The Nickel Report

Care about Drinking Water Regulations?

7.22.2021 Request for Comment and Public Workshop for California Drinking Water Public Health Goals for PFOA and PFOS: The California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) released a draft document for public review describing proposed Public Health Goals (PHGs) for perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS) in drinking water. A PHG is the level of a drinking water contaminant at which adverse health effects are not expected to occur from a lifetime of exposure.  PHGs published by OEHHA are considered by the State Water Resources Control Board in setting drinking water regulatory standards (Maximum Contaminant Levels, or MCLs) for California. The proposed PHG of 0.007 parts per trillion (ppt) for PFOA is based on kidney cancer in humans and the proposed PHG of 1 ppt for PFOS is based on liver and pancreatic tumors in laboratory animals. The draft technical support document can be found here. Public comments are due September 28, 2021. Details about how to send comments and a public workshop that will be held on September 28, 2021 can be found here.

Energy companies may not be thinking much yet about federal legislation to regulate the consumer data they hold, but they should be. Privacy is shaping up to be a key legislative topic this year.

Why would an energy company need to care about privacy legislation? Because lots of different energy companies have extensive consumer data. Oil companies’ service station loyalty programs, electric utilities’ customer data—these are among the many types of consumer data that might end up being regulated under legislation Congress is expected to consider. Any company with large amounts of consumer data should pay attention to the issue. In addition, HR data may also be covered by privacy legislation, affecting every US company whether or not they hold consumer data.