Newsweek, October 2025
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is looking to roll back regulatory standards for three types of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, also known as PFAS chemicals, in drinking water systems. This comes despite a series of releases of EPA data revealing that millions of Americans are currently drinking water contaminated with the chemicals.
“I am very concerned, as are all the scientists and affected residents whom my colleagues and I speak with all the time,” Phil Brown, the director of the Social Science Environmental Health Research Institute at Northeastern University, told Newsweek. He added that the regulations for these PFAS chemicals were “years in the making, and took much effort from people across the many involved communities.”
An EPA spokesperson told Newsweek that the agency was “committed to addressing PFAS to ensure that Americans have the cleanest air, land, and water. The EPA’s progress on PFAS started under the first Trump Administration, and that historic work is continuing today.”
