Trump EPA won't limit 2 toxic chemicals in drinking water

By ANNIE SNIDER
01/28/2019

The Trump administration will not set a drinking water limit for two toxic chemicals that are contaminating millions of Americans' tap water, two sources familiar with the forthcoming decision told POLITICO.

The expected move is yet another sign of the administration's reluctance to aggressively deal with the chemicals, which have been used for decades in products such as Teflon-coated cookware and military firefighting foam and are present in the bloodstreams of an estimated 98 percent of Americans. And it comes less than a year after the White House and the Environmental Protection Agency faced criticism for delaying publication of a health study on the chemicals, which a White House aide had warned could trigger a "public relations nightmare."

EPA's decision means the chemicals will remain unregulated under the Safe Drinking Water Act, according to sources familiar with a still-unreleased draft plan that acting administrator Andrew Wheeler signed off on in late December. That means utilities will face no federal requirements for testing for and removing the chemicals from drinking water supplies, although several states have pursued or are pursuing their own limits.

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The chemicals, known as PFOA and PFOS, have been linked to kidney and testicular cancer, hypertension and other ailments. Major chemical companies like 3M as well as the Defense Department would face billions of dollars in liability from aggressive efforts to regulate and clean up the chemical, which has contaminated groundwater near hundreds of military bases and chemical plants.

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During his confirmation hearing earlier this month, Wheeler told the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee that the plan had initially been scheduled for release in late January — but he refused to promise that it would set a drinking water standard for the chemical.

"I cannot make that commitment," Wheeler told Democratic Sen. Tom Carper of Delaware.

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Federal scientists last summer concluded that PFOA and PFOS pose dangers at extremely low concentrations in a health assessment that POLITICO reported Trump administration officials initially sought to block.

EPA-mandated testing has found the chemicals at unsafe levels in at least 16 million Americans' tap water, but activists say the problem is even more widespread.

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A number of the political appointees at EPA come from industry backgrounds, including the No. 2 political official in the chemical safety office, who previously worked for the chemical industry's main lobbying group. The No. 2 official in the agency's Office of Research and Development came to the agency last fall from Koch Industries.

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Internal emails show that Pentagon officials last year raised alarm with the White House over a draft study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that found the chemicals cause harm at far lower levels than EPA had said were safe. And POLITICO reported earlier this month that the Defense Department sought to hire a scientist with a reputation for downplaying chemicals' risks to work on PFOA and PFOS, even though his prior work on the chemicals was so controversial that even Republicans had opposed his nomination for an EPA post.