For Trump, PFAS ‘Forever Chemicals' in Straws Are a Crisis. In Water, Maybe Less So.

The 36-page official national strategy document bears the presidential seal and involves 10 agencies from across the federal government. It isn’t the government’s policy on tariffs or border security. It’s President Trump’s and bring back plastic.

“My Administration is committed,” the document declares, to “ridding us of the pulpy, soggy mess that torments too many of our citizens whenever they drink through a paper straw.” It’s a shot in the culture wars, critics say, and another example of the haphazard policies of an administration guided by Mr. Trump’s whims and dislikes, whether for paper straws, wind turbines or low-flow shower heads.



But there’s a twist: It complicates another, bigger public health question in the administration’s drive to roll back regulations. In its attack on paper straws, the document devotes a robust eight pages to highlighting their health and environmental dangers. It points out, in particular, the dangers of PFAS, a class of thousands of synthetic chemicals that are used to make paper straws and other everyday products water-resistant but are also and are turning up in tap water around the country.

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