Before the House passed legislation to ban the use of PFAS, so-called forever chemicals, in firefighting foam in July 2025, Rep. Brian Munroe, D-Bucks, recounted his personal account of dealing with cancer.

Munroe said he’s not 100% certain that his cancer was caused by exposure to PFAS. But he knows that when his cancer returned a second time shortly after he was elected to the state House, it was a rare form of cancer and his doctor told him it certainly looked like he’d been “exposed to something.”

And he knows that when members of his family were given blood tests, they were found to contain elevated levels of PFAS in their system.

“When my family was receiving the blood tests, they would not test me because I was a firefighter,” Munroe said. “So that tells you something about how firefighters have been also exposed. Especially in a day when other products are available for the firefighters to use, it is way past due for us to take action in banning the use of these products.”

Munroe is the prime sponsor of House Bill 1261, banning the use of PFAS in firefighting foam beginning in 2027.

Pennsylvania enacted stricter limits on PFAS in drinking water through regulations developed by the Department of Environmental Protection in 2023. But efforts to enact broader bans on the use of PFAS have not made their way through the legislature, despite bipartisan support.

Munroe’s hometown of Warminster is the site of a Naval Aid Development Center. And for decades, firefighting foam had been used on the base. Testing found that three of the nation’s wells most contaminated with PFAS were in Warminster.

“Thousands upon thousands of gallons, year after year, were poured onto planes and the runway, and the foam and the chemicals used in this foam slowly seeped into the ground, continuing their downward voyage into our groundwater,” Munroe said in floor remarks. “As of 2015, the Warminster Municipal Authority served over 30,000 residents in Warminster alone … Now imagine how you would feel when, in 2015, you found out that 50 years of those chemicals had been accumulating in your drinking water that contained a chemical that you had never heard of before.”

The House unanimously approved the legislation on July 1, 2025. The Senate Veterans Affairs and Emergency Preparedness Committee has scheduled a vote on the bill on Tuesday. In addition to Munroe’s bill, the committee is also scheduled to consider Senate Bill 980, which also bans the use of PFAS in firefighting foam. That legislation was jointly introduced by Sen. Gene Yaw, R-Lycoming, and Sen. Nick Miller, D-Lehigh.

Both bills would allow fire companies to use grant funding to cover the cost of getting rid of any PFAS-laden foam they possess. The legislation also includes exemptions allowing for the use of foam containing PFAS at airports, chemical plants, oil refineries and natural gas terminals, storage and distribution facilities.

In 2025, more than 300 PFAS-related bills were considered across 39 states. Sixteen states have banned the use of PFAS in firefighting foam, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.