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Our new research uncovers the potential scale of their efforts—and the cost to the public.
For decades, chemical companies have pumped out products that are poisoning families nationwide. Now, PFAS “forever chemicals” have infiltrated our homes, water, environment, and bodies.
Long-overdue federal actions to address this crisis have finally been set in motion. But at the same time, companies are pouring millions of dollars into lobbying on PFAS and other issues. Our new research uncovers the potential scale of their efforts—and the cost to the public.
PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are also known as “forever chemicals” because they don’t easily break down in the environment. Chemical companies like Dupont and 3M have manufactured them for decades; today, there are nearly 15,000 different PFAS found in products we use every day.
As a result, they’ve spread throughout our drinking water (including bottled water), our environment, and the blood of 97% of people who live in the United States.
This is a public health crisis. Research has linked PFAS to all sorts of health problems, from reproductive harm to cancers. To add insult to injury, we’re also seeing growing evidence that chemical companies concealed the risks of PFAS and misled the public. And as support grows for regulating these chemicals, companies are throwing money into influencing lawmakers and regulators.
To find out the extent of the chemical companies’ campaigns, we dug into quarterly lobbying reports for companies that were or are current major producers of PFAS. We also looked at reports for the American Chemistry Council, the industry’s biggest trade group. We focused on Congress’s 2019-20 and 2021-22 sessions, which saw over 60 and 70 bills introduced with language on PFAS, respectively.
Of those, only four became law, along with four Defense Authorization Acts that included PFAS amendments. None came close to fully addressing PFAS pollution or holding polluters accountable.
So far, the chemical industry has succeeded in turning its profits into political power.
During this time, the lobbying disclosures of eight major PFAS-producing companies mentioning “PFAS” total $55.7 million. The American Chemistry Council also lobbied on PFAS, with reports mentioning PFAS totaling $58.7 million. And companies that use or whose products may contain PFAS (including oil majors like Shell and Exxon and food giant Nestlé) lobbied on PFAS during this time, too.
We also dug into campaign contributions from PFAS backers to members of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. This committee reviewed the PFAS Action Act of 2019 and 2021, which included some of the strongest measures to protect us from PFAS. Though it passed the House in both sessions, the bill died in the Senate Committee.
We found that during the same time frame (2019-2022), two-thirds of Committee members received donations from the eight major chemical companies we reviewed. More than half received money from the American Chemistry Council.
For decades, chemical companies took advantage of our weak chemical regulations to mislead the public and continue profiting off of PFAS. Now, we have a public health crisis that demands strong regulations.
One of our most powerful clean-up laws in the country is the Superfund program. Under the program, companies using chemicals deemed “hazardous” must monitor and report on them. The program also allows the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to direct a clean-up and get polluters to pay for it.
The EPA has recently proposed to regulate some forms of PFAS under the Superfund program. However, trade groups helmed by the American Chemistry Council have directly opposed Superfund status for PFAS. Polluters know the clean-up costs will be huge.
Communities shouldn’t have to choose between unaffordable water bills and toxic water. Polluters need to pay their fair share to clean up what they contaminated.
Another enormous cost will be cleaning up, monitoring, and protecting families from PFAS specifically in drinking water. In 2023, the EPA proposed nationwide standards that limit some PFAS in drinking water. The agency estimates that complying with these rules would cost water systems up to $1.2 billion over 80 years.
If PFAS polluters dodge accountability, the public will be left with these costs. Water systems forced to pay the entire cost of PFAS monitoring and treatment would likely raise water rates, pulling from families’ pockets. If the community can’t afford the costs, households will be left with toxic water.
This would be unconscionable during a water affordability crisis that hits low-income families hardest. Moreover, low-income communities are more likely to face PFAS pollution problems.
Communities shouldn’t have to choose between unaffordable water bills and toxic water. Polluters need to pay their fair share to clean up what they contaminated.
So far, the chemical industry has succeeded in turning its profits into political power. We’ve seen few policies that protect families from more PFAS and hold PFAS polluters accountable. But we can’t allow the industry to get away with this any longer.
That’s why we’re exposing the chemical industry and fighting for the policies that will finally protect us. We’re calling for laws and rules that:
So far, attempts to address PFAS have been a morbid game of whack-a-mole. Companies have phased out some PFAS, only to introduce other, slightly different ones. However, research shows that newer PFAS have similar impacts on public health and the environment.
The EPA needs to establish a broad definition of PFAS, and regulations must cover them all together. The agency must also finalize its rules to put two PFAS under the Superfund program and set enforceable limits on PFAS in drinking water. Ultimately, it must ban all non-essential uses of all PFAS.
Small municipal water systems have so far borne the brunt of costs for PFAS clean-up, monitoring, and protections. Federal legislation has begun mobilizing funds, but it’s not enough.
That’s why we need the WATER Act. This wide-ranging bill provides needed funds to address PFAS, as well as historic funding for other water infrastructure needs.
The chemical industry is trying to narrow the scope of regulations, and various polluters are seeking to dodge responsibility for PFAS clean-up. This would shift the burden to the public, who would pay through their water bills or threats to their health.
Congress and the EPA need to reject efforts to narrow the definition of PFAS or limit the scope of liability for clean-up. Polluters should pay to clean up their toxic PFAS mess.
The U.N. should address issues such as land concentration, so that peasant agroecology can have a real chance to flourish and make a significant contribution to tackling hunger, climate change, and biodiversity loss.
A U.N. summit on global food systems should be an opportunity to address structural inequalities and tackle hunger. It should be a chance to learn from small-scale producers whose sustainable food practices feed 70% of the world. Instead, next week’s conference in Rome will be a festival of greenwashing, allowing Big Agriculture corporations to tighten their grip on food systems.
This will be the second Food Systems Summit (UNFSS). The first, in 2021 was supposed to address the lack of progress towards the U.N.’s sustainable development goals. It was dubbed a “people’s summit” by the organizers, but caused an outcry among local producers when their calls to roll back the power of transnational corporations were cynically ignored.
Corporations that dominate global food systems, such as Bayer and Nestlé, used the summit to promote greenwashing initiatives rather than address pressing problems such as food speculation and the impact of Covid-19 on world hunger.
The U.N.’s special rapporteur on the right to food Michael Fakhri described it as “inviting the fox right into the henhouse.”
Discussions on eradicating hunger were hosted by the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), a foundation partly funded by processed food and consumer goods giant Unilever, while transnational corporations were invited to discuss solutions to problems they had largely created. The whole event was an excellent opportunity for them to identify new profit-making ventures and to “capture the global narrative of ‘food systems transformation.’”
More than a thousand small-scale food producer associations and Indigenous Peoples’ groups, academics, and social movements boycotted the event, which was also widely criticized by U.N/ human rights experts and others.
The U.N.’s special rapporteur on the right to food Michael Fakhri described it as “inviting the fox right into the henhouse.”
Food is a common good and access to healthy and nutritious food is a basic human right enshrined in U.N. covenants. These are the issues that governments and the U.N. should focus resources on, and next week’s summit provided a perfect opportunity.
Sadly, it looks set to simply consolidate corporate control over food and natural resources.
Hundreds of grassroots groups have called out the U.N., saying they are still being excluded and claiming the summit is “poised to repeat the failures” of two years ago and want to see fundamental change in food systems.
Here’s the picture as it stands. A handful of agribusinesses control more than 70% of the world’s farmland. Smallholder farmers, fisherfolk, pastoralists, and Indigenous peoples, who use agroecology and other sustainable practices, feed 70% of the world’s population with just 10% of global farmland.
In just the last five years, the world’s nine largest fertilizer companies—with nearly 40% of global synthetic fertilizer sales— have tripled their profits.
Agriculture is responsible for nearly 40% of global greenhouse gas emissions, almost 90% of deforestation, and 80% of biodiversity loss, the bulk of which can be attributed to industrial agriculture and agribusiness operations.
The disruption of global fertilizer supply chains has been a major focus of the U.N.’s response to the global food crisis. But the dangers of market concentration, which make food systems extremely fragile to shocks, have been largely ignored.
In just the last five years, the world’s nine largest fertilizer companies—with nearly 40% of global synthetic fertilizer sales— have tripled their profits. Rocketing fertilizer prices have less to do with disrupted supply chains than quasi-monopolies.
Despite all this—and the growing global obesity pandemic, for which consumption of ultra-processed industrial food bears a major responsibility—the U.N. continues to empower corporations. What it should be doing is addressing issues such as land concentration, so that peasant agroecology can have a real chance to flourish and make a significant contribution to tackling hunger, climate change, and biodiversity loss.
A dystopian future where a handful of corporations control everything we eat is just around the corner, if we do not resist now.
About 60% of all calories consumed worldwide come from just four crops: rice, wheat, corn, and soy. Everyone is vulnerable if we are over-dependent on global corporate-controlled supply chains. Industrial agriculture has failed to address rising levels of hunger and malnutrition across the world, which are now at an estimated 828 million people.
We are facing a stark choice between unsustainable, exploitative, corporate-controlled food systems and diverse, locally sourced ecological food.
The global governance of food is being hijacked by corporate interests. The U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization receives less than a third of its $3.25bn budget from the world’s governments, making it dependent on “voluntary contributions”—including from corporations and their proxies—for the rest.
We are facing a stark choice between unsustainable, exploitative, corporate-controlled food systems and diverse, locally sourced ecological food that prioritises the needs and rights of those most affected by the hunger, climate, and health crises.
"Did you sprinkle a little collagen in your smoothie this morning? Might be worth looking into where it came from," said one reporter.
Global demand for collagen—touted as an anti-aging "wonder product"—is driving deforestation and abuses against Indigenous people in Brazil, an investigation published Monday revealed.
The investigation—which involved numerous media outlets and organizations including the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ), the Pulitzer Center's Rainforest Investigations Network, the Center for Climate Crime Analysis, ITV, O Joio e O Trigo, and The Guardian—is the first to link bovine collagen with tropical forest loss and violence against Indigenous people, according to its collaborators.
"While collagen's most evangelical users claim the protein can improve hair, skin, nails, and joints, slowing the aging process, it has a dubious effect on the health of the planet," Elisângela Mendonça, Andrew Wasley, and Fábio Zuker wrote in the report.
"Collagen can be extracted from fish, pig and cattle skin, but behind the wildly popular 'bovine' variety in particular lies an opaque industry driving the destruction of tropical forests and fueling violence and human rights abuses in the Brazilian Amazon," the trio added.
\u201cEXCLUSIVE \ud83c\udf0eWe spent months digging into the supply chains for Brazilian bovine collagen \n\nSpoiler alert: they are highly complicated, with numerous middlemen involved, but unlike beef, soy& palm oil, collagen companies have no obligation to track their environmental impacts yet.\u201d— Elis\u00e2ngela Mendon\u00e7a (@Elis\u00e2ngela Mendon\u00e7a) 1678107982
The report's authors linked at least 1,000 square miles of deforestation to the supply chains of two major Brazilian players in the $4 billion annual collagen industry. Some of the collagen is tied to Vital Proteins, a Nestlé-owned U.S. brand whose chief creative officer is the actress Jennifer Aniston.
Collagen is called a "byproduct" of the cattle industry, which is responsible for 80% of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. But experts interviewed for the report said that the "byproduct" narrative is largely a myth.
"I wouldn't call any of them byproducts," Rick Jacobsen, commodity policy manager at the U.K.-based Environmental Investigation Agency, told the report's authors. "The margins for the meat industry are quite narrow, so all of the saleable parts of the animal are built into the business model."
\u201cDid you sprinkle a little collagen in your smoothie this morning? Might be worth looking into where it came from. Fantastic/horrifying investigation from @lilimendonca + colleagues #Brazil https://t.co/R9zbcysBnQ\u201d— Stephanie Nolen (@Stephanie Nolen) 1678115903
The publication also cast doubt on claims made by collagen promoters.
The Guardian reports:
While there are studies suggesting taking collagen orally can improve joint and skin health, Harvard School of Public Health cautions potential conflicts of interest exist as most if not all of the research is either funded by the industry or carried out by scientists affiliated with it.
Collagen companies have no obligation to track its environmental impacts. Unlike beef, soya, palm oil, and other food commodities, collagen is also not covered by forthcoming due diligence legislation in the [European Union and United Kingdom] designed to tackle deforestation.
"It's important to ensure that this type of regulation covers all key products that could be linked to deforestation," Jacobsen stressed.
Nestlé responded to the report by stating it has contacted its collagen supplier to look into the investigation's claims, while assuring it is working to "ensure its products are deforestation-free by 2025."
Vital Proteins told its buyers after TBIJ contacted them for comment that it would "end sourcing from the Amazon region effective immediately."
In addition to harming the environment, the collagen industry is fueling human rights crimes, Indigenous leaders and other critics say.
\u201c\ud83d\udea8REVEALED: #Nestl\u00e9 brand sells collagen linked to deforestation and invasion of Indigenous lands in Brazil. \n\n@pulitzercenter RIN Fellow @lilimendonca, @ZukerFabio & @Andrew_Wasley report for @TBIJ. Read here \ud83d\udc49 https://t.co/z0kxMJFnO8 \n\n\u2795 \ud83e\uddf5 1/5\u201d— Rainforest Investigations Network (RIN) (@Rainforest Investigations Network (RIN)) 1678111914
As Mendonça, Wasley, and Zuker noted:
With sales of beef, leather, and collagen booming, more and more forest has been felled and replaced by pastures in recent years, with land often seized illegally. Virtual impunity for land-grabbing during the [former President Jair] Bolsonaro government also fueled attacks on traditional communities. In 2021, the third year of his presidency, there were 305 invasions of Indigenous lands. This is three times more than the 2018 figures reported by the Catholic Church's Indigenous Missionary Council.
"No cattle ranching expansion in the Amazon can take place without violence," Bruno Malheiro, a geographer and professor at the Federal University of Southern and Southeastern Pará, told the authors.
In January—his first month in office—leftist Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who has vowed to protect Indigenous peoples and rainforests from deforestation, oversaw a 61% drop in forest destruction over 2022 levels.
Kátia Silene Akrãtikatêjê, leader of the Akrãtikatêjê Gavião Indigenous people, said her constituents feel "surrounded" and "suffocated" in a "process of territorial confinement" amid creeping deforestation. Last September, a Gavião village was burned to the ground, and residents believe it was no accident.
Land capitalists "destroy what is theirs, and invade what is ours," the Akrãtikatêjê Gavião chief said. "I can't understand why they destroy everything."