How to Avoid Pesticides in Your Diet
• Minimizing Pesticide Residues in Food
• Mamavation – Resource for PFAS-tested Products

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Our 10 state pesticide protection law wins, often first-in-the-nation, are why national organizations have called the Smart on Pesticides Coalition “the most effective state pesticide group in the country”.
Download the Coalition fact sheet.

Please help us hold the line against the polluting pesticide industry.

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