The Trump administration announced a flurry of measures to target PFAS contamination, but it stayed mum on whether it intends to uphold a Biden-era rule requiring utilities to remove the “forever chemicals” from the tap water of hundreds of millions of Americans.
“I have long been concerned about PFAS and the efforts to help states and communities dealing with legacy contamination in their backyards,” said Lee Zeldin, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, in a statement. “This is just a start of the work we will do on PFAS to ensure Americans have the cleanest air, land, and water.”
PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are a class of chemicals linked to cancer and other diseases, and are used widely in everyday products such as waterproof clothing and paper straws. The chemicals, which don’t break down easily in the environment, are turning up in drinking water across the country. According to the latest data from the E.P.A., as many as 158 million Americans have PFAS in their water.
Last year, President Joseph R. Biden Jr. set the first limits on PFAS in drinking water. Those rules effectively require municipal water systems to remove certain kinds of PFAS.
But water utilities and chemical-industry groups filed suit saying the drinking water standards would be too costly. The Trump administration faces a May 12 deadline to decide whether to continue to defend the standards in court.
On Monday, the E.P.A. announced measures to tackle PFAS contamination, including designating an official to lead the agency’s efforts on the chemicals, creating guidelines for how much PFAS factories could release in their wastewater, and engaging with Congress to come up with ways to hold polluters responsible.
