EPA Effort to Roll Back PFAS Limits Decried as Assault on Health

People living in neighborhoods contaminated by PFAS say they feel betrayed by the Trump administration’s attempt to eliminate Biden-era drinking water limits for four types of the “forever chemicals.”

“It’s an assault, a full blown attack on our health,” said Emily Donovan, co-founder of Clean Cape Fear, a volunteer grassroots community group in North Carolina that formed in 2017 after scientists documented the presence of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in drinking water drawn from the Cape Fear River.

“It feels like nothing short of a further assault on our communities,” said Loreen Hackett, who lives in Hoosick Falls, N.Y., where PFAS and other chemicals released by a plastics plant created a Superfund site.

Both individuals reacted to a motion the Environmental Protection Agency submitted Sept. 11 to the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit asking it to partly vacate portions of the nation’s first-ever rule setting drinking water limits for PFAS.

The EPA asked the court to void a novel mixtures limit the rule included that required water systems to use a unitless “hazard index” to determine whether combinations of four PFAS were too risky. The four are perfluorononanoic acid (PFNA), perfluorohexane sulfonic acid (PFHxS), hexafluoropropylene oxide dimer acid (HFPO-DA), which is commonly called “GenX,” and perfluorobutanesulfonic acid (PFBS).

The agency also asked the court to vacate an enforceable 10 parts per trillion (ppt) limit the EPA set on three of those four chemicals: PFNA, PFHxS, and HFPO-DA.

The EPA’s motion, however, told the court it plans to support its decision to set enforceable limits on perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) because the agency’s actions “adhered to the statute’s requirements.”

Flawed Procedures

Procedural errors the EPA made during the rulemaking justify vacatur, the agency told the court.

The Chemours Co., which makes HFPO-DA, the American Water Works Association (AWWA), and the Association of Metropolitan Water Agencies (AMWA), all of which are challenging the EPA’s regulation in court, issued statements supporting the EPA’s goal of protecting people from potentially harmful levels of PFAS in drinking water.

The agency was right, however, to point to its own flawed rulemaking procedures as justifying nullification of the portions of the rule, they said.

“The introduction of a complicated Hazard Index calculation, along with reduced opportunities for public comment, strayed” from the rigorous, Congressionally-mandated requirements of the Safe Drinking Water Act, said AWWA and AMWA in a statement. The groups represent water utilities that would be tasked under the rule with ensuring PFAS is removed from the water supply, which they’ve warned would be costly and burdensome.

If the court grants the motion, “EPA’s request will reopen the opportunity for meaningful public input and ultimately lead to a more scientifically defensible final rule,” the two water groups said.

“There’s substantial evidence showing that EPA, under the previous administration, used flawed science and improper rulemaking procedures in setting its drinking water limits for HFPO-DA,” said Chemours, the sole US producer of that chemical. “These concerns were raised by multiple entities, including EPA’s own Science Advisory Board.”

The Science Advisory Board’s report, issued in 2022, praised many of the scientific choices and methods the EPA proposed to use to underpin its regulation. But, the board also urged the EPA to correct methodological flaws, inconsistencies, and other problems.

Health Benefits

The final rule would reduce exposure to PFAS, offering up to 105 million US residents $1.5 billion in annual benefits from “fewer cancers, lower incidence of heart attacks and strokes, and fewer birth weight-related deaths,” the EPA estimated in 2024.

The Safe Drinking Water Act forbids the EPA from weakening any drinking water standard once it’s been set, said Earthjustice and the Natural Resources Defense Council in a joint statement.

“In essence, EPA is asking the court to do what EPA itself is not allowed to do,” said the two organizations that intervened in the litigation to support the agency’s regulation.

EPA’s motion appears to be “a desperate grasp at procedural straws” to attack safeguards communities fought to receive for years, said Hackett. Tests have shown her blood levels of PFHxS exceed the national average, and she’s convinced there’s a link between the PFAS in water she drank for decades and the breast cancer she has fought.

The EPA’s action have nothing to do with the word “protection” in its name, Hackett said. “Given the choice, would you let your children drink toxins?”

Unlike PFOA and PFOS, which are no longer produced in the US, GenX remains commercially relevant, with Chemours trying to increase its production, said Donovan, referring to an air emissions permit the company has requested and recently modified. Eliminating drinking water limits for that chemical “doesn’t benefit anyone except chemical manufacturer and other PFAS polluters,” she said.

Yet she hasn’t lost hope. The court may reject the EPA’s motion, Donovan said. “Justice has a long arch; we know we will prevail.”

The case is Am. Water Works Ass’n v. EPA, D.C. Cir., 24-01188, EPA’s Motion Filed, 9/11/25.