Two bills filed in NC House and Senate to hold PFAS polluters accountable
WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — Two different bills filed in the North Carolina House and Senate seek to hold polluters accountable.
Both bills target polluters that dump a class of forever chemicals known as PFAS into waterways. Repeated exposure to PFAS chemicals have been linked to thyroid disease and cancer.
In the senate, Majority Leader Michael Lee (R) introduced Senate Bill 666, titled the 2025 Water Safety Act.
The bill directs the Department of Environmental Quality to establish limits on PFAS emissions by October.
The bill would also establish a $56 million fund to reimburse public utilities that pay to filter out the compounds.
Meanwhile in the house, Rep Ted Davis (R) filed House Bill 569 titled PFAS Pollution and Polluter Liability.
That bill would hold polluters that make PFAS from scratch liable for violating limits established by the EPA—if the contamination reaches waterways used by public utilities.
Davis said money charged to polluters would be used to pay for water treatment.
He said it’s not fair that utility authorities—and in turn ratepayers—have had to pay millions to filter PFAS compounds out of public drinking water.
“It’s not the rate payers that should be responsible for the cost of making the drinking water clean. It should be the polluters, which are the ones that put the stuff in the water that went into the utility authority, that resulted in them having to incur all these expenses to treat the water,” Davis said. “I take providing clean drinking water very seriously, and I’m going to do everything that I can to protect the people I represent.”
Both bills are currently waiting in committee. They will remain there until they’re placed on the calendar for first reading. Each bill already has bipartisan support, with sponsors from both parties.
