This week, the comment period is closing on MoDNR’s proposal to rescind a statewide regulation governing Polychlorinated Biphenyls, or PCBs– a group of highly toxic, potent, and persistent chemicals.
Due to their flame-resistance, chemical stability, and effective insulation properties, PCBs were used in electrical equipment, industrial materials, some pesticides, paints, and even carbonless copy paper from the 1920s until their ban in 1979. However, PCBs are extremely harmful to environmental and human health, causing cancer and adverse impacts to the immune system, reproductive system, nervous system, and endocrine system. Once in the food chain, these toxins bioaccumulate, building up in our bodies and environments (1).
PCBs in Context
Many Missourians remember the infamous contamination of Times Beach, Missouri with PCBs and Dioxin, ultimately leading to the incineration of the entire town (2). The legacy of PCB contamination remains in the state today: Missouri is home to several superfund sites with PCB contamination including in Cape Girardeau (3) and Saint Louis (4). According to a 2024 MoDNR report, Missouri currently has seven confirmed, abandoned or uncontrolled hazardous waste disposal sites containing PCB contamination (5).
Advocacy against PCB contamination served as the impetus for establishing the federal Superfund program itself, and kicked off the Environmental Justice movement. Protests in Love Canal, New York, spurred federal regulatory action to clean up contaminated sites across the U.S. through the passage of the 1980 Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, or CERCLA (6). Protests in Warren County, North Carolina opposing a PCB landfill and illegal dumping brought attention to the disparate impacts that hazardous waste contamination has on communities of color, establishing the foundations of the Environmental Justice movement (7).
DNR’s Proposal
The rule proposed to be rescinded, 10 CSR 25-13.010, sets requirements for PCB facilities, including mandatory shipment, production, and disposal tracking, creates a permit framework for PCB facility operators, and sets emergency spill procedures.
DNR claims that this rule is redundant because PCBs are regulated at the federal level, and they are not entirely wrong. The U.S. EPA banned PCBs entirely in 1979 through authority given to them by the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). PCBs were also phased out globally beginning in 2001 with the creation of the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) (8). Despite this strong established precedent banning PCBs both nationwide and globally, we are living through uncertain times when long-established precedent is often waved with the flick of a pen in the oval office.
During the first Trump administration in 2017, the President declared his intent to pull the U.S. from the Paris Climate Accords, a promise he fulfilled in 2020. Given this momentous move, it does not take a large stretch of the imagination to envision Trump pulling out of the Stockholm Convention, too. This action would be simple, as the U.S. has signed but not ratified the Stockholm Convention treaty due to its impacts on federal regulatory frameworks and the necessary involvement of Congress (9).
Since taking office, President Trump has unceremoniously slashed funding and fired staff from critical federal agencies, and has prioritized industry profits over the environment through acts such as his executive order unilaterally opening up protected parklands to mining and drilling (10). The EPA has not been spared. Since his appointment, Trump’s EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin has frozen more than $2 billion in EPA grant funding (11), dismissed scientific advisory boards, fired nearly 400 probationary employees and caused hundreds of other employees to quit (12). Cleaning up Missouri’s PCB-contaminated Superfund sites takes continued EPA staff attention and funding– EPA staff and funding cuts thwart any likelihood that these toxic sites will be cleaned in the foreseeable future.
The Supreme Court has also played a critical role in reducing the authority of agencies: In 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a practice called Chevron Deference (13), declaring that federal agencies no longer have ultimate discretion in implementing public policy that falls within their jurisdiction. This move could easily strip the EPA’s authority to enforce TSCA.
While state rules governing federally banned substances seem redundant now, they could become essential protections the instant federal regulations are rendered ineffective for any one of these reasons. Should PCBs no longer be banned at the federal level, the regulations enacted through 10 CSR 25-13.010 would be insufficient to fully protect Missourians from PCBs. However, these basic requirements are far better than no regulations at all. In the face of such uncertainty, now is not the time to roll back statewide regulations protecting human health and the environment– we must carefully consider all future possibilities, and use every mechanism in our power to safeguard public health.
What can you do:
Send an email to the Environmental Remediation Program at MoDNR at [email protected] opposing the rescission of 10 CSR 25-13.010.
You can also go to DNR’s Regulatory Actions Tracking System (RATS) page, scroll down to 10 CSR 25-13.010 and click on the “submit a comment” button or use this LINK.
Don’t know what to say? Use our template:
To whom it may concern,
As a concerned Missourian, I ask that DNR not rescind 10 CSR 25-13.010.
With so much uncertainty around federal regulations, federal agency authority and staffing, it would be imprudent to rely solely on the Toxic Substances Control Act and federal EPA to govern PCBs. Should a federal ban on PCBs remain through TSCA, MoDNR would not have to allocate staff or financial resources to implement this policy regulating PCB facilities. However, should TSCA be rendered unenforceable by any number of federal actions, be it staff and funding cuts to the EPA, or the stripping of EPA regulatory authority through court decisions or executive orders, Missourians will still need protections from PCBs. Keeping a statewide regulation will do no harm, and could very well be a vital measure to protect the health of Missourians, our food systems, our water, and our local ecosystems.
All regulations against potent, harmful contaminants such as PCBs are essential protective measures, and should remain in place. Help protect our beloved Missouri environment and keep 10 CSR 25-13.010 in place.
Thank you for your consideration.
Originally published By Maxine Gill, MCE Policy Coordinator
Sources:
- Learn about Polychlorinated Biphenyls | US EPA
- A Town, a Flood, and Superfund: Looking Back at the Times Beach Disaster Nearly 40 Years Later | US EPA
- MISSOURI ELECTRIC WORKS | Superfund Site Profile | Superfund Site Information | US EPA
- Region 7 Land Revitalization Success Stories | US EPA.
- Missouri Registry Annual Report – PUB0337
- Love Canal: The Start of an Environmental Justice Movement
- Introduction · We Birthed the Movement: The Warren County PCB Landfill Protests, 1978-1982 · UNC Libraries
- Text of the Convention
- Status of ratifications of the Stockholm Convention
- Trump Interior Secretary’s Orders Make Public Lands Ground Zero for Drilling & Mining
- EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin Cancels 400+ Grants in 4th Round of Cuts with DOGE
- EPA Under Trump Besieged by Mass Terminations, Axed Programs, Funding Cuts | Sierra Club
- U.S. Supreme Court Strikes Down Chevron Doctrine—What You Need to Know | White & Case LLP
