Sponsors (4)
Introduced June 12, 2025 by Marie Gluesenkamp Perez · Last progress June 12, 2025
The bill directs research and streamlined grant authority to reduce PFAS and microplastic risks in biosolids—potentially improving public health, soil safety, and long-term cleanup costs—while raising procedural uncertainty for grant administration and creating new compliance, market, and fiscal risks for farmers, utilities, small businesses, and taxpayers.
Consumers (especially in rural communities) face lower risk of PFAS and microplastic contamination in food and water because the bill funds research into detection and removal/biodegradation methods before land application of biosolids.
Farmers and farmland managers gain targeted research and tools to detect and reduce microplastics and PFAS in biosolids-applied soils, improving soil health, crop safety, and on-farm management decisions.
State and local governments, wastewater utilities, and grant applicants benefit from clearer statutory grant authority and fewer procedural hurdles, which can speed grant applications/awards and provide usable evidence to improve wastewater processing and biosolid management.
Grant applicants and recipients (including farmers and state/local governments) lose uniform procedural protections (appeals, reporting, audit rules), increasing administrative uncertainty and complicating planning for grantees.
Federal and state agencies, recipients, and employees face higher risk of legal disputes, audits, and administrative burden as parties dispute which procedures apply in the absence of explicit cross-references.
Farmers and wastewater utilities could face higher compliance costs if research findings prompt stricter biosolid application rules or new regulatory requirements.
Based on analysis of 3 sections of legislative text.
Authorizes grant-funded research on PFAS and microplastics in land-applied biosolids/compost and removes certain procedural cross-references from the grant statute.
Adds research on microplastics and PFAS in land-applied biosolids and compost to the list of authorized topics for agricultural research grants, including work on detection, treatment, fate, crop and livestock uptake, and remediation. Also removes several cross-references to another statutory section from parts of the grant statute, narrowing which procedural provisions from that other section apply to the program.