The Trump EPA is waiting on its new PFAS lead official before it takes any concrete actions to address Biden-era regulations governing PFAS, signaling that the issue may continue to be an important priority even if the agency ultimately decides to roll back the landmark drinking water, Superfund and other policies the last administration adopted.
A spokesperson for EPA told Inside PFAS Policy March 14 that the agency does not want to comment on how the new administration will address per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) contamination until the new PFAS lead joins EPA, although it is unclear who the new lead will be or when the lead will begin working at the agency.
Environmentalists and others have long expected the Trump EPA to review and reconsider Biden-era rules governing PFAS contamination -- one setting limits for six PFAS in drinking water and the other designating two legacy PFAS compounds as “hazardous substances” under the Superfund law.
Moreover, environmentalists are pessimistic Administrator Lee Zeldin will advance other ongoing efforts to regulate PFAS, such as finalizing a draft risk assessment on PFAS in biosolids that was released shortly before the presidential transition, or furthering studies and rules to set technology-based effluent limits for PFAS in various manufacturing sectors.
But such regulations governing PFAS contamination were notably absent from Zeldin’s March 12 “momentous” deregulatory announcement that EPA will reconsider dozens of Biden-era rules and other policies, including core rules affecting power plants, vehicle emissions and many other major sectors.
In accordance with an executive order from President Donald Trump, EPA has 60 days from Feb. 19 to submit a list of existing rules that could be targeted for repeal if they are inconsistent with administration policy, so it is still possible that the PFAS rules will be among the many targeted for formal review and reconsideration.
In the meantime, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has granted stay requests from the Trump EPA in cases involving challenges against both the PFAS drinking water limits and the Superfund designations.
Similarly, the Trump EPA also extended the public comment deadlines on both the biosolids risk assessment and the draft human health criteria for three PFAS, and it also withdrew a proposed rule from White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) review to set PFAS effluent limits for the chemical manufacturing sector.
But there are other early indications that EPA is still uncertain, at least for now, on how it intends to address PFAS.
Maureen Gwinn, EPA’s acting assistant administrator for the Office of Research and Development (ORD), said she was unsure about how EPA’s recently announced review of its grant programs and awards will impact funding toward PFAS research initiatives.
“This is a big topic of conversation, and I think there will be some follow-up work in this space. What that exactly will look like, I can’t say at this point,” Gwinn said during the March 11 opening session of the Air & Waste Management Association’s “The Science of PFAS: Piecing Together the Puzzle” conference in Raleigh, N.C.
Gwinn was scheduled to attend the conference in-person but appeared virtually instead. Throughout the three-day conference, some EPA officials who were originally slated to attend the conference were not present, with some speakers indicating that last-minute decisions prevented some staff from attending or traveling to the conference. And a scheduled session covering federal actions to address PFAS contamination was ultimately removed from the agenda.
‘We Don’t Know’
Other speakers at the conference expressed a similar sentiment. For example, Ned Witte, an attorney with Earth & Water Law, said during a March 12 session that he and other attorneys do not know what to expect from the new administration on PFAS.
“Right now, it’s silent out there,” he said. “You know, yesterday I looked at leading law firms’ websites and their environmental pages to sort of see what [] lawyers [are] saying . . . and it’s, like, nothing.”
“Nobody’s talking about this right now, because we don’t know. We don’t know what’s going to happen. I think we can speculate what’s probably going to happen, which is that some affirmative action is probably going to be taken to step back from the identification of PFAS as a hazardous substance and to withdraw, in some fashion, the [Maximum Contaminant Limit (MCL)] identification, or if not, then maybe just pump the brakes entirely and not enforce them.”
Moreover, at the end of the conference, one speaker appeared uncertain that the prominent PFAS conference, which often features a lengthy roster of EPA staff, will be held in the same form next year, due to federal uncertainty around PFAS. -- Pavithra Rajesh (prajesh@iwpnews.com)
