Washington, D.C. – The Association of Metropolitan Water Agencies (AMWA) and its partners in the Water Coalition Against PFAS, a coalition of drinking water and wastewater sector organizations, supports today’s reintroduction of the Water Systems PFAS Liability Protection Act. This bipartisan legislation would provide statutory liability protections for water utilities under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) for per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), ensuring that polluters, not the public, pay for PFAS cleanup.
Last year, EPA formally designated two of the most common PFAS — Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and Perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) — as hazardous substances under CERCLA. This puts drinking water and wastewater utilities at risk of being forced to pay a portion of environmental cleanup costs after they legally dispose of water treatment byproducts or biosolids containing the contaminants – and allowing polluters to avoid their own responsibilities. The Water Systems PFAS Liability Protection Act would simply shield innocent water systems from CERCLA liability when they follow all applicable laws when disposing of PFAS.
The Water Systems PFAS Liability Protection Act of 2025 is sponsored by Reps. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Wash.) and Celeste Maloy (R-Utah) and is identical to bipartisan legislation introduced in the 118th Congress by now-Senator John Curtis (R-Utah).
Without this legislation, EPA’s designation of PFAS as hazardous substances under CERCLA would expose drinking water and wastewater utilities to litigation from the manufacturers of PFAS, who can unjustly include water systems as defendants in litigation to reduce their own clean-up costs. This legal loophole could increase costs on water utilities even further – costs that utilities are then forced to pass along to ratepayers. The Water Systems PFAS Liability Protection Act will shield water systems and their customers from the increased costs associated with litigation and potential settlements against PFAS manufacturers and users.
“Everyone should agree that polluters should bear the cost of cleaning up their damage to the environment, particularly in the case of ubiquitous substances like PFAS,” said AMWA CEO Tom Dobbins. “But through a loophole in CERCLA, these polluters can pass off the costs of environmental cleanups to passive receivers like water systems, which only possessed the contaminants because they had to remove them from their source waters. The ‘Water Systems PFAS Liability Protection Act’ will ensure that the real polluters – and not innocent water system ratepayers – ultimately foot the bill for the environmental remediation of PFAS.”
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About the Water Coalition Against PFAS
The Water Coalition Against PFAS includes organizations whose membership represent all facets of clean and safe water delivery – the Association of Metropolitan Water Agencies (AMWA), the American Water Works Association (AWWA), the National Association of Clean Water Agencies (NACWA), the National Association of Water Companies (NAWC), the National Rural Water Association (NRWA), and the Water Environment Federation (WEF). The Coalition advocates for responsible PFAS policies that will result in a “polluter pays” approach to dealing with PFAS contamination.
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