Senate Health & Welfare considers expanding PFAS consumer‑product rules in H.238

The Senate Health & Welfare committee on April 18 reviewed H.238, a bill to consolidate and expand Vermont’s restrictions on PFAS in consumer products and to move provisions from last year’s Act 131 into a single chapter. Committee members, staff and state agency witnesses discussed definitions, enforcement authority, effective dates and requested reports from state agencies before deciding final language.

Committee staff said H.238 would carry definitions and prohibitions from Act 131 into a consolidated subchapter and add three product categories—cookware, dental floss and fluorine‑treated (fluorine‑treated) plastic containers—to the list of consumer products prohibited when PFAS are intentionally added. The draft also lowers the regulated PFAS threshold for textiles from 100 parts per million to 50 parts per million effective July 1, 2027, and adds outdoor apparel for severe wet conditions to the regulated apparel category on July 1, 2028.

The committee discussed the statutory test for when PFAS in a product counts as “intentionally added.” Staff read a proposed attorney general change that would say PFAS shall not be considered…