In a shocking reversal of one of the most significant public health victories in a generation, the Trump administration’s Environmental Protection Agency is moving to roll back vital portions of the nation’s historic limits on the toxic “forever chemicals” known as PFAS in drinking water
These protections – finalized in April 2024 – were hailed as a long-overdue response to decades of industry deception and government inaction. The maximum contaminant levels
, or MCLs, set enforceable limits allowed in drinking water for five individual PFAS. For four PFAS, they also set a “hazard index,” a tool the agency uses to address cumulative risks from mixtures of chemicals.
Now, the EPA intends to keep just two MCLs in place for the most notorious PFAS chemicals, PFOA and PFOS, and intends to push back the deadline for compliance from 2029 to 2031.
The EPA is reversing the MCLs for PFNA, PFHxS, GenX and PFBS.
The announcement comes just days after the EPA delayed a key PFAS reporting rule and barely a week after it pledged actions to tackle PFAS contamination, including “to address the most significant compliance challenges” with the drinking water standards. Instead of strengthening protections or holding polluters accountable, the administration is shifting the burden of PFAS contamination and the staggering associated health risks onto the American public.
The following is a statement from EWG President Ken Cook:
This is a betrayal of public health at the highest level.
You can’t make America healthy while allowing toxic chemicals to flow freely from our taps.
The EPA is caving to chemical industry lobbyists and pressure by the water utilities, and in doing so, it’s sentencing millions of Americans to drink contaminated water for years to come. The cost of PFAS pollution will fall on ordinary people, who will pay in the form of polluted water and more sickness, more suffering and more deaths from PFAS-related diseases.
The EPA is pulling the rug out from communities that have already waited decades for protection and for clean drinking water.
Let’s be clear: Scores of studies relied on by the EPA to set these historic standards have shown again and again that PFAS are toxic even in incredibly low amounts. That’s not politics – that’s science.
The PFAS contamination crisis is much larger than just two chemicals, and there is increasing evidence that other PFAS chemicals that pollute water harm health. Eliminating all PFAS chemicals from drinking water is an urgent public health priority.
If this administration is serious about making America healthier, it needs to prove it by stopping PFAS from contaminating our drinking water.
The EPA plan to reverse the four science-based MCLs also likely runs afoul of an anti-backsliding provision in the Safe Drinking Water Act, which requires that any revision to a drinking water standard “ maintain, or provide for greater, protection of the health of persons.”
For decades, 3M and DuPont hid the health harms of PFAS from regulators, workers and neighboring communities. PFAS have been linked to cancer, reproductive harm, immune system damage and other serious health problems, even at low levels.
Recent tests of drinking water systems identified 2,719 sites with detectable levels of PFAS. The new data, along with reporting from states and other sources, confirm 158 million people in communities throughout the U.S. have drinking water that has tested positive for PFAS.
But the true scale of contamination could be much greater. EWG estimates there could be nearly 30,000 industrial polluters releasing PFAS into the environment, including into sources of drinking water.
Congress committed billions of dollars in the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law to address PFAS in drinking water. PFAS manufacturers have also paid billions to settle lawsuits with water utilities.
“Yet instead of building on this progress, the Trump administration is threatening to leave Americans to foot the bill for drinking water they can’t trust and health care they can’t afford,” added Cook.
