Two members of the U.S. House of Representatives introduced a bill on June 26 titled “The PFAS National Drinking Water Standard Act of 2025” that would codify the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s first-ever national primary drinking water regulation for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS).
Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pennsylvania) and Congresswoman Debbie Dingell (D-Michigan), co-chairs of the bipartisan Congressional PFAS Task Force, introduced the legislation that codifies the EPA’s final PFAS National Primary Drinking Water Regulation issued on April 26, 2024.
That established enforceable maximum contaminant levels (MCLs) for six of the most hazardous PFAS chemicals, including PFOA and PFOS, in public drinking water systems. The new legislation would give the rule the full force of federal law, ensuring the standards remain durable, enforceable, and insulated from future regulatory uncertainty or reversal.
“I’ve spent years fighting to clean up toxic sites, secure Superfund designations, and hold polluters accountable,” Fitzpatrick said. “Now, with this bill, we are cementing the EPA’s PFAS drinking water standard into federal law — so it can never be weakened, walked back, or ignored.”
The EPA announced on May 14 it will keep the current National Primary Drinking Water Regulations (NPDWR) for perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS), which set nationwide limits for these forever chemicals in drinking water, but that it also intended to rescind the regulations and reconsider the regulatory determinations for PFHxS, PFNA, HFPO-DA (commonly known as GenX), and PFBS.
The recently introduced bill would prevent that from happening.
“Too many people have already suffered the adverse effects of PFAS exposure, and this standard protects more Americans from being poisoned,” Dingell said. “The EPA has said it will maintain the standard for two of the most toxic chemicals, but reconsider four others, which will enable harmful PFAS contamination to continue to spread. We must ensure we have the strongest standards possible to combat forever chemicals.”
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