Three US states call on environmental agency to regulate PFAS air emissions

A chemical slick is discharged from a pipe at the edge of the Chemours/DuPont plant in Fayetteville, North Carolina, on 26 September 2023. Photograph: Justin Cook/The Guardian

Three US states are formally demanding that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) begin regulating PFAS “forever chemical” air emissions, as the toxic threat that the pollution poses to the environment and human health comes into sharper focus.

So far, federal regulators have focused on water pollution, but state environmental agencies in North Carolina, New Mexico and New Jersey last week filed a petition calling for the EPA to categorize four types of PFAS compounds as hazardous air pollutants and to begin regulating them under the Clean Air Act.