Dear [Your Elected Official],

<p>As you consider floor amendments for the Fiscal Year 2025 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), we, along with many other businesses, support and strongly urge you to include a provision that directs the Department of Defense (DoD) to purchase cleaning products that are free from PFAS and rely on safer chemical ingredients.</p> <p>Section 804 of the H.R. 8070, Servicemember Quality of Life Improvement and National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2025, requires the DoD to use cleaning products that are certified by EPA’s Safer Choice program. Purchasing products that use safer chemicals would help protect service members, their families, and civilian employees at DoD facilities.</p> <p>Sec. 804 of H.R. 8070 builds upon progress being made by the General Services Administration (GSA). In April, the GSA announced that GSA contractors will be required to use Safer Choice cleaning products in civilian federal buildings.</p> <p>As you know, buildings managed by the Defense Department generally are not subject to the GSA’s National Custodial Specifications.</p> <p>Chemicals in cleaning products can pose an unnecessary threat to both human health and the environment.  Fluorinated substances like PFAS, and other toxic chemicals such as nonylphenol ethoxylates — or any ingredient that could cause cancer or reproductive and developmental effects — are not used cleaning products that are awarded the Safer Choice label.</p> <p>In recent years, Congress has made protecting service members from toxic chemicals a priority in the NDAA and other legislation, including a ban on the use of PFAS in food packaging for military meals and a prohibition on the use fluorinated aqueous film-forming foam in the 2020 NDAA, the PACT Act of 2022, the Camp Lejeune Justice Act of 2022, and restrictions on the purchase of firefighting gear that contains PFAS in the 2023 NDAA.</p> <p>To protect the health of service members, their families, and civilian workers, we urge you to build upon this record by directing DoD to use Safer Choice cleaning products as part of the final fiscal year 2025 NDAA.</p> <p>If you have any questions, please contact David Levine, Cofounder & President, American Sustainable Business Network dlevine@asbnetwork.org</p>