*>EPA

United States
Environmental Protection
Agency

EPA's PFAS Strategic Roadmap:
A Year of Progress

November 2022

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Introduction

Harmful per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS)
are an urgent public health and environmental issue
facing communities across the United States. In
April 2021, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) Administrator Michael S. Regan created
the EPA Council on PFAS and charged it with
developing a coordinated strategy to protect human
health and the environment from PFAS.

In October 2021, EPA released its PFAS Strategic
Roadmap, which highlights concrete actions the
Agency will take across a range of environmental
media and EPA program offices to protect people
and the environment from PFAS contamination. The
Roadmap included target dates to achieve each
milestone and is guided by three primary goals:
Research. Investing in research, development,
and innovation to increase the understanding
of PFAS exposures and toxicities, human
health and ecological effects, and effective
interventions that incorporate the best-available
science.

Restrict. Pursuing a comprehensive approach
to proactively prevent PFAS from entering air,
land, and water at levels that can adversely
impact human health and the environment.

Remediate. Broadening and accelerating the
cleanup of PFAS contamination to protect
human health and ecological systems.

In this progress report, EPA summarizes the critical
actions the Agency has taken over the past year to
advance progress toward these goals. In addition,
this document highlights milestones EPA will
achieve in the near future. Since the Roadmap's
release in October 2021, EPA has taken a number of
key actions:

•	Proposed to designate two PFAS as CERCLA
hazardous substances. If finalized, this will be
a critical step toward increasing transparency
around releases of PFAS and holding polluters
accountable for cleaning up their contamination.

•	Released drinking water health advisories.

Acting in accordance with EPA's mission to
protect public health and keep communities and
public health authorities informed when new
science becomes available, the Agency issued
drinking water health advisories for four PFAS.

•	Laid the foundation for enhancing data on
PFAS. This included an order under EPA's
National PFAS Testing Strategy requiring
companies to conduct PFAS testing, and
nationwide sampling for 29 PFAS in drinking
water starting in 2023.

•	Began distributing $10 billion in funding
to address emerging contaminants under
the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL).

EPA is making transformational investments
in cleaning up PFAS and other emerging
contaminants in water, especially in small or
disadvantaged communities.

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•	Expanded the scientific understanding

of PFAS. The Agency issued more than 30
scientific publications by EPA researchers
and released EPA's PFAS Thermal Treatment
Database.

•	Translated the latest science into EPA's
cross-agency PFAS efforts. This included
updating EPA's contaminated site cleanup
tables, developing new PFAS methods and
conducting toxicity assessments, and issuing
draft national recommended water quality
criteria to protect aquatic life.

•	Engaged with the public. EPA's PFAS work
was informed by public webinars, stakeholder
meetings, Congressional testimony, and
engagement with EPA's federal advisory
committees.

EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan announces the
PFAS Strategic Roadrnap on October 18, 2021 at North
Carolina State University in Raleigh, NC.

EPA is committed to leveraging the full range
of statutory authorities to make progress on
PFAS. President Biden's Fiscal Year 2023 budget
proposes an increase of $51 million for EPA's PFAS
work, which would provide needed resources for
continuing to meet EPA's Roadmap commitments.
Critical efforts to get upstream of the PFAS
problem —such as ensuring robust chemical reviews
under the Toxic Substances Control Act and moving
forward with several critical rulemakings under the
Clean Water Act —depend upon the availability of
these resources.

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Key Accomplishments

EPA's PFAS Strategic Roadmap documents the
Agency's commitment to advancing key actions to
safeguard public health, protect the environment,
and hold polluters accountable. Below is a summary
of key actions taken by EPA in the first year of
implementation.

Enhancing
Chemical Safety

EPA announced the National PFAS Testing Strategy
in October 2021. The Testing Strategy is a major
step toward the goal of breaking PFAS into distinct
categories to direct research, develop regulatory
action, and accelerate technology and policy
solutions to restrict and remediate PFAS. In June
2022, EPA issued its first test order under the Testing
Strategy, which—along with additional orders EPA will
issue in the coming months—will provide the Agency
with critical information on more than 2,000 similar
PFAS that fall within these categories. Additionally,
EPA investigated and issued an open letter related
to PFAS contamination in fluorinated pesticide and
chemical packaging, took steps to remove 12 PFAS
from the current list of approved inert ingredients in
pesticide products, and removed several PFAS from
the Safer Chemicals Ingredients List.

In December 2021, President Biden issued Executive
Order 14057 on Catalyzing Clean Energy Industries
and Jobs Through Federal Sustainability. EPA is a
leader in implementing the executive order to prioritize
federal purchasing of products without added PFAS.
In February 2022, EPA released updated resources
to aid federal purchasers in meeting this goal.

Safeguarding
Drinking Water

In December 2021, EPA finalized the fifth
Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Rule, which
will expand PFAS testing nationwide by requiring
monitoring for 29 PFAS in drinking water. This
monitoring, scheduled annually from 2023 to

2025, will occur at thousands of drinking water
systems nationwide. These data will be critical in
assessing the prevalence of PFAS in America's
public water systems, prioritizing state and federal
efforts to reduce PFAS levels in drinking water,
and enabling EPA to better determine if and where
PFAS contamination is disproportionately impacting
communities with environmental justice concerns.

EPA is developing national drinking water
standards for perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and
perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS). Toward this
goal, EPA released four draft scientific documents
for review by EPA's Science Advisory Board in
November 2021, two of which identify negative
health effects from PFOA and PFOS at much lower
levels than previously understood.

Radhika Fox, Co-Chair of EPA's PFAS Council
arid Assistant Administrator for the Office of
Water, and Elizabeth Biser, Secretary of the North
Carolina Department of Environmental Quality,
tour a new Granular Activated Carbon system at
the Sweeney Water Treatment Plant in Wilmington,
NC, on June 15, 2022.

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Recognizing the need to inform the public of this
new science, EPA committed to updating the
Agency's 2016 health advisories for PFOA and
PFOS as quickly as possible. EPA met this new
commitment by issuing interim health advisories
for PFOA and PFOS in June 2022. At the same
time, EPA also issued final health advisories for
hexafluoropropylene oxide dimer acid and its
ammonium salt (also known as GenX chemicals)
and perfluorobutane sulfonate (PFBS). Importantly,
these health advisory levels are based on risks to
the most sensitive life stages.

how to proactively use Clean Water Act permitting
authorities to reduce discharges of PFAS at
the source and to obtain more comprehensive
monitoring information on potential sources of
PFAS. EPA will follow this action with a memo to
state permitting authorities, while EPA continues
its work on longer term efforts to set nationwide
technology-based standards for certain PFAS
discharges under the Effluent Limitations Guidelines
program. EPA will soon publish an updated plan on
its effluent guidelines efforts to limit discharges of
PFAS and other contaminants.

Ensuring Clean Water

In the Roadmap, EPA emphasized the importance
of getting upstream of the PFAS problem by
restricting PFAS from entering the environment in
the first place. In April 2022, EPA released draft
recommended water quality criteria for PFOA
and PFOS that are intended to provide the best-
available scientific recommendations from EPA
on how states and Tribes can protect against
harmful effects to aquatic life. Also in April, EPA
released a memo to EPA's Regional offices on

Cleaning Up
PFAS Contamination

As EPA focuses on proactively getting upstream
of the PFAS problem, the Agency recognizes the
concurrent need to broaden and accelerate the
cleanup of PFAS contamination where it already
impacts communities and the environment. EPA
took a foundational step in September 2022
by proposing to designate PFOA and PFOS as
hazardous substances under the Comprehensive
Environmental Response, Compensation, and

EPA scientists Richard Mitchell and Shera Reems collect water samples from the Animas River in Colorado. The
samples will be analyzed for PFAS and other contaminants as part of a collaborative project between EPA, four
states, and three Tribes to identify contaminants in the San Juan watershed.

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Liability Act (CERCLA), or Superfund. This action, if
finalized, will increase transparency around releases
of these harmful chemicals and help to hold polluters
accountable for cleaning up their contamination.

In May 2022, EPA took an important step forward to
protect people from PFAS by adding five PFAS to
a list of risk-based values that inform site cleanup
decisions. This action provides the Agency with
critical tools for Superfund and other EPA programs
to investigate contamination and protect people from
these PFAS using the latest peer-reviewed science.

EPA has also announced two new rulemaking actions
under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act.
These actions will strengthen the authorities available
to EPA and its state partners to protect communities
from PFAS and hold polluters accountable. EPA
expects to propose both rules in 2023.

Strengthening the
Scientific Foundation

Over the past year, EPA researchers have published
more than 30 papers on PFAS in scientific journals
and have added new data on PFAS to the Drinking
Water Treatability Database, the CompTox Chemicals
Dashboard, and the ECQTOX Knowledgebase.
EPA continues its work to develop and validate
methods to detect and measure PFAS in the
environment —releasing a new Adsorbable Organic
Fluorine method (draft Method 1621) in April 2022
as well as EPA Method 1633. a method to detect 40
PFAS in eight environmental media. EPA continues
its work to advance the science to assess human
health and environmental risks from PFAS, including
releasing a final toxicity assessment for GenX
chemicals in October 2021 and advancing toxicity
assessments for several additional PFAS under the
Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) program.
EPA is also evaluating and developing technologies
for reducing PFAS in the environment. As part
of these efforts, EPA released the PFAS Thermal
Treatment Database in February 2022. This database
provides an online resource that contains more than
2,000 records from 80 different sources about the
treatability of PFAS using different thermal processes.

Mark Strynar from EPA's Office of Research and
Development monitors a high-resoiution mass
spectrometer while conducting non-targeted screening
for emerging PFAS.

Holding

Polluters Accountable

EPA is proactively using enforcement tools to
better identify and address PFAS releases at
facilities. As part of this work, EPA has sought
information from PFAS manufacturers and other
parties to better understand PFAS contamination
that may be present in soil, groundwater, surface
water, and sediment around facilities where PFAS
were manufactured, used, released, or handled.
In January 2022, EPA issued information requests
letters to three major PFAS manufacturers: The
Chemours Company; Corteva, Inc.; and DuPont de
Nemours, Inc. The letters require these companies
to provide information on their current and past
PFAS production and management and disposal
practices at 24 facilities. Based on information EPA
collects through this effort, the Agency will take
follow-up action, where appropriate, to protect
nearby communities and the environment.

In November 2022, EPA issued an administrative
order on consent to 3M that requires 3M to
offer to sample and provide treatment for PFAS
contamination in drinking water near 3M's facility
in Cordova, Illinois. EPA is committed to continuing
to investigate releases of PFAS and to require
appropriate follow-up action where needed.

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Addressing PFAS with Bipartisan
Infrastructure Law Investments

The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL), also known
as the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
signed by President Biden in November 2021,
provides more than $50 billion to EPA to make
transformational investments in the nation's drinking
water, wastewater, and stormwater infrastructure,
while also dedicating more than $5 billion to clean up
legacy pollution at Superfund and brownfields sites.
The BIL includes $10 billion in dedicated funding for
communities impacted by emerging contaminants
in water, including PFAS. This funding provides a
tremendous opportunity to harmonize the research
and policy commitments in the Roadmap with critical
financial resources that communities need to protect
people and environment from PFAS contamination.

The BIL uses both existing and new EPA water
finance programs to provide communities with
funding for emerging contaminants. All three
programs are designed to flow through the states
and territories. The $10 billion must be provided as
grants or forgivable loans.

Small or Disadvantaged
Communities Drinking-
Water Grants: $5 Billion

The BIL provides $5 billion over five years to
address PFAS and other emerging contaminants in
drinking water, specifically in small or disadvantaged
communities. In June 2022, EPA announced the
availability of the first $1 billion in grant funding to
help small or disadvantaged communities reduce the
presence of PFAS and other emerging contaminants
in their drinking water. EPA invited states to submit
letters of intent for this funding, and EPA is working

to develop additional documentation to assist states
and territories to help develop and implement their
respective programs and project awards.

Drinking Water State
Revolving Fund: $4 Billion

The BIL also provides a dedicated $4 billion over
five years to address PFAS and other emerging
contaminants within the Drinking Water State
Revolving Fund. One-quarter (25%) of these funds
must be reserved for disadvantaged communities or
public water systems that serve fewer than 25,000
people. States may also use more than $11.7 billion
in BIL General Supplemental Drinking Water State
Revolving Funds to invest in projects that address
PFAS in drinking water. In March 2022, EPA
released an implementation memo that provides
additional information on projects and activities that
are eligible for this funding.

Clean Water State
Revolving Fund: $1 Billion

The BIL provides $1 billion over five years to
address PFAS and other emerging contaminants
in wastewater and stormwater infrastructure.

States, water systems, and communities may also
leverage additional resources from the $11.7 billion
in BIL Clean Water State Revolving Fund General
Supplemental Funds to invest in projects that
address PFAS in clean water infrastructure. In August
2022, EPA released specific Questions and Answers
to assist states in developing their applications for
BIL capitalization grants for these funds.

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Upcoming Milestones

Over the next year, priorities for EPA's work to
research, restrict, and remediate PFAS include:

•	Propose a National Drinking Water Standard
for PFOA and PFOS. Responding to a growing
body of science, EPA will propose a rule to set
enforceable limits in drinking water for PFOA
and PFOS under the Safe Drinking Water Act by
the end of 2022. The rule is currently undergoing
interagency review at the Office of Management
and Budget as the final step before its release
for public comment.

•	Complete CERCLA Designations. In
September 2022, EPA released a proposal
to designate PFOA and PFOS as hazardous
substances under CERCLA. EPA intends to take
final action on the proposed rule in 2023, while
continuing to work closely with stakeholders

to address equity concerns and to hold
responsible parties accountable for cleanup.
EPA will seek input on designating additional
PFAS as hazardous substances through an
advance notice of proposed rulemaking.

•	Improve Chemical Data and Safety. EPA
also expects to release additional rules that will
significantly enhance the public availability of
data on how PFAS are used and released while
helping EPA and communities better understand
disproportionate impacts to communities with
environmental justice concerns. EPA will propose
a rule to remove certain exemptions from PFAS
reporting under the Toxics Release Inventory
program. EPA also intends to take final action on
a proposed rule that would better characterize
the sources and quantities of manufactured
PFAS in the United States—collecting significant
new information on chemical quantities,
byproducts, worker exposures, and disposal
methods. Finally, EPA will propose a Significant
New Use Rule that would ensure that any
discontinued use of certain PFAS cannot reenter
the marketplace without EPA review.

•	Restrict Upstream Discharges. Reducing
discharges to the environment and to publicly
owned treatment works is a cornerstone of
EPA's strategy to restrict PFAS. EPA will soon
release its final Effluent Limitation Guidelines
Plan 15, which contains key steps toward
addressing PFAS discharges across a range of
industrial categories. EPA will also release new
guidance to states describing how to leverage
their National Pollutant Discharge Elimination
System permits and pretreatment programs

to increase monitoring, including at known or
suspected dischargers of PFAS. This will enable
states to take appropriate steps to restrict PFAS
at their source, collect important data on PFAS
discharges, and enable communities to work
closely with their state permitting authorities to
take action where discharges may occur.

•	Address PFAS in Biosolids. EPA is working
to complete a full risk assessment on PFOA
and PFOS in biosolids for release in 2024.
The Agency is set to reach a milestone in its
biosolids efforts in late 2022 by releasing a
draft biosolids risk-assessment screening
framework for scientific peer review, which will
estimate high end exposures for a wide range of
chemical contaminants due to use and disposal
of biosolids. PFAS in biosolids is an issue

that requires enhanced coordination, and the
Agency commits to working with key partners
across the federal government, states, and the
water, solid waste, and agricultural sectors.

•	Provide Public PFAS Tools. EPA expects
to publicly release a set of PFAS Analytic
Tools, an application that integrates data on
PFAS reporting, testing, and occurrences in
communities. Making these data available, and
linking to tools like EJSCREEN (the Agency's
Environmental Justice Screening and Mapping
Tool), will help the public, researchers, and other
stakeholders better understand potential PFAS

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sources in their communities, potential exposure
pathways in communities with environmental
justice concerns, and to what extent PFAS
pollution contributes to the cumulative burden
of exposures from multiple sources.

•	Engage with Communities. In the Roadmap,
EPA committed to engaging with communities
in each EPA Region to hear how PFAS
contamination impacts their lives and livelihoods
in response to a recommendation from the

EPA's Approach

In the October 2021 PFAS Strategic Roadmap,
EPA laid out a set of principles that underpin the
strategic approach to addressing PFAS. These
principles continue to guide the Agency's work as
existing Roadmap commitments are achieved and
new areas of work are identified.

•	Prioritize Protection of Disadvantaged
Communities. EPA will continue to develop the
data and tools needed to identify and protect
overburdened communities and vulnerable
populations that may be disproportionately
impacted by PFAS contamination. Over

the last year, EPA has engaged with key
groups—including the National Environmental
Justice Advisory Council, Tribal PFAS Working
Group, and Local Government Advisory
Committee—to ensure that EPA's regulatory
processes and financial assistance programs
are grounded in the experience and needs of
disadvantaged communities.

•	Consider the Lifecycle of PFAS. As EPA and
its partners research, restrict, and remediate
PFAS, the Agency will account for the breadth
of potential contamination pathways and the
potential impacts on a range of stakeholders
from drinking water and wastewater treatment
plants to farmers and ranchers.

National Environmental Justice Advisory
Council. To meet this commitment, EPA is
planning a series of regional listening sessions
as well as a specific session focused on unique
Tribal and indigenous community needs and
concerns. EPA wants to hear directly from
communities impacted by PFAS challenges on
how to best implement current actions and on
future priorities.

•	Get Upstream of the Problem. EPA is

committed to preventing PFAS from entering the
environment in the first place. This is reflected
in the Agency's actions to reduce PFAS
discharges to waterways, their use in new ways,
and gather new data on the prevalence, use,
and effects of additional PFAS chemicals.

•	Hold Polluters Accountable. EPA is leveraging
key authorities to hold polluters accountable
for legacy and ongoing contamination.

By advancing efforts to designate PFAS
as hazardous substances and using its
enforcement tools, the Agency is taking critical
actions to protect communities from the
impacts of PFAS.

•	Ensure Science-Based Decision-Making.

EPA will continue to advance scientific
understanding of PFAS and follow the science
to advance public health and environmental
protections. The Agency is focused on
further developing science to take important
programmatic steps, from updating guidance
on PFAS destruction and disposal, to evaluating
options for addressing air emissions of PFAS, to
identifying opportunities to take broader actions
on categories of PFAS.

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Whole-of-Government Effort

As EPA advances critical work using its authorities
and resources, it is doing so as part of a larger
Biden-Harris Administration effort to harness the
collective knowledge, experience, and capacity of
the federal government to address PFAS. This effort
begins at the White House, where the Council on
Environmental Quality leads an interagency group
focused on PFAS policy actions and the Office of
Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) leads an
interagency working group of federal technical
and scientific experts. In October 2021, the White
House issued an overview of the Administration's
government-wide actions to address PFAS. In June
2022, the Administration shared a further update
on actions towards restricting PFAS from entering
water, air, land, and food.

Since June, some notable actions by federal
agencies include:

• The Department of Energy (DOE) issued its

PFAS Strategic Roadmap. which establishes
and details the goals, objectives, and steps DOE
is taking to address PFAS.

•	The Department of Defense (DOD) continues to
address its PFAS releases and has completed
initial assessments at 343 of 702 installations
and started 178 remedial investigations, which
is the next step in the cleanup process. DOD

is also continuing research and demonstration
on more than 100 projects related to PFAS
treatment technologies, sampling, analysis, and
monitoring.

•	The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
completed PFAS Exposure Assessments in
eight communities known to have had PFAS in
their drinking water.

•	The Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
determined that the estimated exposure to
PFOA in samples of canned clams from China
is a likely health concern and announced
voluntary recalls from the two distributors of the
samples with the two highest levels of PFOA

in the United States. The FDA also issued a
Request for Information on the food contact
uses of fluorinated polyethylene to ensure that
authorized uses are safe.

EPA's Brurio Pigott, Deputy Assistant Administrator for Water, testifies at a Congressional PFAS field hearing in East
Lansing, Ml, alongside Senator Gary Peters and representatives from the Department of Health and Human Services
and the Department of Defense.

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•	OSTP issued a Request for Information to
identify gaps in data, research, and development
on several aspects of PFAS, which will inform
federal strategic planning.

•	The National Academies of Science,

Engineering, and Medicine, with funding from
several agencies, completed a review of the
current evidence on human health effects of
PFAS and provided guidance to clinicians on
PFAS exposure.

As this work moves forward, EPA is enhancing
its focus on a range of interagency efforts, from
collaborating with DOD on analytical methods to
working with the Department of Health and Human
Services on better understanding PFAS exposure.
EPA is also helping to lead efforts in emerging areas
of research and policy, including collaboration with
the Department of Agriculture and the FDA on PFAS
in the food system.

Conclusion

Over the last year, EPA has achieved important
milestones to better understand PFAS, to stop
them from entering the environment, and to
clean up contamination where it has already
occurred. With the addition of resources from
the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the Agency is
working with states, Tribes, and territories to protect
communities— including the most disadvantaged
and vulnerable populations—through water
infrastructure investments. EPA has also
collaborated with its federal partners, state
coregulators, and other stakeholders —many
of whom are also advancing important actions.

With this progress report, the Agency renews its
commitment to work hand in hand with all partners
to build durable and comprehensive solutions to
protect human health and the environment now and
for future generations.

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Photo Credits

On the cover:

1.	©istock.com

2.	https://photostockeditor.corri/free-imaaes/airl~alass/paqe/2

3.	Fly fishing, https://www.flickr.com/photos/umnak/.

Joseph CC BY-SA 2.0

4.	©istock.com

5.	©istock.com

6.	©Adobestock.com

7.	High school students help with water monitoring and river cleanup,

https://www.flickr.com/photos/usepaaov/6237611883

page 3, EPA photo
page 4, EPA photo
page 5, EPA photo
page 6, EPA photo

page 10, Office of Senator Gary Peters

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