The environmental and health concerns resulting from the widespread applications of PFAS chemicals have been a high priority for TSCA to investigate ever since the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act became law in May of 2016. EHS professionals have scrambled to educate themselves on the PFAS Reporting Rule found in 40 CFR Part 705 and many of you attended our prior webinar on the reporting details for this PFAS Data Call. Yet as of May 13, 2025, the U.S.EPA has again delayed the reporting deadlines in their interim final rule. PFAS reporting is now due on October 13, 2026, except for small manufacturers who only import articles; those reports must be filed by April 13, 2027.

EPA also disclosed that it will soon publish a notice of proposed rulemaking to address other aspects of the rule. Like many of the EPA Regulations being reviewed under the “Biggest Deregulatory Action in U.S. History”, signed March 12, 2025, the additional nine-month delay in the reporting deadlines gives EPA the time to reconsider the impact of the reporting, especially on small businesses. These may include limited TSCA exemptions for articles and impurities, a production-volume threshold, and other scope modifications. The proposed rule will likely incorporate at least some of those changes.

So, despite the thousands of industrial PFAS applications and PFAS-containing consumer products that exist, the quantities manufactured and imported, the exposure risks, the long-term consequences to health and the environment, and the need to regulate certain uses are still not well understood or documented. Consequently, the stated purpose of the data call remains which is that this data will enable EPA to “better characterize the sources and quantities” of manufactured and imported PFAS in the United States by creating “a more comprehensive database of previously manufactured PFAS to improve the Agency’s understanding of PFAS in commerce.” EPA then plans to use this information to support actions to address PFAS exposure and contamination, including PFAS activities and programs under other environmental statutes (e.g., RCRA, CWA, SDWA, and CERCLA). The data EPA collects on PFAS “may allow EPA to more efficiently determine whether additional risk assessments and management measures (potentially banning certain uses) are needed”.

As a reminder, EPA estimates that at least 1,462 PFAS are known to have been made or imported in the United States between January 1, 2011 to December 31, 2022 and all of these are currently subject to this data call. More companies will need to report PFAS data because:

• PFAS reporting has no quantity thresholds:
• Any business who produced PFAS domestically or imported PFAS between January 1, 2011, and December 31, 2022 must report (includes articles, mixtures, and PFAS byproduct);
• PFAS only has limited chemical exemptions (persons who have only processed, distributed in commerce, used, and/or disposed of PFAS are not required to report under this rule, unless they also have manufactured (including imported) PFAS for a commercial purposes);.

Therefore, even though the  PFAS reporting deadline has been extended and again seems a long way off, let’s not become complacent. The “clock is still ticking” on the PFAS data call and complying with the rather extensive reporting details definitely requires more than an overnight effort.