In a significant development concerning Minnesota’s environmental regulations, an administrative court rejected the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency’s (MPCA) proposed rule on per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) reporting and associated fees.1 This decision, issued on
August 29, 2025, highlights procedural and substantive criteria considered in the MPCA’s rulemaking process.2
In February 2025, the United States Environmental Protection Agency announced it will delay the addition of nine per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (“PFAS”) to its Toxics Release Inventory Report for the 2025 reporting year. “PFAS” is a term used to describe a diverse group of chemicals contained in many consumer products and industrial processes. The EPA’s announcement followed President Trump’s January 2025 memorandum “Regulatory Freeze Pending Review” which, among other things, requested a 60-day postponement “to the effective date memorandum for any rules that have been published in the Federal Register, or any rules that have been issued in any manner but have not taken effect, so that the administration may review any questions of fact, law, and policy that the rules may raise.” Accordingly, impacted industries now have additional time to prepare for new PFAS reporting requirements under the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (“EPCRA”) and the Pollution Prevention Act (“PPA”) following the addition of nine PFAS chemicals to the Toxics Release Inventory (“TRI”).
Due to its suddenness and severity, overnight the COVID-19 outbreak has rearranged the priorities of corporate legal departments. Things that were of top-of-list importance yesterday have likely been replaced by action items that were inconceivable just a few weeks ago. Additionally, the “all-hands-on-deck” approach to managing the crisis is likely to last for some time and perhaps longer than any of us could have imagined. There are going to be many legal issues of great strategic importance that simply won’t receive the attention they require; likewise, there will be day-to-day issues that could also be overlooked. Environmental monitoring and reporting requirements could be among those.