Trump administration delays weighing in on 'forever chemical' drinking water standards

Americans will have to wait three more weeks for a long-anticipated signal as to whether the Trump administration plans to uphold strict federal limits on "forever chemicals" in drinking water established a year ago by the Biden administration.  

  Monday was the deadline for the Environmental Protection Agency to respond to a lawsuit filed in June seeking to rescind those limits. Shortly after 5 p.m., the EPA submitted a motion asking for a 21-day pause in the litigation to allow the agency to decide how to respond.

The EPA’s motion said the agency was "finalizing its plans" to address "the most significant compliance challenges" raised by the PFAS limits and needed additional time to "decide on its planned course of action."

This was the third time the EPA has asked the D.C. Court of Appeals for an extension — first for 60 days, then 30, now 21.

Robert Hayes, senior director of clean water at Environmental Advocates New York, said it's possible the chemical industry and water utilities are seeking to weaken or delay implementation of the drinking water standards for years, "which would only leave New Yorkers exposed for that much longer." 

Suppliers in areas where the water tests are above the federal limit will have to install treatment equipment. These systems cost between $1.5 million and $3 million, according to James Neri, a spokesman for the Long Island Water Conference, a trade group for water suppliers.

PFAS, a broad classification for thousands of chemicals, have been called "forever chemicals" because they do not break down in the environment, where they sicken wildlife and farm animals, and are shed very slowly by the human body. Scientists have found the compounds are toxic in extremely tiny amounts.

Drinking water is one path of exposure. In April 2024, the EPA under President Joe Biden set limits on six PFAS chemicals, alone or in combinations, after years of study and public comment. Water suppliers must comply with the limits by 2029.

The EPA estimated at the time that the rule would reduce exposure for 100 million Americans, save thousands of lives and prevent tens of thousands of serious illnesses. It said the rule would ultimately save $1.5 billion in health care costs.

The suit is a consolidation of several separate cases — brought by Chemours, a manufacturer of Teflon and other PFAS products; the National Association of Manufacturers, the nation’s largest industrial trade group; and by the American Chemistry Council, a trade association representing chemical companies; and by two trade groups representing water utilities, the Association of Metropolitan Water Agencies and the American Water Works Association — of which a majority of Long Island suppliers are members.

The plaintiffs object to the science used to establish the standards, the rulemaking process and the EPA’s analysis of the cost of compliance, which the agency estimated would be $1.5 billion a year nationwide. 

Public health and environment advocates have expressed dismay that water suppliers would enter litigation opposing the drinking water standards, as Newsday previously reported.

New York established a legal limit for PFAS in drinking water in 2020, although the state limit governs two PFAS compounds rather than six and is less rigorous for those two — 10 parts per trillion rather than the future federal limit of 4 parts per trillion. Water districts have been building technologies to meet the state standard. 

Recent water testing required by the EPA revealed that seven Long Island water districts exceeded the future federal standard of 4 parts per trillion for one of the regulated compounds, according to a Newsday analysis. All those districts have either installed treatment systems on the wells since those samples were taken or are in the process of installing them in order to comply with the federal limits by the 2029 deadline.

Newsday also found that 19 Long Island districts detected PFAS chemicals that are not yet regulated by the state or the federal government. 

More than a dozen local and national nonprofit groups, three toxicologists and 17 states, including New York, and the District of Columbia have submitted briefs in support of the federal regulations.