PFAS Reporting Rules -- What Every Company Needs to Know

When it comes to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is not messing around. The agency announced on June 10, 2021, three actions intended to protect communities from PFAS:

• proposing a rule designed to obtain comprehensive data on more than 1,000 PFAS manufactured in the United States;

• withdrawing guidance that EPA believes weakened its July 2020 significant new use rule (SNUR) restricting certain long-chain PFAS; and

• publishing a final rule that incorporates three additional PFAS into the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) maintained under the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA).

More information about these rules is available in our June 11, 2021, memorandum “EPA Announces Three PFAS Actions, Including Proposed TSCA Section 8(a) Reporting Rule.” Comments on these proposed rules are due on or before September 27, 2021.

The proposed rule intended to obtain comprehensive data on PFAS would require all manufacturers (including importers) of PFAS in any year since 2011 to report information related to chemical identity, categories of use, volumes manufactured and processed, byproducts, environmental and health effects, worker exposure, and disposal. As a result of these EPA regulatory actions, companies that never expected to need to know TSCA are now finding themselves in EPA’s crosshairs.