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The Trump administration announced on Wednesday that it plans to eliminate and postpone rules aimed at reducing “forever chemicals” contaminating drinking water across the country.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency (E.P.A), exposure to PFAS — a class of highly toxic, long-lasting compounds also known as “forever chemicals” —has been linked to cancer, decreased fertility in women, developmental effects in children, immune system issues, interference with the body’s natural hormones, and more. At least 45 percent of America’s tap water is estimated to have one or more types of PFAS.
Last year, former President Joe Biden set first-ever limits on PFAS, requiring water utilities to begin bringing down contamination levels of six types of PFAS chemicals —while setting a strict limit of four parts per trillion for two of those chemicals, PFOA and PFOS.
Despite the plethora of research warning against the dangers of forever chemicals in water, the E.P.A. said that while it will uphold the limits for those two types of PFAS, it will extend a deadline requiring water utilities to meet those limits to 2031. The E.P.A. also said it plans to eliminate and reconsider the limits for the other four chemicals — PFHxS, PFNA, HFPO-DA, and PFBS —listed.
“We are on a path to uphold the agency’s nationwide standards to protect Americans from PFOA and PFOS in their water,” Lee Zeldin, the E.P.A. administrator, said in a statement. “At the same time, we will work to provide common-sense flexibility in the form of additional time for compliance. This will support water systems across the country, including small systems in rural communities, as they work to address these contaminants.”
PresidentDonald Trump and his allies haveescalated attacks on clean water protections. Through E.P.A. deregulations and cuts, Supreme Court rulings, executive orders, and bills in Congress, Trump and conservatives are systematically eroding rules aimed at providing Americans with clean, healthy water.
In March,Zeldinsaid he would look tosignificantly reducea significant portion of the waterways, such as wetlands, rivers, and streams, that are protected under theClean Water Act, a 1972 law that regulates the discharge of pollutants in water.
Trump’s Office of Management and Budget separatelywithdrewa proposedEPA rule in January to set limits on the discharge of forever chemicals in wastewater. The president’s administration did so based on Trump’s executiveorderon Day One freezing all regulations in progress pending review.
“This agenda to deregulate, this agenda to gut the federal government, to dismantle the federal government, eliminate core functions of our government, remove these protections, it’s just an ideology,” Mary Grant, Public Water for All Campaign Director at the nonprofit Food and Water Watch, previously toldRolling Stone. “And they’re acting on it without without care for how it impacts people, for how it impacts our access to safe water.”
