The EPA Knows PFAS Is Everywhere and Is Doing Less

The Chemical That Outlasts Everything, Including Accountability

There is a version of the PFAS story that ends with regulation catching up to science. The EPA finally sets drinking water limits in 2024, the FDA flags contaminated cosmetics, and the slow machinery of public health protection starts turning. That version lasted about twelve months.

As Neeta argues in this episode of Good Revenue, the more disturbing story is not that forever chemicals are everywhere. It is that the institutions designed to limit them have spent the past year systematically stepping back from the fight.

What Makes PFAS So Persistent

PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, owe their ubiquity to chemistry. The carbon-fluorine bond at their core is exceptionally strong, which is exactly what makes them useful for waterproofing, stain resistance, and non-stick coatings. It is also what makes them essentially impossible to break down in the environment or in the human body. There are over 10,000 compounds in the PFAS family. Some of the most recognizable include PFOA, PFOS, and PTFE, the compound marketed as Teflon.

Documents from the 1970s through the 1990s show that major manufacturers, including 3M and DuPont, understood the toxicity of these compounds and did not share that understanding with regulators or the public. In 2023, the World Health Organization classified several PFAS types as carcinogens, linking them to cancer, thyroid disease, obesity, and birth defects.

The contamination is not theoretical or remote. It shows up in rain, soil, rivers, and human bloodstreams across the planet.

Five Places PFAS Turned Up This Week

Neeta walks through five examples that illustrate just how broadly exposure has spread.

A December 2025 FDA study found PFAS in 1,744 cosmetic products, across 51 distinct chemical compounds, most commonly in eye makeup, foundation, and facial lotions. Teflon alone appeared in nearly one in three PFAS-positive products. No federal ban exists. Labels are required to be accurate, but disclosure of PFAS presence is not mandatory, which means the identification work falls to consumers.

On drinking water, the EPA's April 2024 limits for six PFAS chemicals represented a long-delayed step forward. By May 2025, four of those six had been quietly dropped and the compliance deadline pushed to 2031. Contamination maps show the problem concentrated in the eastern United States but present in virtually every state.

Private wells complicate matters further. Forty million Americans rely on them, and they sit outside EPA regulatory authority entirely. Scientists estimate that up to half of US households could have PFAS contamination in their water. Families who find contamination face bottled water costs and medical uncertainty, with no clear framework for who is responsible for cleanup.

In the Southeast, decades of carpet and textile manufacturing have left PFAS compounds leaching into rivers and drinking water supplies, particularly in Georgia. The liability question extends beyond 3M and DuPont to the manufacturers who used their products and the retailers who sold stain-resistant carpets to consumers.

Perhaps the most troubling example involves wildfire firefighters. The US Forest Service reportedly knew since 2021 that protective gear worn by firefighters contained PFAS and involved direct skin contact. That information was not shared with the workers. People already managing the occupational health risks of standing in smoke for weeks were carrying an undisclosed additional exposure.

The Regulatory Retreat, Step by Step

The pattern across 2025 is not ambiguous. The EPA delayed release of a decade's worth of data on PFAS health effects. It dropped four chemicals from its drinking water limits. By September, only two PFAS compounds were designated hazardous under the federal cleanup statute. In November, reporting requirements were eased for smaller entities, reducing the data flow that scientists and advocates depend on to track where contamination is spreading and who is responsible.

Neeta's argument is that this is not a series of isolated policy adjustments. It is a consistent directional choice to reduce corporate accountability and shift the burden of detection, remediation, and health management onto individuals.

What It Means Going Forward

PFAS will remain in soil, water, and bodies for generations regardless of what happens next in Washington. The question is whether exposure continues to grow unchecked, or whether the regulatory framework that briefly looked like it was maturing gets rebuilt.

For now, the practical reality is that consumers are left to audit their own cosmetics, test their own wells, and navigate their own health care without the institutional support that is supposed to exist for exactly this kind of problem. That is an unusual place to be for a contamination issue that spans nearly every corner of daily life, and it is a question that the economics of cleanup, liability, and long-term public health costs will eventually force back onto the policy agenda, whether or not regulators are ready for it.