"Less than three months ago, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) official Jess Kramer outlined a series of promises dubbed “PFAS OUT,” aimed at eliminating a family of toxic compounds from drinking water, and touted the Trump administration’s wider commitments to protecting Americans from contamination by the chemicals.
In a May 18 press conference, Kramer, who serves as the EPA’s assistant administrator for water, spoke alongside EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, about a range of actions aimed at tackling per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) across the “full life cycle” of the chemicals. Zeldin noted that PFAS are linked to serious health effects, and said that addressing PFAS contamination is “essential to making America healthy again.”
The Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement, led by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is anchored in limiting the use of harmful toxic chemicals and pesticides. Multiple agencies have invoked MAHA goals since Trump took office.
But despite embracing the rhetoric of MAHA — the Trump administration’s regulatory rollbacks and approval of new types of PFAS signal what observers see as a sharp contradiction: promises to reduce exposure to the so-called “forever chemicals,” followed by policies that increase the risks of exposure for millions of Americans."
