USA Trends and Developments Contributed by: Matthew K. Edling, Sher Edling
knowledge that 1,4-dioxane was harmful and “would inevitably reach surface water and groundwater in substantial quantities, significantly pollute drinking water supplies, render drinking water unusable and unsafe, threaten the public health and welfare, and harm other natural resources, as it has done with respect to the water resources in New Jersey.” New Jersey prevailed on its motion to remand its case, so pending motions to dismiss will be heard in state court. In addition to the Suffolk County Water Authority and the State of New Jersey, 29 individual public water providers have brought similar cases for 1,4-dioxane contamination of water supplies in New Jersey and New York. Regulatory developments to watch In May 2025, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced that the agency will keep the Maximum Contaminant Levels (MCL) for both PFOA and PFOS that were estab- lished by an April 2024 final rule under the National Primary Drinking Water Regulations (NPDWR). The rule established an MCL of 4.0 parts per trillion for both PFOA and PFAS. The May 2025 announcement also included an extension of the compliance dead- line for water providers to meet that MCL, moving the date back from 2029 to 2031. In the announcement, Administrator Zeldin stated: “The work to protect Americans from PFAS in drinking water started under the first Trump Administration and will continue under my leadership. We are on a path to uphold the agency’s nationwide standards to protect Americans from PFOA and PFOS in their water. At the same time, we will work to provide common-sense flexibility in the form of additional time for compliance. This will support water systems across the country, including small systems in rural communities, as they work to address these contaminants. EPA will also continue to use its regulatory and enforcement tools to hold polluters accountable.” In that same May 2025 announcement, EPA addressed several other PFAS compounds, stating its intent to “rescind the regulations and reconsider the regulatory determinations for PFHxS, PFNA, HFPO-DA (com- monly known as GenX), and the Hazard Index mixture of these three PFAS plus PFBS to ensure the deter-
minations and any resulting drinking water regulation follow the Safe Drinking Water Act process.” In September 2025, EPA proposed a revision to the process for conducting risk evaluations for chemicals already in commerce under the Toxic Substances Con- trol Act (TSCA). The proposed rule seeks to amend a 2024 regulation titled Procedures for Chemical Risk Evaluation under TSCA (the “2024 Risk Evaluation Framework Rule”). The proposed changes include the following. • A requirement for EPA to make a determination of unreasonable risk for each of the conditions of use within the scope of the chemical’s risk evaluation, instead of a single risk determination on the chemi- cal substance as a whole. • Clarifications as to how EPA will consider occu- pational exposure controls such as personal protective equipment and industrial controls when conducting risk evaluations and making risk deter- minations. • Clarifications regarding EPA’s discretionary author- ity to determine which conditions of use, exposure routes and exposure pathways it will consider in a risk evaluation. • Revisions to certain regulatory definitions to ensure consistency with Executive Order 14303 Restoring Gold Standard Science and to ensure transparency and accountability in conducting risk evaluations. • Revisions to the procedures and requirements EPA would follow when revising or supplementing risk evaluation documents to better enable EPA to meet the statutory deadlines to assess and manage risk. • Adjustments to the process and information col- lection obligations for manufacturers (including importers) for requesting an agency-conducted TSCA risk evaluation. At the time of publication of this chapter of the guide (27 November 2025), the proposed changes to the TSCA risk evaluation framework were open to public comment, and more action on this front is expected in 2026. All these regulatory developments are evolving rapidly and will likely impact the way litigators navi- gate the complexities of forever chemicals and drink- ing water in the days ahead.
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