Federal agencies are dragging their feet—or even walking backwards—on PFAS “forever chemicals” in drinking water and food, leaving consumers to wonder why clean water and safe meals are still negotiable. Action Alert!
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THE TOPLINE
- EPA is proposing to delay compliance with drinking-water limits for PFOA and PFOS while rescinding rules for several other PFAS chemicals.
- FDA faces a June 30, 2026 deadline to respond to a petition seeking enforceable PFAS limits in certain foods.
- ANH-USA is calling for real protections, not more agency delay, weak guidance, or voluntary action.
PFAS “forever chemicals” are already in our water, food, soil, and bodies. For parents mixing infant formula, families pouring a glass of tap water, or anyone trying to make healthy choices at the grocery store, this is not an abstract regulatory debate. It is the quiet fear that the basic things we rely on every day may be carrying contaminants we cannot see, taste, or easily avoid.
Yet the federal response is starting to look less like a public-health emergency plan and more like an exercise in delay, deflection, and regulatory retreat.
Two federal agencies are now at the center of the PFAS fight. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is proposing to delay or roll back parts of the first national PFAS drinking-water protections. Meanwhile, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is under a court-imposed deadline to finally respond to a citizen petition asking for enforceable PFAS limits in certain foods.
For consumers, the message is simple: clean water and safe food cannot wait.
EPA Wants More Time for Water Systems and Fewer PFAS Covered
On May 18, 2026, EPA announced a proposed rule that would keep federal drinking-water limits for PFOA and PFOS, two of the most studied PFAS chemicals, but allow eligible water systems up to two additional years, until 2031, to comply with those enforceable limits. EPA says the extension is meant to address practical implementation challenges for water systems, including testing, treatment, construction, financing, and staffing.
EPA is also proposing to rescind regulatory determinations and drinking-water rules for PFHxS, PFNA, HFPO-DA/GenX chemicals, and Hazard Index mixtures involving several PFAS. EPA says this rescission is about correcting an allegedly flawed legal process under the Safe Drinking Water Act, not about abandoning future regulation.
We must not let these actions become an excuse for narrowing protections and endangering the public’s health to protect industry interests.
The Public Is Still Drinking the Problem
The threat from forever chemicals is very real. The U.S. Geological Survey estimated in 2023 that at least 45 percent of U.S. tap water could contain one or more PFAS. The study tested for 32 PFAS, even though thousands of PFAS exist.
EPA itself says many PFAS break down very slowly and can build up in people, animals, and the environment. EPA also recognizes food, drinking water, dust, soil, household products, food packaging, and biosolids as exposure pathways. Peer-reviewed studies, according to EPA, have linked certain PFAS exposures to reproductive effects, developmental effects, increased risk of some cancers, immune effects, hormone disruption, and cholesterol changes.
This is exactly why a narrow chemical-by-chemical approach is inadequate. Consumers are not exposed to one PFAS in one tidy regulatory box. They may be exposed through drinking water, food, cookware, packaging, dust, and contaminated soil. A public-health response should reflect that reality.
FDA Is Still Treating PFAS in Food as a Future Priority
FDA’s own PFAS page acknowledges that PFAS in the environment can enter the food supply through crops and animals grown, raised, or processed in contaminated areas. FDA says it has tested more than 1,900 food samples since 2019, provided technical assistance to states, and taken some action on PFAS in food packaging. It also says it is considering future risk-management actions for bottled water, seafood, and infant formula, including allowable levels or action levels.
That sounds active. But it is not enough.
An October 2023 citizen petition asked FDA to establish enforceable temporary tolerances for 26 or 30 PFAS in or on foods such as lettuce, blueberries, bread, milk, eggs, salmon, clams, corn silage, and corn snaplage (an animal feed). The petitioners argued that FDA’s case-by-case approach leaves consumers without meaningful protection. The petition also argued that environmental PFAS contamination can transfer into foods through contaminated water, soil, air, crops, livestock, and other pathways.
After litigation, a federal court in Arizona gave FDA until June 30, 2026, to issue a final response to the petition.
Action Levels Are Not Enough
The FDA’s likely escape hatch is familiar: more study, more monitoring, more “future risk management,” and perhaps nonbinding action levels—not enforceable protection.
The petition’s core argument is that enforceable limits are needed so contaminated foods above those limits can be kept off the market. Consumers should not have to rely on agency discretion after contamination has already occurred.
The public should not have to wait for another round of agency “prioritization” while infants, pregnant women, and families continue to face avoidable exposures.
The Bigger Picture: Two Agencies, One Pattern
EPA is asking for more time and proposing to remove several PFAS from current drinking-water rules. FDA is under court pressure to answer a food petition it has had since 2023.
Together, these moves reveal the deeper problem: federal agencies are managing PFAS as a regulatory inconvenience rather than a toxic-exposure crisis.
Industry will argue that compliance is expensive. Water systems will argue that treatment takes time. Food producers will worry about testing, supply chains, and liability. Some of those concerns are real. But the answer cannot be to keep the public exposed while agencies reopen, delay, narrow, or soften protections.
A serious response would include enforceable limits, transparent testing, public notice, accountability for polluters, support for small and rural water systems, and a clear plan to phase out nonessential PFAS uses while protecting genuinely critical applications.
What ANH-USA Is Watching
ANH will be submitting comments to the EPA urging the agency not to weaken drinking-water protections or allow implementation delays to become prolonged exposure windows. If extensions are granted, affected consumers deserve clear notice, transparent PFAS testing data, and short-term mitigation. Those who wish to comment on the rule can do so here.
Forever chemicals should not be met with forever delays. Americans deserve clean water, safe food, and agencies willing to put the health of the American people ahead of bureaucratic convenience and industry pressure.
Action Alert!
