Have you been affected by PFAS in your well or water system? Do you want legislators to do more to protect you?
Here’s your chance!
An Act to protect Massachusetts public health from PFAS (S1356/H2197) is a bill to:
- Ban PFAS in most consumer products
- Establish a fund to help communities pay for PFAS clean up
- Require industries to control releases of PFAS to water
The Alliance for a Healthy Tomorrow, a coalition including MASSPIRG, Clean Water Action, Massachusetts Sierra Club, Community Action Works and 60 other local environmental and public health organizations in Massachusetts working to pass this bill. We need your help!
The Public Health committee of the Massachusetts Legislature is holding a hearing on the Act to protect Massachusetts public health from PFAS
We are asking people to:
- Attend the Public Health Committee hearing (virtually or in person) testify in support of the bill,
- Sign onto a joint testimony in support of the bill and/or
- Write your own letter to the committee about why you want them to support this bill.
Here’s how:
- Attend the Public Health Committee hearing. It will be held in late June or July.
The date, time and location of the hearing will be announced at: https://malegislature.gov/Committees/Detail/J16/Hearings.
Usually, information is posted about a week before the hearing. If you let us know you want to testify, we will contact you when the hearing information is announced.
If you want to testify virtually, you will need to sign up in advance at the link provided with the hearing date announcement. If you come in person to the hearing, you will sign up to testify on a paper form. The form will usually be on a table right outside the hearing room.
- Written testimony: SIGN ONTO OUR JOINT TESTIMONY or write your own letter and email it to the Public Health Committee.
To sign our joint testimony, click here and add your name and address
If you want to send your own testimony, all you do is write a letter, attach it to an email and send to: JointCommittee.PublicHealth@malegislature.gov.
- Use this subject line: Public Health Committee Testimony,S1356/H2197 in Support
- Address your testimony to: Chairwoman Margorie Decker, Chairman Julian Cyr, and members of the Joint Committee on Public Health.
- Ask the committee to support An Act to protect Massachusetts public health from PFAS (S1356/H2197) sponsored by Representative Kate Hogan and Senator Julian Cyr.
- Share the reasons why you want them to pass the bill.
- Include your name, address and email or phone number.
What to expect at a hearing:
- Hearings do not last for a set amount of time: they can be brief or they can last for hours. You may wish to bring water in case the hearing runs long.
- Witnesses are typically invited to testify in the order in which they sign up or in order of bill numbers. However, it is customary for elected and other public officials to be invited to testify before members of the public, as a courtesy and for the sake of efficiency.
- You can start your testimony by saying, Chair Decker, Chair Cyr and member of the committee, thank you for allowing me to testify today in support of An Act to protect Massachusetts public health from PFAS, S1356 & H2197. My name is __________, and I live in (town/city). You may also describe a little more about who you are.
- Finish with the ask – “please pass this bill from your committee”
- You will have 3 minutes to talk.
- Tell a brief personal story – or more if you have time – and the reasons why you support the bill.
Stories personalize the legislation to committee members and make the issue come to life for legislators. Stories are often as important, or more important, than facts and figures.
- After you give your testimony, you may be asked follow-up questions by members of the committee but not often. Don’t be afraid to say that you don’t have enough information for an answer. You can offer to try to get more information for the legislator and provide it later.
- Try to have a conversational tone and look at committee members, rather than just reading from your written testimony. It’s better to talk with committee members and to look at them, not at your papers. Most written testimony will take much longer than 3 minutes to read so you should just keep it simple and summarize why you want them to pass the bill.
- Don’t argue with or criticize legislators who have different views.
