Unfortunately,
all of this effort and taxpayer funding may be for naught if progressives in
Congress and regulators at the Environmental Protection Agency are successful
in pushing a wholesale ban on PFAS chemicals.
Involved
in everything from producing semiconductors to helping cool data centers, PFAS
chemicals have become increasingly important as chips are built to provide
faster speeds at smaller sizes. Banning them would only exacerbate the current
chip shortage and boost costs even higher for consumers already feeling
inflationary price pressures.
Driving the
narrative to ban PFAS chemicals have been environmentalists,
the media and trial lawyers. But the fact of the matter is that PFAS
contamination is in no way the most pressing issue impacting U.S. waterways and
supplies.
Recent
environmental impact reports have shown that bodies of water contain only trace
amounts of PFAS and that they have been steadily declining due to changes made
by manufacturers over the past 20 years. In fact, the EPA lists industry and
agricultural, human and animal waste, treatment and distribution, and natural
sources as the most common sources of drinking water contaminants and does not
even mention PFAS on its primary list.
The PFAS
Action Act, a bill Congress is considering that would ban these chemicals,
further fails to recognize the unique chemical makeup and uses of individual
PFAS compounds.
There
are nearly 5,000 different types of PFAS, according to the Food and Drug
Administration, and the majority have not been deemed harmful. Still, elected
officials and regulators continue to insist on lumping all PFAS substances
together. To eliminate an entire large complex group of chemicals because of
only a few known outliers would be a disastrous drain of money and resources.
The negative effect
of a PFAS ban on our military and national security, which rely upon a steady
supply of semiconductors to field advanced weapons systems, is also concerning.
The
U.S. has become increasingly reliant upon Asian suppliers such as Taiwan and South
Korea for its semiconductors. As China becomes more overt in its attempts to take
over Taiwan and conflict becomes more likely, this usurpation of a
critical semiconductor supplier would pose a serious national security risk to
the U.S. The fact of the matter is we cannot afford to allow such a critical
component of our national defense to fall into the hands of hostile foreign
actors and must take steps here at home to make sure that does not happen.
Furthermore,
while the U.S. may ban PFAS, this will not stop other countries from continuing
to use them in their manufacturing processes. This would in effect result in
unilateral economic disarmament with a negative economic impact that would be
felt in sectors of the economy far beyond just high technology.
In Arizona, which has become ground zero for the
semiconductor repatriation effort, two new plants are currently under
construction.
Thousands of good-paying jobs will be created,
all while bolstering our domestic chip-making capabilities and boosting our
economy, both nationally and locally. One real estate firm has noted that these
facilities are “changing the employment landscape in Phoenix.” As a result, it
has acquired a 30-acre site near the North Phoenix chip manufacturing facility
under construction to build a mixed-use project that will feature apartments
and 35,000 square feet of retail.
Such impactful secondary economic effects in
local communities will all be lost if PFAS laws under consideration in effect
ban domestic semiconductor manufacturing.
It is curious that, on one hand, the Biden
administration claims to support repatriating critical chip manufacturing and
boosting our energy independence, while the EPA is at the same time regulating
such industries to their death.
Reprinted from: Western Journal
Permission of: Lori Klein
Lori Klein is a former Arizona state senator.
During her time in office, she served as chair of the Senate Appropriations
Subcommittee on Health Care.
