The Trump administration has trumpeted its intent to “Make America Healthy Again,” but a recent decision to roll back regulations on so-called forever chemicals could upend that goal.
Forever chemicals, which take hundreds or thousands of years to break down in the environment, are a family of as many as 15,000 human-made chemicals that have become pervasive in U.S. tap water — as well as in human beings.
A U.S. Geological Survey assessment found that these compounds, also called PFAS, are present in the drinking water ingested by about 45% of Americans.
A U.S. Geological Survey assessment found that these compounds, also called PFAS, are present in the drinking water ingested by about 45% of Americans, while the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that they’re in the bloodstream of virtually every American. PFAS are found in household items such as nonstick pans, waterproof apparel and cosmetics, as well as in certain firefighting foams.
Many of these compounds have also been linked to adverse health effects including kidney cancer and testicular cancer, as well as other issues related to the thyroid, the immune system and fertility. And as more research is done, more links are emerging, with connections to new diseases surfacing at a rapid pace.
If the Trump administration truly wants to make good on its MAHA promises, this is certainly a place to start. In 2024, President Joe Biden’s Environmental Protection Agency set limits for the first time on six types of forever chemicals, restricting their prevalence in drinking water. If utilities detected these compounds above the designated thresholds, the Biden-era rule required that they filter them out by 2029.
But now, the Trump administration is watering down these policies. The EPA recently said it plans to “rescind” and “reconsider” limits on four of the six PFAS covered by the Biden-era rule. For the other two forever chemicals, companies now have until 2031 to eliminate them from the drinking supply.
It’s certainly possible EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin will put in place new restrictions on these chemicals. And in the meantime, at least some of the drinking water systems contaminated with those four PFAS will also have enough of the other two to qualify for filtration. However, for now, it’s a bit unclear what the ultimate fate of these four chemicals in U.S. drinking water will be. It’s also not clear when any such limits would actually take effect.
So far, Zeldin has been an outspoken opponent of regulations of all kinds, launching the “biggest deregulatory action in U.S. history” back in March.
Meanwhile, Zeldin’s fellow Cabinet member Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. says he sees “health, liberty, and environmental integrity as cornerstones of a thriving nation.” Although Kennedy — now secretary of Health and Human Services — is well-known for his decades-long distrust of vaccines, he’s also a staunch advocate for minimizing the proliferation of hazardous chemicals like PFAS.
After he first endorsed Trump’s campaign, Kennedy suggested in a Wall Street Journal op-ed that a potential Trump administration could “revisit pesticide and other chemical-use standards.” Kennedy wrote that as of 2019, the U.S. still allowed 72 pesticides banned by the European Union. Trump himself has also adopted the MAHA slogan, frequently touting his intention to improve the health of Americans.
On the one hand, the Trump administration recently announced intentions to address forever chemicals in a way that could go beyond the actions taken by the Biden administration.
Today, the Trump administration is currently straddling the divide between the burgeoning MAHA movement and its traditional big business allies.
On the one hand, the Trump administration recently announced intentions to address forever chemicals in a way that could go beyond the actions taken by the Biden administration — by potentially setting discharge limits on how much PFAS manufacturers can actually release into the environment.
But at the same time, many officials with chemical industry ties have been given major roles at the EPA, and the agency has rescinded a portion of the drinking water regulations and said that it plans to roll back regulations on other toxic chemicals. While the impacts of PFAS contamination are ubiquitous — they pose a potential threat to every single American — among the most affected communities are those that live downstream from industrial or military discharges. In El Paso County, Colorado, south of Colorado Springs, veterans are coping with decades of contamination linked to firefighting foam released from Peterson Space Force Base and other area installations. One such veteran is Steve Patterson, who in our new book detailed a childhood spent drinking contaminated water and an adulthood tainted by battles with cancer. Patterson and his cousin Mark Favors count about two dozen local relatives — many not related by blood — who they claim have endured serious illnesses they attribute to PFAS exposure. “Most of them survived either Korea, Vietnam, or Iraq, and they’re now in a military cemetery — not for combat wounds but for being poisoned by the military,” Favors said. The current political climate can feel hopelessly partisan, but previous calls to protect the public from PFAS pollution have garnered bipartisan support. And there may still be room for a bipartisan approach to this crisis. Despite Zeldin’s broader anti-regulatory stance, he has past experience working on water quality. He also hails from Long Island, a region rife with PFAS and whose resources he has previously vowed to protect. “Quite frankly, there’s a possibility that at the end of this process, a new number could be lower, it could be higher,” Zeldin said at a news conference last month. “What we want to do is follow the science — period.” Whether he decides to regulate these substances could be pivotal for the health of communities whose water contains them. Because when it comes to forever chemicals, the science is unfortunately depressingly clear.
Rachel Frazin and Sharon Udasin
Rachel Frazin and Sharon Udasin are environmental reporters for The Hill. They are the co-authors of the new book "Poisoning the Well: How Forever Chemicals Contaminated America" (Island Press, 2025). 
