The past month has seen the announcements of billions in water infrastructure funding from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), as well as contentious proposed rules that have been met with mixed reviews from public health advocates. As of May 2026, all five rounds of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) that boosted annual allocations to the State Revolving Loan Funds have been divvied up. Four of the five subprograms were announced in mid-April, with the Drinking Water Revolving Loan Fund’s (DWSRF) Lead Service Line Replacement (LSLR) funding following just last week.
Unlike last year’s IIJA LSLR funding, which was not completely released until November 2025, fiscal year 2026’s disbursement arrived in a timely manner and can now be applied for by states, territories, and Tribal Nations. Fiscal year 2025’s DWSRF LSLR funding was the first to reflect the results of the 7th Drinking Water Infrastructure Needs Survey and Assessment (DWINSA), which is likely what contributed to the delay in its disbursal; it is encouraging to see that this fiscal year’s funding, which also uses the 7th DWINSA to determine needs-based allocations, came out on time. Entities receiving allocations have until September 30, 2027 to apply for these dollars.
Another large pot of water infrastructure funding was also recently introduced. Two days before the release of the DWSRF LSLR funding, EPA announced close to $1 billion in funding for a grant program meant to support “a comprehensive, lifecycle-based strategy” addressing emerging contaminants, specifically varieties of PFAS. Titled the Emerging Contaminants in Small or Disadvantaged Communities Grant, the program will see a total of $5 billion available over five years for eligible communities to identify sources of PFAS contamination, treat the contamination, and destroy the removed chemicals. This adds to the $5 billion IIJA provided state SRFs to address emerging contaminants like PFAS.
In the same press release where EPA announces this massive investment into public health and water infrastructure, the agency also describes the opening of public comments for two proposed rules relating to the National Primary Drinking Water Standards several kinds of PFAS. The first rule would not repeal the federal drinking water standards or Maximum Contaminant Levels (MCL) of PFOA and PFOS but instead would allow water systems to apply for a two-year extension of the deadline, from 2029 to 2031, to apply those standards. The second rule would open the door for four PFAS—PFHxS, PFNA, HFPO-DA (also known as GenX chemicals), and PFBS—to have their federal drinking water allowable level or MCLs be thrown out, or to be increased. This rule opens up a comment period on whether the Biden Administration properly followed requirements under the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) regarding applying their regulation; it seeks to force another evaluation of if those PFAS are regulable under the SDWA.
In April 2024, the EPA under the Biden Administration announced the country’s first PFAS National Primary Drinking Water Regulation (NPDWR), which established the legal thresholds for allowable concentrations of six PFAS in drinking water nationwide. All six PFAS mentioned in the Trump Administration’s EPA’s two proposed rules had MCLs created by the NPDWR.
The first proposed rule aims to extend the compliance deadline for drinking water systems to reach MCLs; it is assumed that the cost of PFAS removal technologies will decrease with time, allowing the transition to be cheaper and more efficient. The reasoning behind the second proposed rule is that the Biden Administration’s EPA sped through regulatory processes to push through the regulation of four PFAS.
The proposed rules were met with a bit of backlash from communities and advocates. One article by USA Today, focusing on the community of Wilmington, North Carolina, describes strong dissent against the rule. Another article by the Fence Post notes criticism from members of the Make America Health Again (MAHA) movement, while noting that MAHA leaders like Human Services Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr. support the proposed rules. A final article by Plastics Today outlines that a group of MAHA activists, led by United We Eat, had penned a letter to EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin in March 2026, encouraging him to bolster the regulation of PFAS, in addition to pesticides and plastics.
All of IIJA’s SRF allocations are now viewable on the Water Program Portal’s Outcomes Dashboard. Our team will be updating the site with Intended Use Plans using these monies as they are released.
