We crossed a threshold this spring that deserves a moment of clear-eyed recognition: the states have taken the lead on forever chemicals, and the results are already reshaping how products reach American shelves.
The Numbers on the Ground
According to Safer States' 2026 analysis, at least 15 major state policies addressing PFAS and toxic chemicals took effect this year. These aren't aspirational frameworks or study mandates—they're enforceable restrictions on the sale of PFAS-containing cookware, cosmetics, cleaning products, textiles, furniture, dental floss, and menstrual products. Together, they provide new protections for more than 62 million people across seven states, including Colorado and Maine.
Meanwhile, 33 states are expected to consider at least 275 additional policies addressing toxic chemicals and plastics this year. Nearly 100 new PFAS bills have been introduced across 17 states in 2026 alone, with another 280 carried over from last session. The legislative energy is bipartisan—Republican-led states including Florida, Kansas, Missouri, and Ohio are now advancing PFAS consumer product bans and firefighting foam phaseouts.
What Congress Is Doing (Slowly)
On March 19, Senator Durbin introduced S. 4153, the Forever Chemical Regulation and Accountability Act of 2026, with a companion House bill from Representative McCollum. The legislation would establish an "essential use" framework—manufacturers would need to prove a PFAS use is critical to health, safety, or societal function with no safer alternative available. Non-essential uses in consumer products like certain carpets, food packaging, cosmetics, and textiles would face bans within four years. All uses would be presumed non-essential within ten years unless petitioned otherwise.
It's a serious proposal. It addresses lifecycle management, release prohibitions, and research funding. But it remains in early stages of the legislative process—committee referrals, hearings to schedule, amendments to negotiate. The states that enacted their laws two and three years ago are already in the enforcement phase while this bill seeks its first markup.
EPA: Tightening Where It Counts
The federal picture is more nuanced than the "rollback" narrative suggests. EPA confirmed it will continue defending the 2024 CERCLA hazardous substance designations for PFOA and PFOS—a Biden-era rule the current administration chose to uphold. A D.C. Circuit decision is possible later this year, and the practical consequences are already live: release reporting obligations, Phase I assessment changes, and Superfund cost recovery actions are proceeding.
Additionally, EPA proposed a rule in February 2024 to add nine specific PFAS compounds to the RCRA hazardous constituents list. That proposal has not been finalized. Approximately 1,740 treatment, storage, and disposal facilities could face additional corrective action requirements. That's not a retreat—it's an expansion of the regulatory net at the facility level.
EPA also updated its interim guidance on PFAS destruction and disposal, acknowledging that landfilling "could result in higher PFAS releases to the environment than previously thought" and encouraging thermal treatment testing before accepting large quantities of PFAS-containing materials. For those of us who watch landfill compliance closely, that admission matters.
Enforcement: Q1 2026 by the Numbers
EPA finalized 91 settlement agreements in Q1 2026—up from 74 in Q4 2025. Total fines reached $3.37 million across Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, RCRA, FIFRA, and TSCA violations. The largest single penalty: $781,175 against a Kansas insulation manufacturer for hazardous air pollutant violations. A Georgia pest control company paid $106,110 for selling unregistered pesticides. Sixteen entities were cited for Clean Water Act violations totaling nearly $489,000.
These aren't headline-grabbing numbers compared to Superfund liability, but they represent the daily machinery of environmental accountability—the permits checked, the inspections conducted, the settlements reached. The "compliance first" approach the current EPA has adopted may emphasize cooperation over punishment, but the settlements are still coming.
What This Means
We're watching a familiar American pattern: states as laboratories of democracy, moving faster and more precisely than a divided Congress. The companies reformulating products aren't doing so because of a federal mandate—they're doing it because Colorado banned PFAS in cookware, because Maine restricted it in packaging, because Minnesota now requires disclosure reports. Market pressure follows state law, not congressional hearings.
The federal framework matters for uniformity, for Superfund liability, for the 1,740 facilities that would face RCRA corrective action if the proposal is finalized. But the day-to-day protection of families—the chemicals not in your child's lunchbox, not in your dental floss, not in your firefighter's gear—that's happening at the state level right now.
At EPR Foundation, we see this as the system working imperfectly but forward. Fifteen laws in effect. Ninety-one enforcement settlements in one quarter. Nine PFAS compounds proposed for RCRA listing. A serious federal phaseout bill introduced. None of it is fast enough for the communities already contaminated, but the direction is unmistakable.
The question isn't whether PFAS regulation is coming. It's already here. The question is whether we build the monitoring, testing, and remediation infrastructure to match the ambition of the laws on the books.