After years of work toward compromise, the Senate today passed two bills that together allocate funding for Wisconsin communities harmed by PFAS contamination. Clean Wisconsin spent many months working with the bills’ authors, Representative Mursau and Senator Wimberger, to find common ground. Our policy experts and attorneys scrutinized the text, identified sections of concern and developed recommendations to address those concerns while remaining cognizant of the needs of communities affected by PFAS pollution. Clean Wisconsin appreciates the extent to which bill authors listened to our concerns over a series of many meetings, considered our requests and addressed most of those concerns in the legislation that passed on Tuesday.

Statement from Clean Wisconsin Governent Affairs Director Erik Kanter on today’s Senate passage of the PFAS bills:

“The unanimous bipartisan passage of these bills is the result of years of work toward compromise. The Legislature created the PFAS trust fund 32 months ago, and since then, people in Marinette, Peshtigo, the Town of Campbell, the Town of Stella, and communities throughout the state have waited and waited for our state government to create the programs through which the PFAS trust fund can be allocated. Now, an end to that waiting is finally in sight.

The long, difficult work toward compromise on what should have been a straightforward spending bill is a telling sign that toxic PFAS contamination is evolving into a widespread, costly public health and environmental crisis—one that touches everyone from consumers to farmers and manufacturers. It’s a crisis our state cannot ignore. This must be the first of many actions from Wisconsin lawmakers to take real, meaningful action that protects all of us from these pervasive, harmful chemicals. The state must now establish PFAS groundwater standards to provide clean water protection for rural Wisconsinites on private wells.”