EPA Advances PFAS Strategy

Today, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reaffirmed its commitment during a PFAS destruction event to advance a comprehensive, lifecycle-based strategy to address per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). As part of that strategy, EPA is highlighting PFAS treatment and destruction technologies, announcing nearly $1 billion in new funding to states to address PFAS in drinking water, and issuing two proposed rules for public comment that uphold the National Primary Drinking Water Standards for perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS). The announcement was made during an event with EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin and Health & Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

“PFAS contamination is a serious public health challenge that demands rigorous science, clear standards and practical solutions,” said HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. “Across HHS, we are advancing gold-standard research to better understand PFAS exposure, toxicity and long-term health impacts on Americans. EPA’s actions today take important steps to reduce exposure, strengthen drinking water protections and support communities as we work to address environmental contributors to chronic disease and advance the Make America Healthy Again agenda.”

The EPA also announced nearly $1 billion in grant funding to address PFAS and other emerging contaminants in drinking water through the Emerging Contaminants in Small or Disadvantaged Communities Grant. With this grant allotment, the agency has made $5 billion available through this program over five years. EPA will take steps to ensure that available funding is expeditiously reaching communities that need it to identify and address PFAS and reduce exposure through drinking water.

The first proposed rule, if finalized, would continue supporting the health-protective federal drinking water standards for perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS) while strengthening practical implementation by establishing an opt-in process through which eligible drinking water systems may apply for up to two additional years —until 2031 — to come into compliance with enforceable limits.

Under the agency’s proposal, the extension would not be automatic. Drinking water systems that wish to receive additional time would need to seek the extension and meet specific criteria that EPA will set out in the final rule. Systems that do not opt in would remain subject to the original 2029 compliance deadline. This design ensures that systems prepared to meet 2029 are not slowed down, while systems facing legitimate implementation hurdles have a transparent, accountable path to additional time.

Where sources of drinking water are contaminated with PFOA and PFOS, protecting public health generally requires drinking water systems to diagnose the severity of contamination through robust sampling; evaluate various compliance options, including changing source water or installing new control systems; construct and test new controls, often including pilot studies; evaluate financing options; and train their workforce to support construction, operation and maintenance.

Allowing drinking water systems to seek additional time for this work could also allow the cost of PFAS removal technologies to come down through technological advancements and production efficiencies. 

The second proposed rule, if finalized, would address some stakeholders’ legal concerns related to statutory requirements articulated in the SDWA when establishing regulations for perfluorohexane sulfonic acid (PFHxS), perfluorononanoic acid (PFNA), hexafluoropropylene oxide dimer acid (HFPO-DA, commonly referred to as GenX chemicals), and the hazard index of these three plus perfluorobutane sulfonic acid (PFBS).

The SDWA requires a sequential approach to regulation, where the Agency must first propose to regulate a particular drinking water contaminant and seek public comment on whether a regulation would be appropriate. Only after the public has had the opportunity to comment on that proposal and when the EPA has finalized a determination to regulate may the EPA publish a proposed regulation of that contaminant.

Following the second proposal, if finalized, the Trump EPA would deliver on its commitment to evaluate these PFAS for regulation under the SDWA and do it correctly by supporting transparency. While EPA cannot predetermine the outcome of the rulemaking, it is possible that the result could be more stringent requirements addressing these PFAS in drinking water. What Americans and water systems can count on is that whatever standards emerge will be built on a defensible legal and scientific record.

Stopping PFAS contamination before it reaches drinking water sources is central to EPA's strategy. The agency is advancing technology-based effluent limitations and pretreatment standards for key industrial categories that discharge PFAS, including chemical manufacturers and other sources, to keep PFAS out of waterways in the first place. The agency is currently developing a proposed rule that will be issued for public comment in the coming months. EPA is also using its authorities under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) to ensure new and existing chemicals are subject to the most robust, gold-standard scientific review before they enter commerce. The agency is also looking to hold polluters accountable for legacy contamination consistent with the polluter-pays principle, rather than the passive receivers that never placed these chemicals into the environment but have been left to manage them. Because enforcement discretion alone cannot shield passive receivers from third-party cleanup lawsuits and can be reversed by a future administration, a durable statutory fix from Congress is necessary.

By reducing PFAS at the point of discharge, EPA lowers the long-term treatment burden on water systems and their ratepayers and gets closer to the source of the problem. Source reduction also limits the volume of PFAS-laden residuals that water systems must ultimately manage, making destruction and disposal more tractable.

These proposals are just one piece of a bigger effort to address PFAS, including proactive support to drinking water systems, funding for infrastructure upgrades, additional monitoring and evaluation, and wastewater discharge limits.

The Trump EPA is also making measurable progress identifying and validating the next generation of technologies to treat, remove, and destroy PFAS. That toolkit spans proven separation technologies that pull PFAS out of water such as granular activated carbon, ion exchange resins, and high-pressure membranes such as reverse osmosis, alongside a class of destruction technologies under study, such as supercritical water oxidation, electrochemical oxidation, hydrothermal alkaline treatment, non-thermal plasma, and the pyrolysis and gasification of PFAS-laden residuals.

To keep pace with a fast-moving field, in April, the agency announced it has moved its PFAS Destruction and Disposal Guidance from a three-year update cycle to annual updates, allowing EPA to continually assess the real-world effectiveness of available and emerging technologies and put the best-performing options in front of the water systems that need them. That assessment is increasingly informed by performance in the field. For example, EPA completed four full-scale PFAS treatment systems serving the Irvine Ranch and Orange County Water Districts in southern California, protecting more than 9,500 households. Each deployment generates verified performance data that sharpens utility decision-making, narrows the gap between promising and proven technologies, and steadily expands the toolkit available to remove and destroy PFAS in the many forms in which it appears.

Underpinning this work is a robust and ongoing EPA research program. Agency scientists are continually developing, validating, and refining gold-standard analytical methods, both targeted methods that measure specific known PFAS and nontargeted methods that use advanced instrumentation to surface previously unidentified compounds, across drinking water, surface water, wastewater, soil, and air. EPA recently developed a method capable of detecting 40 PFAS compounds across media ranging from groundwater and sediment to landfill liquid and fish tissue, and the agency continues to invest in research to understand the thousands of PFAS compounds and to advance new treatment and destruction technologies. This research foundation ensures that the standards EPA sets and the cleanup actions it supports rest on data the agency can stand behind.

EPA has established a cross-agency coordinating group, led by the Office of the Administrator and the Office of Water, and drawing senior technical and policy leaders from across EPA program offices and Regions to share research, innovation, and actions, and accelerate the cleanup of PFAS contamination. An overview of the agency’s first-year PFAS work, spanning testing and detection, direct community support, enforcement, public education, commonsense regulation, and cutting-edge research, is detailed in EPA’s roundup of major year-one PFAS actions.

On April 14, EPA announced its PFAS OUTreach—or PFAS OUT—initiative accelerating progress in addressing PFAS in drinking water. This new program proactively works with communities and water systems to reduce exposure to PFOA and PFOS in drinking water. Recognizing that small, rural, and disadvantaged water systems often have fewer resources, PFAS OUT is specifically designed to ensure these communities are not left behind. PFAS OUT will help every drinking water system dealing with PFOA or PFOS to effectively understand the challenge and reduce exposure as soon as possible while positioning them for successful compliance with enforceable drinking water standards.

EPA has additional funding programs to help drinking water systems address PFAS:

• $4 billion is being invested through the Drinking Water State Revolving Funds dedicated to addressing PFAS and emerging contaminants. This is in addition to general state revolving fund money that can be used for PFAS-related projects.
• More than $6.5 billion in low-interest financing is currently available through EPA's Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (WIFIA) Loan program, which can also be used to address PFAS.

Sustained investment of this scale does more than fund individual projects. It drives down the per-system cost of treatment, generates real-world performance data that better informs utility decision-making, accelerates innovation in destruction and disposal technologies, and helps mitigate PFAS across the many forms in which it appears in source water.

EPA is continuing to use the tools under the SDWA to address Americans’ concerns about chemicals in drinking water. Earlier this spring, EPA proposed to prioritize funding and research for PFAS, microplastics, and pharmaceuticals by including them as groups on the draft sixth Contaminant Candidates List.

The two proposed rules will be published in the Federal Register with a 60-day public comment period, and EPA will hold a public hearing on July 7, 2026. EPA encourages robust participation in this process as we work together to protect Americans from PFAS exposure in the most effective way possible. 

For more information about the proposed rules, including pre-publication versions of the proposals, fact sheets, directions for submitting comments, and information about a forthcoming public hearing, visit EPA’s webpages here and here. Also, learn more about PFAS OUT.