ISSUE: Inside PFAS Policy

States Raise Compliance Concerns Over Stormwater Permit PFAS Monitoring

State water regulators are raising concerns about the Biden-era first-time PFAS monitoring requirements in EPA’s proposed multi-sector general permit (MSGP) for industrial stormwater, arguing the quarterly monitoring requirements for the five-year duration of the permit are overly burdensome on states, particularly if PFAS is not even detected. “At the moment, there is limited lab capacity within the states to handle this potential significant increase in sampling, were all 47 state permitting authorities to embrace the same frequency and duration,” the...

Lawmakers May Struggle With Scope Of PFAS ‘Passive Receivers’ Relief

Lawmakers could face difficulties in determining which sectors and activities should be categorized as “passive receivers” and be given a waiver for those actions from Superfund liability for PFAS contamination, even as momentum within the Trump administration and Congress to provide such relief has built. While environmental groups continue to oppose such carveouts, action to try to provide such relief appears more likely than in the last Congress, with Republicans now controlling the Senate and as EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin...

Water Utilities Unlikely To See Lower Costs With Pared-Back SDWA Rule

EPA’s plan to rescind portions of the Biden-era PFAS drinking water rule -- retracting and reconsidering limits for four of six PFAS -- is not expected to significantly lower costs for water utilities even as the new administration is stressing its actions on PFAS aim to reduce costs and ease compliance challenges for drinking water systems. Under the plan , the agency intends only to retain the regulation’s limits on perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS) -- the...

Environmentalists Urge EPA To Reject PFAS-Containing Pesticide Ingredient

Environmentalists are urging EPA under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) to reject a proposed pesticide ingredient, cyclobutrifluram, because it is a PFAS, arguing the agency failed to recognize it as a perfluoroalkyl substance in its recommendation to unconditionally approve the ingredient and products containing it. “This issue is not merely semantic; EPA also fails to account for the risks associated with cyclobutrifluram’s PFAS properties,” Earthjustice said in a May 6 comment letter signed by four other environmental...

3M, New Jersey Reach $450 Million Deal For Manufacturer’s PFAS Liability

PFAS manufacturer 3M has reached a proposed settlement of up to $450 million with New Jersey over long-running PFAS cleanup and natural resource damages (NRD) claims, as well as the state’s claims over the company’s production of firefighting foam under multidistrict litigation (MDL) -- the largest such PFAS settlement in the state’s history. 3M’s decision to settle comes just a week before a federal court is set to hold the first of a series of mini-trials focused on the New...

EPA Plan To Scale Back SDWA PFAS Rule Draws Environmentalist Outrage

EPA plans to give water systems an additional two years to comply with the Biden-era drinking water limits for the two most studied PFAS while it rescinds and reconsiders that rule’s regulation of four additional PFAS and a novel approach for regulating mixtures -- prompting outrage from environmental groups who are promising to fight the changes in court. The agency in a May 14 announcement first reported by The Washington Post says it will give water providers until 2031...

U.S. PFAS Imports May Drop After Stockholm Convention Bans LC-PFCAs

Members of the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) have agreed to ban the production, use, import and export of long-chain perfluorocarboxylic acids (LC-PFCAs) and products that contain them, an action that could limit imports of the chemicals even in non-member countries like the United States, sources say. “I think that although the U.S. is not a Party to the Convention, it will affect global markets and availability for import,” Pamela Miller, co-chair of the International Pollutants Elimination Network...

EPA Seeks Extended Stay In SDWA Rule Case, Eying Compliance Fixes

EPA is asking the D.C. Circuit to again delay litigation contesting the Biden-era PFAS drinking water rule, contending it needs an additional 21 days to determine its actions in the case as it finalizes plans to address significant challenges faced by water providers to comply with the rule and as it works with the litigants on how to proceed. Under an existing stay granted by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, EPA was due to...

EPA Delays PFAS TSCA Reporting Rule, Prepares To Ease Requirements

EPA is once again delaying the reporting period for companies to submit information under TSCA about their PFAS uses, arguing the agency needs more time to ready its Central Data Exchange (CDX) reporting system while also noting that officials will use the additional time before the reporting period begins to consider easing the rule’s requirements. The submission period under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) rule will now begin April 13, 2026, and end Oct. 13, 2026. The original start...

Maryland Citizens Plan RCRA Suit Alleging PFAS Releases From Ag Giant

Maryland residents are threatening to sue agriculture giant Perdue Agribusiness under the citizen suit provisions of the Resource Conservation & Recovery Act (RCRA) over alleged PFAS releases stemming from a wastewater treatment plant, wastewater and sludge lagoons, spray irrigation and firefighting foam disposal at a local industrial complex. The potential RCRA litigation signals another avenue through which the agriculture sector could be vulnerable to suit over traditional practices, such as spray irrigation, if the wastewater contains per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances...

Industry Urges EPA To Limit State PFAS Actions, But Lawyers Say It’s Unlikely

An industry group is urging the Trump EPA to regulate PFAS, likely through TSCA, in a way that would preempt the growing swath of state regulations of the chemicals, such as product prohibitions, but lawyers and other regulatory experts say it is unlikely the agency in the near future would be able to restrict or limit any state actions. “Right now, I’m at a loss to know . . . how state activities could be curtailed, or whether there could...

North Carolina’s PFAS Source Reduction Plan Stalls Due To Incomplete RIA

A North Carolina regulatory oversight panel has declined to take action on a proposed PFAS source reduction plan to tackle surface water contamination, criticizing state regulators for dragging their feet on developing a regulatory impact analysis (RIA) that was ultimately not approved by the state budget office in time for the panel’s meeting. “I’m rather disconcerted in the department’s performance on development of the RIA,” said Michael Ellison, an environmental consultant and member of the North Carolina Environmental Management Commission’s...

Air Force, New Mexico Say PFAS Case Should Proceed Despite New Law

The Air Force and the New Mexico are each urging the 10th Circuit to continue hearing a case deciding whether state or federal courts should hear the service’s challenge of a state waste permit covering PFAS, despite a recently adopted state law to list discarded PFAS-containing firefighting foam as “hazardous waste.” While the Air Force’s appeal deals with the procedural issue of which venue should hear the permit challenge, the state points out that the new law strengthens the New...

Brownfields Redevelopers Push Congress For PFAS Liability Exemption

Brownfield redevelopers are urging Congress to pass a PFAS liability carveout in cases where parties have voluntarily entered into a state-level brownfield cleanup agreement, a request that could expand any Superfund liability exemptions related to PFAS that key lawmakers and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin are seeking. During a May 7 hearing before the House transportation committee’s water resources and environment subcommittee, one brownfields redeveloper argued that such an exemption would lead to greater private investment in contaminated sites amid cuts...

Scientists Say Lack Of Air, Health PFAS Information Limits Regulations

Scientists are raising concerns about the lack of available information on PFAS contamination in air and other media, as well as the related health impacts, that consequently limits federal and state regulation of the chemicals, although the Trump EPA recently said it plans to expand its understanding of air-related PFAS contamination. How per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) gets into human bodies is “one of the things we’re still learning a little bit about,” said Jonathan Petali, an environmental scientist at...

Trump EPA May Retain Biden-Era CERCLA PFAS Rule, Legal Experts Say

The Trump EPA may retain the Biden-era rule designating the two most studied PFAS as Superfund “hazardous substances,” legal experts say, given Administrator Lee Zeldin’s support for maintaining a “polluter pays” model, his plans to work with Congress on targeted liability carveouts for “passive receivers” and the history of the issue. “[R]eading the tea leaves, you can see that the administration is committed to continuing to regulate PFAS, and there's no sign from [Zeldin’s recent] press release that EPA is...

House Relaunches Bipartisan PFAS Task Force, Adding Co-Chairs

House lawmakers have relaunched the bipartisan Congressional PFAS Task Force, adding three new co-chairs to lead the group as it seeks to advance comprehensive PFAS legislation while securing federal funding to address research, cleanup and prevention needs at a time when the Trump administration is generally seeking steep cuts to EPA spending. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), co-chair and founding member of the task force, May 5 announced the group’s relaunch as well as the addition of Reps. Debbie Dingell (D-MI),...

Chemical Sector Petitions EPA To Redo, Narrow TSCA PFAS Reporting Rule

A coalition of chemical companies is petitioning the Trump EPA to withdraw and re-propose in a significantly narrower form the Biden-era PFAS reporting rule under TSCA, calling for a series of waivers that appear to go further than what EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin suggested last week. The May 2 petition , from a coalition of anonymous companies, comes just days after Zeldin signaled the agency would seek to scale back the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) reporting rule to exempt...

West Virginia Contests EPA’s Termination Of EJ Grant For PFAS Work

West Virginia officials are contesting EPA’s termination of a $1 million grant intended to develop PFAS action plans and identify and address PFAS sources in untreated water under state and federal mandates after the agency canceled it as part of its sweeping elimination of environmental justice (EJ) grants. West Virginia’s Department of Environmental Protection (WVDEP) April 11 filed a grant termination dispute with EPA, after the federal agency March 12 terminated the state’s $1 million government-to-government grant, a WVDEP spokesman...

EWG Outlines Plan For FDA To Set Action Levels For PFAS In Foods

The Environmental Working Group (EWG) is urging the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to create non-binding risk-based action levels based on EPA’s risk assessment work to effectively limit PFAS residues in fish and other foods, arguing the levels, which are usually used for screening, are needed until FDA crafts binding tolerances. Support from EWG, a national environmental group that has long pressed EPA to adopt strict PFAS limits, could bolster an ongoing campaign by a citizen group to get FDA...

Pages

Not a subscriber? Request 30 days free access to exclusive environmental policy reporting.