Your blood, like the blood of 97 percent of Americans, probably contains what are known as “forever chemicals.” These compounds—per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances commonly referred to as PFAS—have been linked to a range of cancers and adverse health effects.
This past week, the Trump administration announced a bold new plan to tackle forever chemicals in drinking water. But it has a curious way of showing its commitment to ending PFAS pollution. The new plan will unravel historic restrictions approved by the Biden administration in 2024—the first and only regulations in the nation’s history to put limits on PFAS in drinking water. “This is about being realistic,” EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said at an event Monday.
The EPA intends to lift restrictions on four types of PFAS and extend by two years the amount of time water utilities have to comply with restrictions on two other legacy forever chemicals if the utilities can prove they need the time. The Biden-era limits would not have survived court challenges, the EPA argued.
Legal experts I spoke with disagreed. “It seems like they have largely adopted the positions of the chemical industry,” said Richard L. Revesz, a former Biden official and dean emeritus at the New York University School of Law.
Aware that the announcement is sure to anger the Make America Healthy Again contingent—which is already rebelling against the administration’s support for the herbicide glyphosate—Trump officials sought to divert attention away from PFAS repeals and are focusing instead on the EPA’s recent unveiling of $1 billion in grant funding for small and disadvantaged communities to detect and eliminate PFAS.
“We have a president who has made a greater financial commitment than any president in US history,” said Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., pointing to the $1 billion. The catch: That money comes from an appropriation made by Congress in 2021, when Joe Biden was president.
Read all about it in my story for Grist.
—Zoya Teirstein
