EPA Delays Adding PFAS Substances to ‘Toxic Release Inventory’
Trump memo requiring review of new regulations is the reason for the delay, EPA says
Image via Kristina Kokhanova from Getty Images
The EPA has postponed adding nine PFAS to its “Toxics Release Inventory” (TRI), which would subject them to the same reporting rules as other chemicals of “special concern.”
On Jan. 6, 2025, EPA published the final rule—Implementing Statutory Addition of Certain Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) to Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) Beginning with Reporting Year 2025—on the Federal Register, which designated Feb. 5, 2025, as the day the regulation was to become effective.
Once added to the TRI, the nine PFAS must be reported under EPA’s toxic release laws under both the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act and the Pollution Prevention Act, EPA says.
Due to PFAS buildup and health risks, the EPA is acting to limit their spread, including adding nine to the TRI. In 2024, the EPA set drinking water standards for five PFAS and designated PFOA and PFOS as hazardous due to health risks.
The nine PFAS substances are:
- Acetic acid, [(g- w-perfluoro-C8–10-alkyl)thio] derivs., Bu esters
- Ammonium perfluorodecanoate (PFDA NH4)
- 6:2 Fluorotelomer sulfonate acid
- 6:2 Fluorotelomer sulfonate ammonium salt
- 6:2 Fluorotelomer sulfonate anion
- 6:2 Fluorotelomer sulfonate potassium salt
- 6:2 Fluorotelomer sulfonate sodium salt
- Perfluoro-3- methoxypropanoic acid
- Sodium perfluorodecanoate (PFDA-Na).
However, on Feb. 5, 2025, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced the agency was delaying implementation of the rule until March 21, 2025. The delay was announced in a Federal Register notice; Delay of Effective Date for 2 Final Regulations Published by the Environmental Protection Agency Between Dec. 11, 2024, and Jan. 6, 2025.
The Federal Register notice announcing the delay says the action was undertaken at the direction of President Trump who issued a memorandum on Jan. 20, 2025, entitled “Regulatory Freeze Pending Review.”
The Federal Register notice says the delay is both “temporarily” and “necessary” to provide EPA with “the opportunity for further review and consideration of new regulations, consistent with the memorandum of the president.”
An environmental advocacy leader says it's too early to see the delay as more than a regulatory review.
Ben Grumble, the executive director of the Environmental Council of the States, told The Driller, because “there are so many aspects on PFAS” that the states “are emphasizing to EPA’s new leadership that PFAS is a priority topic.”
Furthermore, the states “look forward to working with the new administration as they get their team in place on all of those subjects and encourage them to have a coordinated and targeted approach involving research and regulation and funding and monitoring,” Grumble said.
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