EPA approves three pesticides that may qualify as 'forever chemicals'
The Environmental Protection Agency approved three new pesticides that, under widely used international definitions, may qualify as PFAS — the class of persistent “forever chemicals” that do not readily break down in the environment or the body. The agency disagrees that the compounds meet the PFAS classification, a dispute that turns on where the regulatory line for the chemical family is drawn.
That definitional gap is the crux of the decision. By adopting a narrower reading of what counts as PFAS, the EPA can clear products that other regulators — and much of the scientific literature — would treat as forever chemicals, adding new sources of persistent compounds to the agricultural supply even as concern grows over their accumulation in water and soil.