What's the News in PFAS
New President, Old Regulations
PFAS is toxic, leading to cancers and other terrible health complications even at smaller levels. This removal of regulation gives a lot of big polluting companies a go ahead to keep unsustainable practices that may lead to more PFAS in our drinking water.
Toward the end of Biden’s administration, many steps were being taken by the federal government to regulate and remove PFAS from drinking water. These regulations, enacted last year, reduced the amount of PFAS permitted in drinking water to less than 4.0 parts per million. Before Trump was inaugurated, his stance on PFAS regulations was unclear, but many environmentalists were not hopeful.
Fears were not unfounded.
These fears of change for the progress that PFOS regulations were having was not unwarranted. After taking office, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under Trump decided to get rid of a potential regulation left by the Biden administration that would limit how much large companies could dump PFAS into wastewater. This regulation would have likely led to less PFAS in the drinking water of citizens. PFAS allowed into wastewater can easily make its way into larger sources of water used as drinking water by cities, and it cannot be removed by standard wastewater treatment methods, making it a big risk.
PFAS is toxic, leading to cancers and other terrible health complications, even at smaller levels. This removal of regulation gives a lot of big polluting companies a go ahead to keep unsustainable practices that may lead to more PFAS in our drinking water.
This scrapping of Biden's bill may not be the end of the Trump administration's change for PFAS regulation.
Although Trump has done his best to distance himself from Project 2025, seeing that his early actions align with many of those outlined in that document, it is safe to say he is influenced by it. Regarding PFAS, this document details that PFAS should be looked at and re-evaluated to see if it is a hazardous substance. PFAS not being considered hazardous would make regulation of it even harder, and exposure to it even more common.
On a brighter note…
…many environmentalist groups and researchers say that if the Trump administration were to attempt to deregulate PFAS they would fight against it. EarthJustice, a non-profit law organization, is saying they will “protect communities from PFAS incineration, [defend] the public’s right to know about PFAS releases, [push] for stronger state laws regulating PFAS in water, and more”.