H.R. 91 — Freedom for Farmers Act of 2025

This section abolishes the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) effective one year after enactment. (As background, ATSDR—established under CERCLA (42 U.S.C. 9604 et seq.)—conducts public health assessments, epidemiologic studies, and registries related to toxic substance exposures at hazardous waste sites.) It (1) requires the HHS Secretary, prior to abolition, to transfer ATSDR's CERCLA authority to maintain a national registry of serious diseases/illnesses and a national registry of persons exposed to toxic substances (42 U.S.C. 9604(i)(1)(A)) to another HHS agency, along with related assets, funds, personnel, records, and property; (2) terminates all other ATSDR functions; and (3) directs the Secretary to administer and wind up remaining agency functions, obligations, and affairs during the one-year period following enactment.

This section amends the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA) by (1) revising section 104(i) to require the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), in cooperation with the states, to maintain a national registry of serious diseases and illnesses and a national registry of persons exposed to toxic substances (replacing prior duties of the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), the CERCLA-established agency that assessed health risks from hazardous waste sites); (2) striking section 111(c)(4) and (m), which authorized ATSDR funding and activities; and (3) striking the reference to the ATSDR Administrator in section 310(a)(2). The section strikes subsection (f) of 10 U.S.C. §2704—which addresses Department of Defense support for ATSDR toxicological profiles of unregulated hazardous substances—and eliminates ATSDR references in 13 other provisions across the Toxic Substances Control Act, Public Health Service Act (multiple sections), Solid Waste Disposal Act (including subsections 3019(b)-(g)), Clean Air Act, Federal Water Pollution Control Act, and others. (Thus, these changes conform to the abolition of ATSDR by removing its authorities and mandates.)