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Posted by enraged_camel 9/14/2025

EPA Seeks to Eliminate Critical PFAS Drinking Water Protections(earthjustice.org)
387 points | 473 commentspage 2
gigatexal 9/14/2025|
This administration can’t end soon enough.
rajup 9/14/2025||
Do RO filters eliminate these chemicals?
llm_nerd 9/14/2025||
They do, but the vast majority of fluids the average person consumes comes in products made elsewhere, along with restaurants, etc. So you can RO your home water, but unless you don't eat anything made elsewhere, water your own crops, etc, you need comprehensive protections to avoid them.
Havoc 9/14/2025||
Bit of research suggests even counter top filters help, though with very wide range of opinions as to how much it helps and which PFAS it does work against (there are thousands)

https://www.epa.gov/water-research/identifying-drinking-wate...

cprayingmantis 9/14/2025||
Are there any labs in the US that a regular joe could use to get their water tested? I’ve got quite a few properties with natural springs and I can send the water to get tested for bacteria and mineral content but I don’t know of anywhere that tests for PFAS.
estebarb 9/14/2025||
I understand that these dumb decisions are mostly profit motivated. But nobody stops to think that the reaction abroad may be: do not eat anything produced at USA?
Insanity 9/14/2025||
In EU we by and large don’t eat what America produces though. The same products like Doritos etc will have different ingredients in EU compared to US.

US typically gets the cheaper and worse option (less safe). Same for American coke w/ Cane Sugar instead of actual sugar.

Americans will regularly consume chemicals that are potentially carcinogenic and banned in EU.

EDIT: I meant high fructose corn syrup, not cane sugar. My bad!

Workaccount2 9/14/2025|||
Cane sugar and corn syrup are both just sugar. Your health isn't going to be any better drinking cane sugar coke than corn syrup coke.

The reason corn syrup is demonized is because it is cheap, enabling lots of foods to pack sugar without much cost. The health concerns remain consistent across all forms of sugar.

traceroute66 9/14/2025|||
> The reason corn syrup is demonized is because it is cheap, enabling lots of foods to pack sugar without much cost.

This !

The OP made a bad point using coke as an example.

The actual point is the HFCS and the fact that HFCS is used extensively in the US, often in places you would not expect it.

In bread products for example its common to find HFCS in it in the US.

The Europeans rarely put any form of sugar in their bread doughs unless they are explicitly baking a sweet product. And even then, the concentration is lower.

throwaway5752 9/14/2025||||
Incorrect. There is more fructose in HFCS used in Coke, HFCS 55. Fructose is metabolized in the liver, and stored as fat there. Glucose is directly metabolized by cells throughout the body.

Also there is no single reason that HFCS is demonized, there are multiple good reasons why it is harmful in the US. It is also not a singular cause to all US diet related pathologies.

Staying on topic, the chemicals the EPA will no longer enforce the laws for pollution for are demonstrably harmful.

The EPA has unilaterally decided not to do its job because it doesn't care about the health of the citizens of the US.

MaxRegret 9/14/2025|||
It turns out the acidic environment in most beverages inverts the sucrose in cane sugar to form a 50:50 mix of fructose and glucose. In the end, the fructose/glucose ratio in cane-sugar-sweetened drinks becomes similar to high-fructose corn syrup, which is about 55:42. And the reaction is quick: about half the sucrose gets inverted in about three weeks. [1]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NY66qpMFOYo

Workaccount2 9/14/2025|||
Corn syrup is 55% fructose and sugar is 50%. Functionally they are the same.

Even if coke was made with organic wild honey, it would still be awful for you.

amluto 9/14/2025|||
You can go to the EU and generally find things like unsweetened granola. In the US these products basically don’t exist.
Implicated 9/14/2025||||
> Same for American coke w/ Cane Sugar instead of actual sugar.

I think you meant high fructose corn syrup instead of cane sugar (which is real sugar)

vixen99 9/14/2025|||
Exactly. To remind us - it's the fructose which is a metabolic problem in amounts over a certain value - worth checking out why. Cane sugar and beet sugar both contain sucrose which is one glucose linked to one fructose molecule so you get half the fructose.
SpicyLemonZest 9/14/2025|||
You don’t get half because nobody’s sweetening things with 100% fructose. The most common HFCS compositions are 42% and 55% fructose.
Insanity 9/14/2025|||
Woops, my bad, you are right!
natebc 9/14/2025||||
> Same for American coke w/ Cane Sugar instead of actual sugar.

American Coke is sweetened with Corn Syrup. Maybe it's just me being a dumb American probably fooled by some green washing but isn't Cane Sugar better? What's "actual sugar" in the EU?

DoctorOetker 9/14/2025|||
no opinion on the rest, but at least in western europe, "normal" white sugar derives from sugar beets.
Insanity 9/14/2025||
Yeah, beet sugar is the “standard” to me. That said I meant to say “high fructose corn syrup” in my original post.
natebc 9/14/2025||
Ah, my only experience with sugar beets is in Farming Simulator! Thanks for the detail!
supportengineer 9/14/2025||||
I think they meant to say corn syrup.
joemaniaci 9/14/2025|||
Fun fact: high fructose corn syrup has almost the same sugar content as honey.
traceroute66 9/14/2025||||
> In EU we by and large don’t eat what America produces though.

The trouble is you do still find US products, and they should be avoided like the plague.

US-grown nuts for example. Pesticides galore.....

Insanity 9/14/2025||
That’s fair, but alternatives are usually pretty easy to find.
PartiallyTyped 9/14/2025||||
Doritos even have different ingredients between EU countries.

I have tested this in Denmark, Poland, Cyprus, Ireland and Germany.

randycupertino 9/14/2025|||
That's pretty interesting. Were there different flavors in each country as well? My friend brought me some paprika pringles from iceland and they were delicious. So good that we ordered them online but the online versions shipped terribly and were delivered as pringles dust. I used it to bread chicken which still was pretty good. But if you are in iceland get the paprika pringles!
ReptileMan 9/14/2025|||
That is mostly because the same brand made for Eastern europe tastes like shit compared to the stuff for western. Worst offenders are nutella and coca cola. but there are many others.
PartiallyTyped 9/14/2025||
Indeed, Doritos in Poland tasted garbage compared to those in Denmark, Ireland, and Germany.
joemaniaci 9/14/2025||||
I'm American and I've decided at least with cookware that I'm only buying European made products. I don't have a choice with ingredients but at least I can buy European pots and pans knowing it's more regulated.
throw-qqqqq 9/14/2025||||
> US typically gets the cheaper and worse option (less safe)

Yes. EU has the precautionary principle: you may market the product after documenting its safety. In the US, it’s often the other way around: you can market the product unless/until someone can show it to be unsafe.

This is often a point of conflict e.g. when negotiating free trade agreements between US and EU, as the US often sees this as a technical barrier to trade and protectionism.

scarface_74 9/14/2025||||
I was with you until you said cane sugar vs corn syrup. What do you think the actual benefits or drawbacks of one over the other is?
recursive 9/14/2025|||
Where does actual sugar come from?
Implicated 9/14/2025|||
Def not sugar canes :D
overfeed 9/14/2025|||
Perhaps they are strictly traditionalist and only accept beet sugar, and none of that new-world cane stuff that doesn't grow well in European climes ./s

In all likelihood, they meant to say corn syrup.

sedawkgrep 9/14/2025|||
If you view all this through the lens of the goal of administration being to weaken the US both internally and as a world power, it all comes much more clearly into focus.

Then it can be seen as no longer a disparate collection of seemingly random political, social, and economic moves, but rather as a directed, intentional movement.

forgotoldacc 9/14/2025|||
I'm an American who's been living outside the US for a very long time. I always check where food is from at the grocery store before I buy it. Whenever possible, the US is one of a few countries where I avoid almost all ingredients. When it comes to meat, it's a 100% absolute refusal to purchase. The quality is so different that the taste is immediately obvious, and it's not good.
hedora 9/14/2025||
Yeah, but we’re doing great at avoiding mad cow disease recalls.

Every time a sample comes up positive, we cut the sample percentage by an order of magnitude.

Problem solved.

See also: Tainted meat from Boar’s Head.

We also have the “nitrate free” and “uncured” labels, which means the nitrate (pink curing salt) is called “celery salt” in the ingredient list, and the manufacturer is exempt from federal caps on the amount they added. (Celery salt is the same exact chemical, but with a different production process.)

cluckindan 9/14/2025|||
That is already a prevailing opinion
Krssst 9/14/2025|||
They can force foreign countries into importing by threatening tariffs. Though I guess they cannot force-feed it to international consumers in the end.
nielsbot 9/14/2025||
I think there’s a deep fundamental psychosis of the right wing to get the world back to “survival of the fittest”. If you die of PFAs, poverty, other pollution, well then that’s just bad luck for you.

They just don’t believe in a society that cares for the weak and needy.

locococo 9/14/2025|||
Survival of the fittest should apply to businesses above anything. If a business can't handle the regulations to not pollute water then it's a clear cut case.

This is all the symptom of laziness of the mind. There is resistance to change, adapt and make the world a better place not just for this, but future generations.

There is no leadership in the US, no vision, no drive. The excessive wealth has created a leading class that happily rests on the laurels of prior generations while squandering the future.

This problem extends to all citizens, beyond the weak and needy, and permeates all levels of government from small to big.

I live in one of the best school districts in the US, and when I see the food the children are served I am surprised this is acceptable.

But this is what the US is, extract as much money from people while providing sub standard service. All in-the name of the free market and shareholder value.

People are an exploitable reaource.

nielsbot 9/14/2025||
> Survival of the fittest should apply to businesses above anything. If a business can't handle the regulations to not pollute water then it's a clear cut case.

See, there you go again, over regulating free enterprise out of existence. /s

To the main point—I guess we agree. Also: the right wing political movement in the US is an amalgam of conservative religiosity and (MFing) libertarianism. It’s frantic and fear-driven.

hollerith 9/14/2025|||
>They just don’t believe in a society that cares for the weak and needy.

There is some truth to that, but I don't think that explains their position on PFAS because too much PFAS will disable even a strong healthy person. In this particular, it's more that they think that the harm is being exaggerated and that the actual, non-exaggerated degree of harm does not justify putting restrictions on business and commerce.

shigawire 9/14/2025||
>that they think that the harm is being exaggerated and that the actual, non-exaggerated degree of harm does not justify putting restrictions on business and commerce

I struggle to find a topic where they don't think this. It seems the burden of "proof" is too high. They don't believe in risks to health, the environment, climate, or even functional democracy itself. They think all are fake and profit is more important.

hollerith 9/14/2025|||
What you say is true in general, but there are execeptions: for example, the Republicans judge the harm done by heroin, fentanyl, amphetamine and cocaine to be very high -- probably higher than the average estimate of the harm as judged by the Democrats. Ditto street crime.
nielsbot 9/14/2025||
My understanding (without data, sorry) is that the conservative position blames drug addiction on bad choices and evil, rather than circumstances. As well the focus is on authoritarian policing as opposed to “harm reduction”.

These are generalities, sure

SantalBlush 9/14/2025|||
They will think this right up until these things affect them or their community. Then it will be someone else's fault--someone outside of their tribe--that it happened.
cryptonector 9/14/2025||
This is what the EPA says in their filing:

> Now, after further reviewing the statute pursuant to a publicly announced reconsideration process, EPA agrees with petitioners that parts of the rulemaking process were unlawful and parts of the Rule are thus invalid.

This does NOT preclude lawfully making the same ruling later. It also does mean that Zeldin thinks we shouldn't reduce PFAS in our water.

It does mean that:

- had the EPA held to its previous position the court could have found the rulemaking process illegal and forced the EPA to start over

- the EPA retains the ability to restart this rulemaking and this time comply with the applicable acts of Congress.

TFA says:

> Separately, EPA previously announced that it will seek to extend the compliance deadline for PFOA and PFOS standards by two years from 2029 to 2031.

Well, yes hello!! Take these two bits of news in combination and what do we have? We have this:

- the EPA concedes that the previous rulemaking was illegal

- the EPA indicates that it wants to restart the process and get to roughly the same rules with compliance deadlines in 2031, and this delay is presumptively due of the delay in rulemaking due to the previous rulemaking process having been illegal.

And TFA and the commenters here are all screaming their heads off that Zeldin (and Trump) are trying to kill us all or something.

Maybe look at the details first? TFA certainly doesn't mention the details! After a fairly obscure first two paragraphs it launches into a diatribe.

Fortunately TFA did link the EPA filing, and the very first paragraph of that filing tells us the first half of the story: that the Biden EPA did not follow lawful process. Surely one could debate the lawfulness of the process followed by the Biden EPA, but if the court was on its way to ruling as much then the EPA getting ahead of it was a good thing. The second part of the story is less* clear from just TFA and this filing, but TFA gives us a clue that the EPA apparently intends to restart the rulemaking process, which presumably will lead to roughly the same rules.

coolhand2120 9/14/2025|
I'm not at all surprised that the majority of top level comments are saying things in the spirit of "Trump is trying to kill us to make money!" when if you were following along this _multi decade long regulatory battle_, and knew about the not-so-recent Chevron Deference rulings you could have predicted this. You wouldn't even need to leave HN to keep up, it gets posted here all the time!

And these comments have an air of erudite smugness about them that can only come from a person completely without doubt of their convictions - even while being completely devoid of any value to the conversation.

The title is at best hyperbolic and at worse at outright lie - in any case the pattern of the title was intended to stoke whatever mental illness we see at play here: "I speculate endlessly on my own world view to the theme of the article title so I can signal to my peers that I'm doing righthink.".

But this is what makes the article get engagement, so to hell with communicating ideas, let's stoke division and get those clicks!

cryptonector 9/15/2025||
This isn't about Chevron deference. This is about the APA.
trimethylpurine 9/14/2025||
For those looking for the rest / other side of the story: the Trump EPA is actually the same EPA that established these PFAS rules to begin with. Municipal water associations have pushed back because they need more time to comply with some of the rules. EPA is responding to that, still adding additional requirements, but giving more time to comply with others.

https://www.awwa.org/AWWA-Articles/epa-announces-changes-to-...

insane_dreamer 9/14/2025||
Looks like the EPA is now determined to protect corporations instead of protecting citizens.
blurbleblurble 9/14/2025||
This is absolutely outrageous
deadbabe 9/14/2025|
How can you measure the amount of PFAS in your body?
dvrj101 9/14/2025|
can you, do your own homework like just a google search ?
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