PFAS are the "forever chemicals" in firefighting foam. They've been linked to cancer, and they don't break down in the environment. For a while, Dan Sullivan was on the side of the people trying to get them out of Alaska's water.
Then he changed sides.
An October 9, 2026 report in The Alaska Current traces the switch: from joining a coalition of lawmakers worried about PFAS in firefighting foam, to cosponsoring bills that would make it harder to sue polluters, to securing the change that lets military bases burn PFAS again.
The early record: on the firefighters' side
In 2019, Sullivan joined a group of lawmakers pushing for tougher PFAS standards. Two years later, he signed on as a cosponsor of the PFAS Act — the Protecting Firefighters from Adverse Substances Act — which became law in December 2022.
Then: shield the polluters
On May 3, 2023, Wyoming Republican Cynthia Lummis introduced a package of bills that would protect specific industries from PFAS lawsuits. Sullivan cosponsored three of them the day they were introduced, according to Congress's own records:
- The Agriculture PFAS Liability Protection Act, covering farms
- The Resource Management PFAS Liability Protection Act
- The Airports PFAS Liability Protection Act, covering airport operators
Under these bills, nobody — not even the federal government or a state — could recover Superfund cleanup costs or damages from those operators for PFAS they released, unless the operator acted with "gross negligence or willful misconduct."
Then: let the bases burn it
The bigger move came in last year's defense bill, for fiscal 2026. In his own press release listing 53 provisions he secured, Sullivan took credit for a change to "end the moratorium" on incinerating PFAS, "allowing Alaska military bases to safely dispose of PFAS contaminated soil."
That moratorium existed for a reason. The ban on burning PFAS-laden firefighting foam on military bases followed a 2021 report on the military's secret incineration of it, the Current notes. Getting PFAS to actually break down takes heat of nearly 2,200 degrees, and the report indicated the military had likely been using lower-temperature incinerators.
Sullivan's office says the provision "doesn't mandate incineration, but it removes an unnecessary restriction." To argue it's safe, his staff pointed to a study claiming incineration is 99.9999% effective. The Current found that study was done by Clean Harbors — an incineration company — and that one of its listed reviewers is a trade group Clean Harbors belongs to. A separate study the Current cites warns that "incomplete combustion of PFAS can have severe health and environmental consequences."
Diane Cotter, an anti-PFAS activist who voted for Trump, put it bluntly to The Hill: she's "so sick of seeing congressionals stand for photo ops with firefighters and then vote this legislation down or chip away at it."
The family business
There's one more piece. Sullivan's family company, RPM International — the maker of Rust-Oleum — has faced legal challenges over its use of PFAS, and the Current reports Sullivan owns as much as $5 million of its stock.
RPM keeps coming back on this site. It's Sullivan's single biggest asset and the company his brother runs, and in 2013 it paid nearly $61 million to settle allegations it cheated the federal government. Sullivan also sold up to $100,000 of RPM stock after closed-door COVID briefings, two weeks before it fell by a third.
A senator who owns up to $5 million in a company that has faced PFAS lawsuits cosponsored bills to make PFAS lawsuits harder to win.
What the record shows
Dan Sullivan cosponsored the PFAS Act to protect firefighters, then cosponsored three 2023 bills shielding farms, airports and waste facilities from PFAS cleanup liability, and secured the fiscal 2026 defense-bill change that ends the ban on burning PFAS at military bases. His own office defends the incineration with a study run by an incineration company. His family's company, in which he holds up to $5 million in stock, has faced PFAS litigation.
Source
Dan Sullivan flip-flopped on forever chemical laws — Matt Acuña Buxton, The Alaska Current, October 9, 2026
