The Trump administration is proposing to completely remove limits on four forever chemicals contaminating drinking water across the country — a change likely to anger Make America Healthy Again activists who have pushed for stricter regulations.

GenX, a very long-lasting chemical used to make Teflon that infamously contaminates the Cape Fear River in North Carolina, is among the forever chemicals that would no longer fall under legally enforceable, nationwide drinking water standards.

The Environmental Protection Agency also wants to give some drinking water systems until 2031 to meet limits on the two-best known forever chemicals: PFAS and PFOA.

Two proposed new rules from EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin would together, if finalized, relax the broad forever chemical rules put in place by the Biden administration in its final year. Those Biden administration limits were the country’s first nationwide, legally required standards.

Forever chemicals have contaminated drinking water across the country over the past several decades, primarily from agricultural and industrial sites and activities at U.S. military bases. They have been found to remain in the human bloodstream for many years. In high enough doses, they can have negative effects on human health, including reproductive health, liver and hormone function, and cancer risks, according to the EPA’s own assessments.

MAHA activists were already angry at Zeldin for the EPA proposing to ease restrictions on forever chemicals in drinking water. The changes announced by the administration Monday are the first steps to cement the proposals that prompted MAHA activists to sign a petition last year calling for Zeldin’s removal.

In its Monday announcement, the EPA accused the Biden administration of a “procedural foul” when it set limits in 2024 on the amounts of GenX and three other forever chemicals. The agency argued that the Biden administration’s restrictions might not be “legally defensible.”

An EPA official said that the Trump administration would go through the process of proposing to regulate those chemicals again, and that the EPA could eventually set new limits.

But federal law that regulates drinking water gives the EPA about four years to complete the process of setting requirements for drinking water contaminants. While the Trump administration would not speculate in a press call on its timeline for the new review, Trump’s term could be over before that process is done.

“While EPA cannot pre-determine the outcome of the rulemaking, it is possible that the result could be more stringent requirements addressing these PFAS in drinking water,” the agency said in its press release. “What Americans and water systems can count on is that whatever standards emerge will be built on a defensible legal and scientific record.”

Because forever chemicals are very difficult to remove from the water, water utilities have braced for high costs that would come with complying with the Biden-era rules. Zeldin’s EPA used those high costs to defend its loosening of the timeline for PFAS and PFOS compliance.

If the Trump administration’s proposed changes on drinking water standards are finalized, water systems can apply to get a two-year extension before they have to meet limits on PFAS and PFOA, which the agency said could allow more time for technological innovation to drive costs down.

“Allowing drinking water systems to seek additional time for this work could also allow the cost of PFAS removal technologies to come down through technological advancements and production efficiencies. Continued federal investment, paired with a growing market for treatment technologies, is already driving costs down, better informing water utilities about what works, and expanding the toolkit available to remove PFAS in its various forms,” the agency said in the press release.

The EPA also announced its plans to distribute the final round of funding for PFAS removal projects to the states — $1 billion from the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.