The state of Minnesota, which passed one of the most aggressive PFAS (per- and polyfluoralkyl chemicals) laws in the U.S. in 2023, is engaged in rulemaking to establish a process to determine whether PFAS refrigerants and other products are “essential” to avoid prohibition in 2032.
Known as “Amara’s Law,” the 2023 PFAS legislation was named in honor of Amara Strande, a young woman who advocated for the bill and spoke at the Minnesota Legislature in March 2023, a month before losing her fight against cancer linked to PFAS exposure. The law bans non-essential uses of PFAS, so-called forever chemicals, which do not break down in the environment. It passed with bipartisan support and the backing of businesses and advocacy groups.
Parts of the law have already started to take effect. Beginning in 2025, 11 categories of new consumer products – including carpeting, cleaning products, children’s products, dental floss and cookware – sold or distributed in Minnesota must be made without PFAS. Reporting requirements on remaining PFAS use will begin in 2026. In 2032 bans on non-essential uses of PFAS in other new products, such as certain refrigerants and pesticides, will take place unless the use of the PFAS in the product is determined to be an essential and thus a “currently unavoidable use.”
Maine is another state that has taken a similarly proactive approach to PFAS, with plans to ban the sale of certain refrigerants, foams and aerosol propellants as well as cooling, heating, ventilation, air-conditioning and refrigeration equipment that contain “intentionally added PFAS” beginning in 2040.
Notably, Minnesota, Maine and 21 other states define PFAS as “substances that include any member of the class of fluorinated organic chemicals containing at least one fully fluorinated carbon atom.” This definition, endorsed by more than 150 scientists, covers certain f-gases, including HFCs and HFOs, as well as trifluoroacetic acid (TFA), an atmospheric degradation product of certain commonly uses f-gases.
TFA is a ubiquitous pollutant that has been called a “planetary boundary threat” and linked to reproductive toxicity by German authorities. In another Midwestern state, Michigan, a study of rainwater led by the Ecology Center last year found TFA to be the largest PFAS contributor in two out of three sample locations. While the toxicity of TFA is still being debated, “its persistence and mobility and the greatly increasing concentrations found in the environment are all red flags that are enough to put the brakes on,” said Gillian Zaharias Miller, Senior Scientist at the Ecology Center.
However, the PFAS definition used by the Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics (OPPT) at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) does not include f-gases or TFA. Most recently, in its PFAS reporting rule the EPA acknowledged that its definition “does not include substances that only have a single fluorinated carbon.”
Ongoing and evolving analysis
Following the adoption of Amara’s Law, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) has been engaged in rulemaking is to establish criteria it will use to determine which, if any, uses of intentionally added PFAS will qualify as currently unavoidable uses because they are deemed essential for the health, safety or functioning of society. This will be an ongoing and evolving analysis so that products currently deemed unavoidable can be banned if new technology or alternatives become available. A comment period took place in 2024.
“By 2032 [any PFAS] that is non-essential for the health, safety and functioning society will be banned in Minnesota,” said Avonna Starck, Minnesota State Director of Clean Water Action, a Washington, D.C.-based NGO that was instrumental in passing Amara’s Law. “So if there is a manufacturer that is producing something – and that would include refrigerants – and they want to make the argument that it’s essential, they will have to go through an exemption process with the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency.”
In the case of f-gas refrigerants, Starck agreed that many are not essential because there are safer natural refrigerant alternatives. However, industry representatives have engaged in “fear mongering” about whether banning f-gases would mean “we’re not going to have refrigerators,” she said. “So we really had to educate people on what were the safer alternatives, what was happening within the realm of refrigeration.”
“By 2032 [any PFAS] that is non-essential for the health, safety and functioning society will be banned in Minnesota.”
Avonna Starck, Minnesota State Director of Clean Water Action
Industry representatives also argued that chemicals like HFOs are safer than higher-GWP f-gases. “But they’re not telling the whole truth on what happens with HFOs when they break down [into TFA],” Starck said. “And so we did a lot of educating of legislators around what HFOs are, how they’re used, what happens when they break down and how they get into our water.”
In comments to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, the American Chemistry Council, a trade group, said it opposed “the concept of unavoidable uses” and argued that it “would establish requirements for hundreds of companies to file for exemptions to sell basic products across Minnesota,” including refrigeration and HVAC. “No state, federal, or international regulatory authority has yet to implement such a massive restriction on fluoro technology as the one considered in Minnesota,” the group added.
Recently, a small group of Republican lawmakers have taken to social media, pledging to dismantle Amara’s Law, Clean Water Action reported on its website. “We’re seeing a flurry of exemption requests, attempts to change the definition of PFAS, and various tactics to delay implementation,” Starck wrote in a blog.
In the end, the question will be whether certain f-gases and other PFAS “are needed and there are no other safer alternatives,” she said.
Starck noted that Amara Strande passed away three days before the first Minnesota House vote on the PFAS bill named after her and two days before her 21st birthday. Her sister Nora has been carrying on lobbying for stronger PFAS laws at the federal level in Washington, D.C. “So the family is still involved in this work and still really active in carrying on a Amara’s legacy,” said Starck, adding, “Amara really made this happen.”
Amara Strande’s story and the law it inspired have attracted international attention. It has been referenced in a documentary on fighting PFAS in Japan and Starck was recently interviewed for a second Japanese documentary. She was also recently visited by Cate Faehrmann, a state legislator from New South Wales, Australia.
