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The Trump administration has announced what it calls “a big step forward” in the fight against a class of toxic chemicals called PFAS, or perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances. Long-term exposure to PFAS, often called “forever chemicals” because they can persist indefinitely in the environment, has been linked to various cancers, autoimmune diseases and other damages.
Last week, the Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. praised Donald Trump as the first president who is “fully committed” to forever eliminating chemicals found at dangerous levels in tap water in about 80 percent of electoral districts and lurk in the blood of 97 percent of Americans.
But what Kennedy considers a step forward seems like a big step back to most who have been paying attention to the issue for a long time. That’s because the Trump administration is unraveling key parts of the limits on PFAS. approved by Joe Biden’s administration in 2024, which are the first and only regulations placing limits on PFAS in drinking water in the country’s history. Restrictions on four substances in the PFAS class would be limited entirely, while water companies would have an additional two years to comply with limits for two other substances. He Environmental Protection Agency first indicated his intention made these changes last year, just months after Trump took office. The changes will be finalized once a 60-day public comment period expires.
Secretary Kennedy, known for his promise to “Make America Healthy Again,” focused attention instead on the EPA’s recent announcement of $1 billion in subsidies for small and disadvantaged communities to detect and remove PFAS. “We have a president who has made a greater financial commitment than any president in American history,” Kennedy said. But the commitment wasn’t exactly Trump’s: The $1 billion comes from an appropriation made by Congress in 2021, when Joe Biden was president.
PFAS have been used in a wide variety of products, including industrial fire fighting foamsfor decades. As evidence of health harms related to these substances has grown, many manufacturers have developed new types of PFAS that have a comparatively shorter shelf life. But this new generation of chemicals, of which there are thousands of members, It can also cause adverse health impacts..
“The Biden administration had set at least health-protective limits for six of these chemicals out of literally thousands that have been registered for use in the marketplace,” said John Rumpler, clean water director at the environmental advocacy nonprofit Environment America. “Now the EPA is backing away from even that small step toward protecting our drinking water.”
Last week, the administration attempted to rationalize the proposed rollbacks by saying that the Biden-era PFAS limits were passed in a rush that would have made them vulnerable to ongoing legal challenges. Water utilities and chemical companies have sued the EPA over its PFAS rules, arguing that the regulations are procedurally flawed, financially burdensome and require compliance under overly tight deadlines.
But the EPA itself has tried to undermine the limits since Trump took office last year, asking a federal appeals court to summarily overturn Biden-era restrictions on four types of PFAS last fall. The EPA has since stopped defending the rules in court.
“It’s about being realistic,” EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin he said at an event with Kennedy last Monday. “A deadline that cannot be physically met is not a protection of public health.” He pointed to the fact that technology capable of removing chemicals is improving and may eventually reduce costs for utilities burdened by the price of removing PFAS from tap water.
In a statement provided to Grist, the EPA said that “the previous administration’s rule set deadlines that many water systems simply could not meet, risking costly violations that punished communities without removing a single part per billion from anyone’s tap.”
So far, the EPA has offered little regulatory substitute for the limits it is eliminating. “I don’t think there’s anything new here,” said Jared Thompson, an attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental protection group that is one of several groups defending the Biden-era limits in ongoing litigation brought by chemical companies.
“They appear to have largely adopted the positions of rivals in the chemical industry and the water industry, who say these standards are not appropriate,” he added.
Zeldin stated that the EPA is going to “get it right” this time, and the EPA’s statement to Grist said that “it is quite possible that the result will be more stringent requirements” once the four PFAS substances whose limits are being reset are reviewed for a second time.
But some outside experts believe Zeldin is already doing it wrong. The Safe Drinking Water Act, which Congress passed in 1974, has a provision that says the EPA cannot weaken drinking water standards once they are established.
“There will be legal challenges,” said Richard L. Revesz, dean emeritus of the New York University School of Law and former administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs during the Biden administration. “They will have to give reasons and it is very likely that those reasons will be inadequate.”
Editor’s note: The Natural Resources Defense Council is a Grist advertiser. Advertisers have no role in Grist’s editorial decisions.
