Loving that PFAS: Does EPA’s Valentine’s Day PFAS Action Plan Portend a Change of Heart?

By: Tom Burack | March 6. 2019

In a February 13 blog, I focused on the substantial role that states are playing in addressing PFAS compounds, in no small measure because EPA has not to date fully asserted itself in the arena, making the acronym as much one about a “Problem for All States” as about Poly- and Perfluoroalkyl Substances.  The following day, with only limited advance notice, EPA released its “PFAS Action Plan,” a Valentine’s Day gift to all of those who have been waiting to see if EPA has much interest in spending more time, let alone falling in love, with these ubiquitous contaminants.

EPA’s plan, while comprehensive in scope, has met with mixed reviews, in no small measure because it remains unclear where this is all leading or how fast anything will happen, and whether EPA will ultimately embrace a substantial and decisive leadership role in addressing PFAS contamination across the country, or whether, in this age of cooperative federalism, it will stick more to developing the background science and largely leave the standard-setting, regulatory and enforcement actions to the States. The Plan itself includes a number of major components that focus variously on reducing future PFAS exposures, understanding PFAS toxicity as a basis for developing groundwater cleanup and drinking water standards, identifying and mitigating exposures, providing a regulatory and liability framework for cleanups (including possible Maximum Contaminant Level (“MCLs”), as well as TRI and CERCLA hazardous substance listings for PFOA and PFOS), furthering research on PFAS health effects, and improving risk communication and engagement capabilities.  Most of the planned actions are described as the next steps in various processes, not as end results or guaranteed outcomes.

For example, the Plan states that EPA will take the next step in deciding whether to issue MCL regulations for PFOA and PFOS by proposing a “regulatory determination,” which EPA says “provides the opportunity for the public to contribute to the information the EPA will consider relating to the regulation of PFAS in drinking water.”  EPA will publish a preliminary regulatory determination in the Federal Register, obtain public comment, and then decide whether or not to issue a National Public Drinking Water Regulation for either PFOA or PFOS.  In so doing, EPA will need to weigh three criteria: Whether PFOA or PFOS have an adverse effect on the health of persons; whether PFOA or PFOS occur or have a chance to occur in public water systems often enough and at levels of public health concern; and, whether, in the EPA Administrator’s sole judgment, regulation of PFOA or PFOS presents a meaningful opportunity for health risk reductions for persons served by public water systems.  (See https://www.epa.gov/dwregdev/how-epa-regulates-drinking-water-contaminants.)  While the answer to the first criterion is likely “yes,” to date the available data on occurrence have not been so compelling as to drive rapid EPA action and, accordingly, the Administrator’s ultimate judgment under the third criterion is far from predictable, and likely at least a year away.  The trade press reports a range of statements having been made by EPA leadership in recent weeks that may intimate where the agency’s heart will ultimately be on the subject, but until the next phase of the process has run its course, uncertainty will remain and states will, accordingly, continue to individually proceed to take their own responsive regulatory actions.

And maybe this is just the way that things will or even should play out, because while EPA’s on-line cover page for its PFAS Action Plan asserts that the Agency is “taking a proactive, cross-agency approach to addressing PFAS,” it also acknowledges that the “key actions” will “help provide the necessary tools to assist states, tribes, and communities in addressing PFAS …”  Yes, EPA loves PFAS, but maybe its heart isn’t so committed that it would not also expect the states, tribes and communities to profess at least an equivalent fondness, if not an even greater passion, for regulating these chemicals and seeing to their cleanup.  Put differently, invoking the spirit of cooperative federalism, EPA’s message seems to be that the states and EPA have complementary ways of showing their love for emerging contaminants like PFAS, so there should be plenty of love to go around.