May 14 (UPI) — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said Wednesday it plans to weaken and reconsider federal guidelines on toxic “forever chemicals” in America’s drinking water, citing compliance reasons.
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said the policy change will “work to protect Americans from PFAS” in their drinking water as it provides “common-sense flexibility in the form of additional time for compliance.”
In 2023, the Biden administration announced new federal regulations that required water utility companies to filter six types of different chemicals known as Polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, out of water systems.
It established a “first-ever” national standard on PFAS in drinking water last year in April.
More than 158 million Americans have been exposed to PFAS via drinking water, according to EPA estimates.
The so-called long-lasting forever chemicals are found in everyday products from cookware to firefighting foam, according to the National Institute of Environmental Health and Sciences.
Last year in April, the Biden EPA designated two PFAS substances as hazardous under the United States’ Superfund law.
However, the Trump administration now said it will keep requirements for two types of chemicals known as PFOA and PFOS, but will ax filter regulations for the other four chemicals.
In addition, the White House will give the some 66,000 U.S. public water systems an extra two years from 2029 until 2031 to filter out the two PFAS chemicals.
This follows the release of the 36-page “National Strategy to End the Use of Paper Straws” which detailed the inherent danger of PFAS, saying the chemicals were “harmful to human health, and they have been linked to harms affecting reproductive health,” along with developmental delays in children, cancer and hormone imbalance.
Water providers praised Wednesday’s move.
“EPA has done the right thing for rural and small communities by delaying implementation of the PFAS rule,” Matthew Holmes, CEO of the National Rural Water Association, told The Washington Post.
“This commonsense decision provides the additional time that water system managers need to identify affordable treatment technologies and make sure they are on a sustainable path to compliance.”
Meanwhile, others say the new EPA policy goes against current law.
“The law is very clear that the EPA can’t repeal or weaken the drinking water standard,” said Erik Olson, the senior strategic director for health at the Natural Resources Defense Council.
“Any effort to do so will clearly violate what Congress has required for decades,” he said.
Olson said it showed that the Trump administration “doesn’t really care about protecting people’s drinking water from toxic forever chemicals that endanger the health of over 100 million Americans.”
