New talks at the state Capitol are being framed as an effort by both Republicans and Democrats to bridge a long disagreement over who should pay for cleanup of sites contaminated by PFAS industrial chemicals. There’s really not much to bridge: The divide is over whether to protect industrial polluters. Republicans say state laws should exempt people like farmers who spread industrial sludge that was later found to have harmful PFAS. Democrats agree but want those farmer exemptions narrowly worded so that industries can’t be lumped in and push the clean-up costs on taxpayers. We’ll talk to Joe Zepecki about that and other topics like the 2026 race for governor, which no longer includes Josh Kaul but might include Mandela Barnes.

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