Although cutting environmental regulations under Trump 2 was expected, it’s difficult to see it occurring related to one of the most dangerous threats to the country’s drinking water.
In a reversal of one of the most important public health victories in a generation, the Trump administration’s Environmental Protection Agency is moving to roll back portions of the limits on the toxic “forever chemicals” known as PFAS in drinking water.
“This is a betrayal of public health at the highest level,” Ken Cook, president of the Environmental Working Group, said in a statement. “You can’t make America healthy while allowing toxic chemicals to flow freely from our taps.”
The PFAS protections – finalized in April 2024 – were long-overdue response to decades of industry stonewalling and government inaction.
The maximum contaminant levels, or MCLs, set enforceable limits allowed in drinking water for five individual PFAS. For four PFAS, the agency also set a “hazard index,” it uses to address cumulative risks from mixtures of chemicals.
Now, the EPA intends to keep only two MCLs in place for the most harmful 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 after the EPA delayed a key PFAS reporting rule and pledged actions to tackle PFAS contamination, including “to address the most significant compliance challenges” with the drinking water standards.
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 United States have drinking water that has tested positive for PFAS.
But the contamination could be much greater, Cook said.
For decades, 3M and DuPont hid the health harms of PFAS from regulators, workers, and neighboring communities, he said. PFAS have been linked to cancer, reproductive harm, immune system damage, and other health problems, even at low levels.
Cook said 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,” he said, adding communities have already waited decades for protection and for clean drinking water.
Cook said cores 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,” he said, “that’s science.”
If Donald Trump is serious about making America healthier, the EPA needs to prove it by stopping PFAS from contaminating America’s drinking water.
