The Trump EPA approved three new pesticides on June 30 that contain single-fluorinated-carbon molecules, which some groups classify as PFAS forever chemicals. The Center for Biological Diversity and the Center for Food Safety warn that these pesticides can break down into trifluoroacetic acid (TFA), a persistent water contaminant, and have been linked to cancer in animal studies. The EPA disputes the PFAS classification, arguing that single-fluorinated-carbon compounds lack the persistence and bioaccumulation of true forever chemicals. Denmark has already banned one of the approved pesticides, diflufenican, due to groundwater contamination concerns. The EPA says it applied standard gold review processes including toxicity testing and environmental fate analysis. Watchdog groups counter that the chemicals can linger in the environment for generations and that the EPA is using a narrower definition of PFAS than the OECD or the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. The disagreement highlights a growing regulatory gap over what counts as a forever chemical and how much risk is acceptable in agricultural use.
