The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is preparing to issue a proposed rule that would add 16 individual per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) to the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) and add 15 PFAS categories representing more than 100 individual PFAS substance to the TRI, the agency announced.

The EPA also seeks to designate those PFAS substances as “chemicals of special concern,” which would impose stricter reporting requirements for those substances, including the reporting of small concentrations.

Administered by the EPA, the TRI was created to help track the waste management of toxic chemicals and is a resource for learning about toxic chemical releases and pollution prevention activities reported by industrial and federal facilities. The TRI is designed to help communities, government agencies, companies, and other stakeholders make informed decisions about the substances within the registry, EPA says.

By adding PFAS substances to the TRI, EPA seeks to address the environmental and health impacts of PFAS by promoting pollution prevention and informing the public about environmental releases of those substance that have been designated as “forever chemicals” because they accumulate in the body and never break down in the environment, according to the agency.

On April 10, 2024, the EPA issued a final rule that sets drinking water standards for five individual PFAS substances, including PFOA, PFOS, PFNA, PFHxS, and HFPO-DA. In addition, on April 19, 2024 EPA issued a second PFAS rule designating the PFAS substances perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) as hazardous substances because those chemicals have been linked to cancers, immune and developmental damage to infants and children, and has some impact on the liver and heart.

PFAS substances’ toxicity to human health and the environment is why the EPA wants to add those substances to the TRI, says the agency, which is also proposing to set a reporting threshold of 100 pounds for the manufacture, processing and for other uses of PFAS. If finalized as proposed, all of the PFAS in a given category would count towards the 100-pound reporting threshold for that category, EPA says.

Imposing more stringent reporting standards for PFAS would ensure that facilities would not be able to avoid reporting PFAS that are similar to another PFAS substance if each substance does not meet the reporting threshold individually, according to EPA. For that reason, some PFAS substances that have been individually added to the TRI would be reclassified to be one of the 15 PFAS categories, EPA says.

“With this rule, EPA would be able to collect data on how more than a hundred PFAS are released into the environment through Toxics Release Inventory reporting requirements,” said Michal Freedhoff, assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention. “This information will help EPA and communities better understand how PFAS are being used and managed across the country.”

In addition, the EPA is also proposing to clarify how PFAS are automatically added to the TRI under the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2020 (NDAA), which provides the framework for the automatic addition of PFAS to the TRI each year in response to specified EPA activities, including whenever the agency “finalizes a toxicity value.”  

To assist stakeholders in understanding this automatic addition provision within the NDAA, EPA is proposing a list of different types of EPA toxicity values which automatically initiate the process of adding any PFAS associated with the toxicity value to the TRI list.

The proposed rule has yet to be made public by being published in the Federal Register, but when it is, the EPA will accept public comments on the proposed rule for 60 days following its publication via docket EPA-HQ-TRI-2023-0538 at the Regulations.gov page.