{"id":3011,"date":"2025-09-19T05:15:37","date_gmt":"2025-09-19T09:15:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vr-news.net\/2025\/09\/epa-seeks-to-eliminate-critical-pfas-drinking-water-protections\/"},"modified":"2025-09-19T05:15:37","modified_gmt":"2025-09-19T09:15:37","slug":"epa-seeks-to-eliminate-critical-pfas-drinking-water-protections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vr-news.net\/?p=3011","title":{"rendered":"EPA Seeks to Eliminate Critical PFAS Drinking Water Protections"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced it will no longer defend rules that protect people from unsafe levels of PFAS \u201cforever chemicals\u201d in drinking water, seeking to reverse legal protections put into place last year.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/earthjustice.org\/document\/epa-motion-for-partial-vacatur-in-pfas-case\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">In its motion filed in federal court yesterday<\/a>, EPA asked the court to axe its determinations to regulate and enforceable standards for four PFAS chemicals \u2013 GenX, PFHxS, PFNA, and PFBS. Separately, EPA previously announced that it will seek to extend the compliance deadline for PFOA and PFOS standards by two years from 2029 to 2031. PFAS have contaminated the drinking water for approximately <a href=\"https:\/\/pubs.acs.org\/doi\/10.1021\/acs.estlett.0c00713\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">200 million people nationwide<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Environmental lawyers said EPA\u2019s course of action is an attempt to evade limits that Congress imposed on the agency. The Safe Drinking Water Act has a strong anti-backsliding provision that prohibits the EPA from weakening any drinking water standard once it is set. In essence, EPA is asking the court to do what EPA itself is not allowed to do.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAdministrator Zeldin promised to protect the American people from PFAS-contaminated drinking water, but he\u2019s doing the opposite,\u201d said <strong>Katherine O\u2019Brien, Earthjustice attorney<\/strong>. \u201cZeldin\u2019s plan to delay and roll back the first national limits on these forever chemicals prioritizes chemical industry profits and utility companies\u2019 bottom-line over the health of children and families across the country.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe EPA\u2019s request to jettison rules intended to keep drinking water safe from toxic PFAS forever chemicals is an attempted end-run around the protections that Congress placed in the Safe Drinking Water Act. It is also alarming, given what we know about the health harms caused by exposure to these chemicals. No one wants to drink PFAS. We will continue to defend these common-sense, lawfully enacted standards in court,\u201d said <strong>Jared Thompson, a senior attorney with NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council)<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Earthjustice is representing the following community groups: Buxmont Coalition for Safe Water, Clean Cape Fear, Clean Haw River, Concerned Citizens of WMEL Water Authority Grassroots, Environmental Justice Task Force, Fight for Zero, Merrimack Citizens for Clean Water, and Newburgh Clean Water Project. Working alongside NRDC,<a href=\"https:\/\/earthjustice.org\/press\/2025\/community-members-condemn-epas-lack-of-drinking-water-protections\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\"> the organizations have intervened to defend the nation\u2019s first-ever drinking water standards for PFAS<\/a> in ongoing litigation brought by chemical companies and water utility associations, who are asking the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., to overturn the standards.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced it will no longer defend rules that protect people from unsafe levels of PFAS \u201cforever chemicals\u201d in drinking water, seeking to reverse legal protections put into place last year. In its motion filed in federal court yesterday, EPA asked the court to axe its determinations to regulate and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"registered_only","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[742],"class_list":["post-3011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ciencia-y-tecnologia","tag-vr-news-net"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vr-news.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vr-news.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vr-news.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vr-news.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vr-news.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3011"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vr-news.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3011\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vr-news.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vr-news.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vr-news.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}