Washington – Yesterday Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin announced that the EPA would retain and defend the rule designating PFOA and PFOS as hazardous substances under the Superfund law or CERCLA (Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act), which granted the agency more power to hold polluters accountable to pay for clean-up costs. Last year, the Biden administration finalized this rule, which is currently subject to an industry lawsuit led by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

More than 20,000 Food & Water Watch members have urged Zeldin to defend this rule. New analysis from Food & Water Watch found that the PFAS industry spent up to $60 million in the first half of the year lobbying the EPA on PFAS and related matters. Late last week the administration filed a motion in a separate lawsuit asking a federal court to throw out other rules limiting the level of four common and dangerous PFAS chemicals in drinking water. 

In response, Mary Grant, the Public Water for All Campaign Director at Food & Water Watch said:

“Across the country, people of all stripes have demanded that polluters be held accountable to pay to clean up the dangerous PFAS contamination in drinking water. For decades, families have lost loved ones to cancers and other diseases associated with these lab-made chemicals. It’s a positive development that the EPA is choosing to keep the Biden-era polluter-pay rule for PFOA and PFOS. 

“While this is a good decision, Lee Zeldin’s record is marred by his recent decisions to eliminate key protections to limit PFAS in drinking water following an avalanche of industry lobbying and the appointment of industry insiders to key positions at the EPA. Our country, our communities and our families deserve better. The EPA must immediately cease its efforts to gut and delay limits on PFAS in drinking water, require all polluters to pay to clean up the entire class of thousands of toxic PFAS chemicals, and ban all nonessential uses of PFAS to stop the pollution in the first place. Safe water is non-negotiable.”

Known as “forever chemicals,” PFAS are lab-made chemicals that have been linked to a large range of health problems including various cancers, altered hormone levels, decreased birth weights, digestive inflammation, and reduced vaccine response. New research comes out almost every day that indicates no amount is safe. It is estimated that about half of all Americans are regularly exposed to PFAS contamination through their drinking water.