EPA Continues its Deregulatory Agenda

On September 4, 2025, the White House published its Semiannual Agenda of Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions in which it discussed EPA’s plans regarding the issuance or revocation of regulations under certain environmental laws including the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA), the Clean Air Act (CAA), and the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). 

EPA is required to review rules “with significant impacts on a substantial number of small entities” within ten years of promulgation pursuant to the Regulatory Flexibility Act of 1980 (RFA). In the Spring of 2025, the Trump Administration announced its deregulatory agenda with the announced aim to promote American energy and manufacturing. The fall 2025 agenda addresses many intensely watched regulatory topics such as PFAS, climate and energy, and environmental review of federal projects.

PFAS

EPA is on schedule to propose an amendment to TSCA’s PFAS reporting rules that would roll back the requirement that manufacturers of PFAS or PFAS-containing materials disclose their use, production, disposal, and exposures to the chemicals by October 13, 2026. The amendments would provide additional exemptions and narrow the rule’s scope.

As also recently indicated, EPA is deregulating certain PFAS and extending deadlines under the SDWA. Specifically, EPA is keeping the drinking water standards for PFOA and PFOS but removing the standards for several short chain PFAS chemicals including PFHxS, PFNA, PFBS and GenX. EPA will propose a regulation this month to be finalized in April of 2026 that will provide additional time for public water systems to come into compliance with the maximum contaminant levels of PFOA and PFOS in drinking water.

Greenhouse Gas Emissions

EPA issued a proposed rule that will rescind the mandatory reporting rule for greenhouse gases (GHGs) and finalize the July 2025 proposed rule reconsidering the 2009 Endangerment Finding for GHGs under the CAA. These rules form the basis of regulation of greenhouse gas emissions and vehicle GHG emission standards under the CAA. Currently, there are almost fifty categories of facilities that are subject to the reporting rule, including those that indirectly emit GHGs such as suppliers of fossil fuels and hydrofluorocarbons and oil recovery CO2 injectors. The repeal will eliminate the reporting requirements for all but one source category: petroleum and natural gas systems (although they are proposing to eliminate the natural gas distributor systems and to give others regulated facilities until 2034 to report). A federal repeal will of course not benefit facilities who are subject to state GHG reporting requirements. Also, there have been lawsuits filed to challenge the rescission of the Endangerment Finding, among others.

NEPA

EPA is also revisiting the role of NEPA in protection of the nation’s natural environment. The current Semi-Annual Agenda touts EPA’s promise to reduce the requirements and speed up the process by which federal agencies assess environmental effects of proposed agency actions. This is to be done by the issuance of a final rule to remove existing implementing and procedural regulations for NEPA. This is a rebirth of the effort to revise the NEPA regulations under Trump’s first presidency to remove some of the burdens and delays imposed by the current NEPA review system and authorities.

Conclusion

The issues discussed in this article are just a few of the environmental regulations being reviewed by the Trump Administration and head of EPA. Others include the Exceptional Events Rule, Good Neighbor Plan and Risk Management Program under the CAA, National Ambient Air Quality Standards for Particulate Matter, and Oil and Gas Effluent Limitations Guidelines and Waters of the United States Definition under the Clean Water Act.

United States Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Office of Management and Budget, Spring 2025 Unified Agenda of Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions