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natural resources defense council
Trump EPA Seeks to Reverse Rules Protecting Drinking Water From Carcinogenic 'Forever Chemicals'
One environmental attorney said that the EPA proposal "prioritizes chemical industry profits and utility companies' bottom line over the health of children and families across the country."
Sep 12, 2025
Public health and environment defenders on Friday condemned the Trump administration's announcement that it will no longer uphold Environmental Protection Agency rules that protect people from unsafe levels of so-called "forever chemicals" in the nation's drinking water.
In addition to no longer defending rules meant to protect people from dangerous quantities of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS)—called forever chemicals because they do not biodegrade and accumulate in the human body—the EPA is asking a federal court to toss out current limits that protect drinking water from four types of PFAS: PFNA, PFHxS, GenX, and PFBS.
The EPA first announced its intent to roll back limits on the four chemicals in May, while vowing to retain maximum limits for two other types of PFAS. The agency said the move is meant to “provide regulatory flexibility and holistically address these contaminants in drinking water.”
However, critics accuse the EPA and Administrator Lee Zeldin—a former Republican congressman from New York with an abysmal 14% lifetime rating from the League of Conservation Voters—of trying to circumvent the Safe Drinking Water Act's robust anti-backsliding provision, which bars the EPA from rolling back any established drinking water standard.
"In essence, EPA is asking the court to do what EPA itself is not allowed to do," Earthjustice said in a statement.
"Administrator Zeldin promised to protect the American people from PFAS-contaminated drinking water, but he’s doing the opposite,” Earthjustice attorney Katherine O'Brien alleged. “Zeldin’s plan to delay and roll back the first national limits on these forever chemicals prioritizes chemical industry profits and utility companies’ bottom line over the health of children and families across the country."
Jared Thompson, a senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), said that "the EPA’s 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," Thompson added. "No one wants to drink PFAS. We will continue to defend these commonsense, lawfully enacted standards in court."
PFAS have myriad uses, from nonstick cookware to waterproof clothing to firefighting foam. Increasing use of forever chemicals has resulted in the detection of PFAS in the blood of nearly every person in the United States and around the world.
Approximately half of the U.S. population is drinking PFAS-contaminated water, “including as many as 105 million whose water violates the new standards,” according to the NRDC, which added that “the EPA has known for decades that PFAS endangers human health, including kidney and testicular cancer, liver damage, and harm to the nervous and reproductive systems.”
Betsy Southerland, a former director of the Office of Science and Technology in the EPA's Office of Water, said in a statement Friday:
The impact of these chemicals is clear. We know that this is significant for pregnant women who are drinking water contaminated with PFAS, because it can cause low birth weight in children. We know children have developmental effects from being exposed to it. We know there’s an increased incidence of cardiovascular disease and cancer with these chemicals.
Two of the four chemicals targeted in this motion are the ones that we expect to be the most prevalent, and only increasing contamination in the future. With this rollback, those standards would be gone.
Responding to Thursday's developments, Environmental Advocates NY director of clean water Rob Hayes said that "the EPA’s announcement is a big win for corporate polluters and an enormous loss for New York families."
"Administrator Zeldin wants to strip clean water protections away from millions of New Yorkers, leaving them at risk of exposure to toxic PFAS chemicals every time they turn on the tap," he added. "New Yorkers will pay the price of this disastrous plan through medical bills—and deaths—tied to kidney cancer, thyroid disease, and other harmful illnesses linked to PFAS."
While Trump administration officials including Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have claimed they want to "make America healthy again" by ending PFAS use, the EPA is apparently moving in the opposite direction. Between April and June of this year, the agency sought approval of four new pesticides considered PFAS under a definition backed by experts.
“What we’re seeing right now is the new generation of pesticides, and it’s genuinely frightening,” Nathan Donley, the environmental health science director at the Center for Biological Diversity, told Civil Eats earlier this week. “At a time when most industries are transitioning away from PFAS, the pesticide industry is doubling down. They’re firmly in the business of selling PFAS.”
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Trump EPA Moves to Cancel $7 Billion in Solar Grants for Low- and Middle-Income Households
"At a time when working families are getting crushed by skyrocketing energy costs and the planet is literally burning, sabotaging this program isn't just wrong—it's absolutely insane," said Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Aug 05, 2025
In a move denounced by climate and environmental justice defenders, the Trump administration is planning to claw back $7 billion in federal grants for low- and middle-income households to install rooftop solar panels, people briefed on the matter told The New York Times on Tuesday.
According to the Times, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is drafting termination letters to the 60 state agencies, nonprofit groups, and Indigenous tribes that received the grants under the Solar for All program. The move is part of the Trump administration's efforts to cancel billions of dollars in climate- and environment-oriented grants included in former President Joe Biden's landmark Inflation Reduction Act, signed in 2022.
Solar for All was launched by the Biden administration in 2023 in conjunction with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). The program aimed to "develop long-lasting solar programs that enable low-income and disadvantaged communities to deploy and benefit from distributed residential solar, lowering energy costs for families, creating good-quality jobs in communities that have been left behind, advancing environmental justice, and tackling climate change."
The program was meant to help around 900,000 low- and middle-income households go solar.
Ripping away the Solar for All program means more families paying more on their bills—because God forbid people actually save money. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/05/c...
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— Climate Power (@climatepower.bsky.social) August 5, 2025 at 10:57 AM
The Trump administration froze Solar for All funding in February after President Donald Trump issued a day one executive order mandating a review of all Biden-era climate spending. The funds were reinstated in early March after EPA "worked expeditiously to enable payment accounts," according to the agency.
Responding to the Times report, Sanders said in a statement: "I introduced the Solar for All program to slash electric bills for working families by up to 80%—putting money back in the pockets of ordinary Americans, not fossil fuel billionaires. Now, Donald Trump wants to illegally kill this program to protect the obscene profits of his friends in the oil and gas industry. That is outrageous."
"Solar for All means lower utility bills, many thousands of good-paying jobs, and real action to address the existential threat of climate change," Sanders continued. "At a time when working families are getting crushed by skyrocketing energy costs and the planet is literally burning, sabotaging this program isn't just wrong—it's absolutely insane."
"We will fight back to preserve this enormously important program," he added.
Other Solar for All proponents also slammed the reported EPA move.
"Canceling these investments makes no sense," Adam Kent, green finance director amt the Natural Resources Defense Council, said in a statement reported by The Washington Post. "Every investment will save families at least 20% on their energy bills. Members of Congress need to step up and defend a program that focused on lowering energy bills for hardworking Americans."
"The Solar for All program has been embraced by both red and blue states and has so much promise."
Kyle Wallace, vice president of public policy and government affairs at the solar company PosiGen, said on social media: "This would be a shocking and harmful action that will hurt vulnerable families who are struggling with rising energy costs. The Solar for All program has been embraced by both red and blue states and has so much promise. EPA should not do this."
Solar for All defenders vowed to fight the EPA's move.
"If leaders in the Trump administration move forward with this unlawful attempt to strip critical funding from communities across the United States, we will see them in court," Kym Meyer, litigation director at the nonprofit Southern Environmental Law Center, told the Times.
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Trump Eases Pollution Rules for 100+ Facilities, Including Chemical and Coal Plants
"Trump is illegally delaying clean air laws from his desk because polluters make more money when they just dump their toxic chemicals in our air," said one critic.
Jul 18, 2025
Continuing a trend of prioritizing polluters over public health and the planet, U.S. President Donald Trump late Thursday signed a series of proclamations to provide what the Republican called "regulatory relief" to various industries.
While the names of Trump's four proclamations suggest they are intended to promote American "security" regarding energy, chemical manufacturing, iron ore processing, and sterile medical equipment, what they actually do is allow over 100 facilities across the country to not comply with rules put in place under Democratic former President Joe Biden.
A Trump White House fact sheet describes the rules from Biden's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as "burdensome." Meanwhile, environmental and health advocates blasted Trump over his new exemptions for coal-fired power plants, ethylene oxide commercial sterilizers, and facilities that manufacture chemicals and process taconite iron.
"If your family lives downwind of these plants, this is going to mean more toxic chemicals in the air you breathe."
Patrice Simms, vice president of litigation at Earthjustice's Healthy Communities Program, said in a Friday statement that "Trump is illegally delaying clean air laws from his desk because polluters make more money when they just dump their toxic chemicals in our air."
"Trump's action on behalf of big corporate polluters will cause more cancer, more birth defects, and more children to suffer [from] asthma," Simms warned. "The country deserves better."
The proclamation is not the first handout Trump has given the coal industry since returning to office in January. As Earthjustice noted:
In April 2025, the Trump administration exempted 68 coal-fired power plants from pollution limits set in the strengthened MATS rule, even though pollution controls are widely available and already in use. These came after EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin invited corporations to email the agency to request exemptions from clean air standards. Companies were told they could cite "national security" or "lack of available technology" as justification.
John Walke, clean air director for the environmental group Natural Resources Defense Council, told The Associated Press that Trump's claims about national security concerns and technology issues were "pretexts" to further enrich large corporations.
"President Trump just signed a literal free pass for polluters," Walke said of the new proclamations. "If your family lives downwind of these plants, this is going to mean more toxic chemicals in the air you breathe."
The AP reported that "in a related development, the EPA said Thursday it will give utility companies an additional year to inspect and report on contamination from toxic coal ash landfills across the country," which Zeldin also called "regulatory relief."
Earthjustice senior counsel Lisa Evans told The New York Times on Thursday that while it may not seem like a lengthy delay, "a year's time is not irrelevant when you are living next to a coal plant."
"It's one more year of hazardous contaminants getting into the groundwater," Evans said. "And the more chemicals that get into the groundwater, the more difficult and expensive it is to remediate."
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