From Politico:
EPA took the first step on Thursday toward setting a federal limit for two “forever chemicals” in drinking water.
The proposed “regulatory determination” unveiled by the agency today is the initial step in a yearslong process of setting a mandatory drinking water limit for the chemicals PFOA and PFOS. It comes as many states, frustrated with EPA’s slow pace, have begun work to enact their own drinking water limits for those two substances and sometimes others in the same chemical family.
“The U.S. leads the world in providing access to safe drinking water for its citizens, thanks in part to EPA’s implementation of the Safe Drinking Water Act,” EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler said in a statement. Wheeler last year promised to issue the determination as he sought Senate confirmation for his post.
Under the Safe Drinking Water Act, EPA must first propose and finalize a rule determining that a chemical warrants a drinking water limit before it can propose and finalize an actual limit. Today’s move is the first step in the process. EPA has not issued a final drinking water limit for any new chemical since the federal water law was significantly reformed in 1996.
As part of the same action today, EPA proposed not to regulate six other chemicals in drinking water: 1,1-dichloroethane, acetochlor, methyl bromide, metolachlor, nitrobenzene and RDX.
Separately, EPA also issued a proposal for limiting imports of products containing PFOA and other similar substances, a regulation that has been in the works since 2015.
That proposal, under the Toxic Substances Control Act, blocks “significant new uses” of long-chain PFAS chemicals like PFOA that are used as surface coatings. This use of PFOA and similar chemicals has already been phased out in the U.S., and the agency said in a statement that it believes the same is true in imported goods. But it said the new proposal would ensure that EPA can review any new uses before products containing them can be imported.
EPA initially proposed the significant new use rule in 2015, prior to Congress’ 2016 overhaul of the Toxic Substances Control Act. Today’s proposal supplements that initial one.