“Law360 (February 20, 2020, 10:09 PM EST) — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said Thursday it’s moving toward setting a drinking water health standard for two common ‘forever chemicals,’ a step environmentalists immediately slammed as ‘too little, too late.’

Coming on the heels of increasingly strict state regulation and calls from the public and lawmakers for national baseline standards, the EPA said it has preliminarily determined that setting a National Primary Drinking Water Regulation is appropriate for perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA, and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid, or PFOS.

The agency said in a pre-publication request for public comment that its decision was based on the results for three tests that must precede an NPDWR standard: whether the compounds pose a health risk, whether the exposure is systemic and whether there are meaningful ways to mitigate exposure.

According to the EPA, there are associations between PFOA exposure and high cholesterol, increased liver enzymes, decreased vaccination response, thyroid disorders, pregnancy-induced hypertension and preeclampsia, and testicular and kidney cancer.”

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