Microwave Mel Gibson Makes Farty Mouth Noises About "Regulating" Microplastics, But Of Course It's Toothless, Empty PR
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In a joint announcement yesterday with EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the agency heralded the move as a “historic” response to concerns raised by Americans over toxic chemicals and plastic pollution in drinking water.But environmental defense groups, as well as food and water advocacy organizations, have criticized the action as political posturing without any regulatory teeth. “This is just smoke and mirrors,” said Suzanne Novak, a senior attorney and director of drinking water advocacy at Earthjustice, an environmental public-interest group. “This is the first step in a process that almost always leads to not regulating.”
Placement on the Contaminant Candidate List (CCL) does not guarantee that the agency will eventually regulate microplastics. The Safe Drinking Water Act requires the EPA to publish a new list every five years, which the agency says it uses “to identify priority contaminants for regulatory decision making and information collection.”
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Nor does placement on the list require the EPA to monitor microplastic levels in drinking water sources. There is a separate list for that, the Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Rule (UCMR), the latest version of which is due to be finalized by the end of 2026.
If the EPA wishes to tackle the health and environmental threats posed by microplastics, the agency should commit to monitoring and place them on the UCMR list, said Erin Doran, senior attorney for Food & Water Watch, in a statement released by the watchdog group. Today’s announcement of including microplastics on CCL 6, while a step in the right direction, ultimately falls short on its own,” Doran said. “It does not reflect the urgent need for a comprehensive nationwide monitoring program for microplastics in drinking water now.”
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https://insideclimatenews.org/news/03042026/epa-microplastics-water-contaminant-candidate-list/