- Arizona’s attorney general filed comments opposing a federal rollback on July 22, 2026.
- The change would end required testing, reporting, and treatment for four forever chemicals.
- Seventeen other states and the District of Columbia signed on to the filing.
Thursday, July 23, 2026 — Arizona Attorney General Mayes announced on July 22, 2026 that she had filed comments opposing a proposal from the Environmental Protection Agency to undo limits on four PFAS chemicals in drinking water. PFAS are manufactured compounds widely known as forever chemicals. If the proposal moves forward, public drinking water systems would no longer be required by federal law to test for those four chemicals, report how much of them turn up, or treat the water to remove them.
“The dangers of forever chemicals in drinking water are well documented,” said Attorney General Mayes
. “This is not the time to be rolling back limits of these toxic chemicals. Eliminating protections already in place will only further jeopardize the health of Arizonans.”
Why the “forever chemicals” name sticks.
These chemicals do not break down, and getting them back out of the environment is hard. According to the attorney general’s office, they seep into groundwater and surface water through manufacturing materials, through discharges and emissions from manufacturing facilities, and through other sources. They can be toxic to people and animals at very low concentrations, and research has linked them to damage to the thyroid, liver, kidney, immune system, blood, and reproductive systems. The office describes a national contamination crisis, with nearly 10,000 areas in the United States found to be contaminated and more than 170 million people drinking water that has tested positive for PFAS.
The rule on the chopping block.
Two years ago, the Environmental Protection Agency finalized a rule setting limits on four PFAS chemicals, including one called GenX, in public drinking water. The agency wrote the rule under the Safe Drinking Water Act, the federal law that gives it authority to set national standards for contaminants in water. Reaching that point took years of research, analysis, and public feedback.
The agency now proposes to erase that rule for those four chemicals. In their comments, the attorneys general call the move illegal and arbitrary. They say the agency has not analyzed how the rollback would affect drinking water or people’s health, and did not consider a narrower action or a different solution. They also point to a provision in the Safe Drinking Water Act that bars the agency from backsliding on its own protections, and they ask that the 2024 rule stay in place. The announcement from the attorney general’s office does not include a response from the Environmental Protection Agency.
Who else signed on.
Mayes was joined by the attorneys general of California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington, and Wisconsin.
