PFAS contamination has rapidly emerged as one of the most pressing environmental and public health challenges in the United States. Although comprehensive federal regulation of PFAS only began to emerge around 2019, the issue has gained strong bipartisan political support. Both the Donald Trump administration and the Joe Biden administration have treated PFAS contamination as a national regulatory priority.
One major step came in October 2021 when the EPA launched its National PFAS Testing Strategy under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). Instead of evaluating thousands of PFAS individually, the strategy groups similar chemicals into categories and requires manufacturers to generate toxicity data for representative substances. This category-based approach allows the EPA to more efficiently build the scientific evidence needed for future regulatory decisions.
The agency has also taken measures to prevent dormant PFAS chemicals from returning to the market. In January 2024, the EPA issued a Significant New Use Rule (SNUR) for Inactive PFAS, restricting companies from resuming or initiating the manufacture, import, or processing of PFAS substances that have not been used in U.S. commerce for extended periods. This rule effectively prevents the reintroduction of previously dormant PFAS into the marketplace without regulatory oversight.
Federal drinking water regulation has also advanced. In April 2024, the EPA issued the first national PFAS drinking water standards under the Safe Drinking Water Act, establishing Maximum Contaminant Levels as low as 4 parts per trillion for certain PFAS chemicals. The agency also designated PFOA and PFOS as hazardous substances under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), expanding federal authority to hold polluters financially responsible for cleanup.
Taken together, these actions demonstrate the EPA’s increasing use of multiple statutory tools to address PFAS contamination. However, most current measures focus on information generation, procedural controls, and liability rather than outright bans. As a result, while federal PFAS regulation has evolved significantly, meaningful class-wide restrictions on PFAS remain legally and administratively challenging.
(Frank Wang)