Two weeks after U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin issued a nebulous pledge to “combat PFAS contamination”, he sounded a timid retreat in a press release announcing EPA would rescind some recent safeguards and postpone the compliance deadline for others. The net result is that public health will be placed at much greater risk in response to industry complaints that the costs associated with removing per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) from our drinking water are too high.
This latest rollback would abandon a key regulatory beachhead it took EPA years to establish – setting a Maximum Contamination Limit (MCL) in drinking water for six types of PFAS. Drinking water is a major exposure pathway with more than 158 million Americans exposed to PFAS in their drinking water, and 43 million more Americans drink private well water which has not yet been tested but is also likely contaminated. Altogether, more than two-thirds of Americans are at risk from PFAS-contaminated drinking water.
Now Zeldin plans to postpone enforcing MCLs for PFOA and PFOS from 2029 until 2031, and to rescind them for four types of PFAS (PFHxS, PFNA, HFPO-DA known as GenX, and PFBS) altogether. The stated rationale for this abrupt pullback is providing greater “regulatory flexibility.” Zeldin’s plan is certainly flexible – to the point of flaccidity.
Administrator Zeldin’s action also marginalizes scientific research painstakingly collected by independent scientists and his own agency. For example, EPA’s own risk assessment shows that more than 1 part per billion (yes, that is 1 part per billion) of PFOA or PFOS in biosolids “exceed the agency’s acceptable human health risk thresholds.” Yet, enforcement of this limit would be stayed for additional years.
Meanwhile, a 2025 peer-reviewed study found PFAS in drinking water is associated with increased digestive, oral, endocrine, and respiratory cancer incidence. Even more troubling, the PFAS for which EPA is rescinding limits are specifically associated with colorectal, liver, kidney, bladder, gallbladder cancers, and leukemia, lung cancer, thyroid cancer, and oral and pharynx cancer.
Ironically, the forms of PFAS which Zeldin proposes to leave in drinking water were developed primarily as substitutes for PFOS and PFOA (whose manufacture is already banned, but they persist since these forever chemicals do not break down in the environment). Yet, research also shows that NextGen and these other substitutes are just as harmful.
While the Administrator promises EPA will “holistically address” the PFAS contamination crisis, he offers no concrete steps to protect Americans from the effects of his own rollbacks. In contrast to EPA’s halting and limited approach, the only solution is to define PFAS broadly, regulate them as a class from cradle to grave, and ban all non-essential uses. EPA has one mission: to protect human health and the environment. EPA’s retreat on PFAS not only betrays the agency’s mission but makes a mockery of the Trump Administration’s self-proclaimed pledge to Make America Healthy Again.
Kyla Bennett is PEER’s Director of Science Policy and the Director of PEER’s New England/Mid-Atlantic field office. She is a scientist and attorney formerly with U.S. EPA.
Jeff Ruch is the former Executive Director and Pacific Director of PEER. He now serves as Of Counsel.
