This is the fourth in a series of articles published by the Product Liability and Complex Torts group at Nilan Johnson Lewis, P.A., for product manufacturers as they prepare to respond to PFAS regulatory demands and mitigate their risk of PFAS litigation exposure.

Part 4. PFAS Reporting Requirements at the Federal and State Level – How Will Manufacturers Respond?

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, known by the acronym PFAS and better known by the moniker “forever chemicals,” are the focus of rapidly evolving regulatory regimes at the U.S. federal and state levels. Among many regulatory initiatives are requirements that manufacturers of products containing PFAS—which is to say, nearly all manufacturers—submit reports to regulators on their uses of PFAS. These reports, due to the US Environmental Protection Agency in May 2025 and to the State of Minnesota in January 2026, will involve a herculean effort by manufacturers to identify PFAS in their products, gather information from internal resources and suppliers, and organize and check the accuracy of data to be disclosed to the government. This article will summarize federal and state reporting requirements and advise manufacturers on how they can start to plan for compliance.

What Manufacturers Should Know

PFAS Reporting to the EPA

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is implementing its PFAS Strategic Roadmap, a whole-of-agency effort to research the effects of PFAS on health and the environment; restrict the manufacture and use of PFAS; and remediate existing PFAS contamination. Many of the EPA’s actions directly impact product manufacturers, none more so than a rule promulgated by the EPA to require manufacturers to report on the use of PFAS in their products.

In October 2023, the EPA finalized a rule under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), Section 8(a)(7), to require manufacturers and importers of PFAS or PFAS-containing products (“articles,” as TSCA refers to them) to submit one-time reports to EPA containing detailed PFAS-related data. Entities subject to the TSCA PFAS rule must report, for each year between 2011 and 2022 in which they manufactured or imported PFAS or PFAS-containing articles, a wide variety of data points including:

• Identity of each of their products that contains PFAS;
• Identity and use of PFAS in each such product;
• PFAS production volume;
• Production site information;
• Company ownership information;
• Worker exposure information;
• Disposal information.

TSCA contains a reporting standard that requires entities to report only what is “known or reasonably ascertainable” to them, in light of their size, resources, industry, etc. The reporting deadline is May 8, 2025.

PFAS are used in a wide variety of products and their components, including cookware, textiles, carpets, cosmetics and personal hygiene products, cleaners, as well as complex products in the aerospace, semiconductor, automotive, electronics, and construction industries. Thus, the TSCA PFAS rule applies to hundreds of thousands of manufacturers and importers, many of whom are reporting to the EPA for the very first time.

PFAS Reporting to the State of Minnesota

Like many states, Minnesota has taken several steps to regulate PFAS within its borders.  One such action was to impose a PFAS reporting requirement similar in some respects to that of EPA.

By January 1, 2026, manufacturers who sell PFAS-containing products into the state must submit a report to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) describing (1) each PFAS-containing product, (2) the purpose or function for which PFAS is used in the product, and (3) the amount of each PFAS in the product.  (The State of Maine had previously implemented a similar PFAS reporting rule, but the State amended its PFAS legislation significantly in April 2024 to eliminate the reporting requirement.  As such, Minnesota will become the first state to require the reporting of PFAS data.)

Unfortunately for manufacturers who must report both to the EPA under TSCA and to the MPCA under this state rule, there are a number of distinctions between the two requirements which will make compliance doubly burdensome:

• The definition of PFAS is different under the TSCA rule (which defines PFAS by molecular structure and offers examples) and the Minnesota law (which defines PFAS more broadly). At a recent webinar, the MPCA reported the state PFAS definition, set by statute, would not be harmonized with the definition in the TSCA PFAS rule.
• The data points to be reported are different, and the MPCA has not finalized how it will require reporters to submit their data to that agency.
• While TSCA contains a reporting standard, allowing manufacturers to disclose only what is “known or reasonably ascertainable” about the PFAS in their products, the Minnesota rule contains no such limitation, and thus manufacturers might be required to conduct testing of their products to search for PFAS.
• While TSCA allows manufacturers to protect “confidential business information” from public disclosure, the Minnesota law contains no such protection, and the MPCA has not finalized whether and how it will allow manufacturers to protect commercially sensitive or trade secret data.

Manufacturers subject to the TSCA PFAS rule and/or the Minnesota PFAS reporting law face an enormous challenge to identify, gather, and report data on their uses of PFAS to EPA in May 2025 and the State of Minnesota in January 2026. The process will not be fast, easy, or cheap. The EPA estimates compliance with the TSCA PFAS reporting rule alone will cost $843 million.

What Manufacturers Should Do

Manufacturers must work diligently toward complying with the TSCA PFAS and Minnesota PFAS reporting requirements. While each manufacturer’s effort will be tailored to their product line and extent of PFAS used therein, as well as their size, scale, and industry, the following are some general first steps many manufacturers are taking, to prepare for compliance with these reporting rules.

Step 1.  Develop a diligence plan, protected by the attorney-client privilege.  Engage outside counsel who can help prepare a plan to identify and gather information for reporting purposes. Counsel can also retain outside scientific consultants to support the process and offer valuable guidance. A diligence plan or action plan will support the manufacturer’s attempts to meet the “known or reasonably ascertainable” reporting standard under TSCA and allow the manufacturer to protect certain information as privileged.

Step 2.  Review internal records.  PFAS-related information may be found in certain internal records, such as contracts with suppliers or customers; product specifications; safety data sheets; and shipping invoices. Recognize, however, the limits and lack of transparency of such documents, particularly with respect to supplier-provided documents. A host of obstacles (language barrier, rotating suppliers, differences in definition of PFAS, proprietary nature of product or component formulations) may hinder an organization’s ability to gather accurate and reliable data internally.

Step 3.  Communicate with suppliers.  In the global supply chain, even a relatively simple product is made with components and sub-components from dozens (or hundreds, or thousands) of suppliers. Nevertheless, manufacturers must reach out to their multiple upstream suppliers to seek reportable PFAS data. Outside counsel and/or a scientific consultant can help craft a supplier questionnaire, using appropriate scientific language to define the PFAS in question, and investigate the supplier’s own sources of information and diligence in receiving and reporting information from their own suppliers.

We emphasize that these are just the first steps in preparing for compliance with federal and state PFAS reporting requirements. Reportable PFAS-related data, once gathered, must be harmonized across similar products to fill in data gaps, evaluated for confidentiality protections, and organized under the specific rubric of the EPA’s or Minnesota’s electronic reporting mechanism. Reported data must be as accurate and measured as possible; regulators, the plaintiff’s bar, and other stakeholders will review PFAS data reported by manufacturers to pursue enforcement actions, lawsuits, publicity campaigns, etc. In fact, as we’ll discuss in a future article on PFAS-related litigation, we are recommending that manufacturers hold on reporting their PFAS data until very close in time to the reporting deadlines, to avoid becoming the target of a class action grounded in the data the manufacturer reported. As a final step, manufacturers will need to close out their diligence plan by summarizing what was done, what was found, and where data came up short due to, say, a document-destruction policy or a non-communicative supplier.

We urge manufacturers to start this process immediately, if they have not already done so, and contact outside counsel for guidance and support.