For decades, Democrats used the EPA as a weapon against coal miners, farmers, and American business.
Now 14 Republican attorneys general just found the one novel use for an EPA regulation.
And Missouri's attorney general just led a coalition of red states in turning the Democrats' own regulatory machine against them.
Republican AGs Demand EPA Add Abortion Pill Mifepristone to Drinking Water Contaminant List
Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway – the state's top law enforcement officer – led a 14-state coalition asking EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin to add mifepristone – the abortion drug now used in 63 percent of all U.S. abortions – to the agency's Contaminant Candidate List.
The Contaminant Candidate List is the EPA's statutory watch list – once a substance lands on it, the Safe Drinking Water Act requires scientific evaluation and potential regulation.
The Republican coalition's letter states that loosened FDA regulations have resulted in "tons of chemically tainted medical waste being flushed into American waterways."
The mechanism is straightforward: mifepristone accounted for 6 percent of abortions when the FDA first approved it, climbed to 53 percent by 2020, and hit 63 percent by 2023.
Most of those abortions now happen at home, with fetal remains and drug waste flushed directly into municipal wastewater systems.
Standard wastewater treatment was not built to remove active drug compounds – and mifepristone's metabolites stay chemically active after disposal, meaning they can still block progesterone in whatever they contact downstream.
Alabama AG Steve Marshall said: "As medical waste is discarded and washed away, it risks contaminating the very water supply millions of Americans drink every day."
Indiana AG Todd Rokita added that pregnant women who unintentionally ingest the drug through their water supply face disproportionate health risks – because mifepristone works specifically by blocking progesterone, the hormone that sustains a pregnancy.
Patty Murray Calls Mifepristone Water Contamination Study Junk Science
Democrat Senator Patty Murray of Washington didn't take it well.
Murray – who has spent years grilling Republican EPA nominees about PFAS chemicals, agricultural runoff, and industrial pollution – called the AG coalition's request "junk science" and demanded EPA Administrator Zeldin explain himself at a Senate Appropriations hearing.
Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon called it a "blatant attempt to weaponize environmental regulations."
Wyden built his entire Senate career demanding the EPA use that same statute to regulate chemicals in drinking water – herbicides, pesticides, industrial compounds.
The moment Republicans invoke it for a substance Murray and Wyden spent three years fighting to keep unregulated, suddenly it's "weaponization."
The letters also had support from 19 Republican members of Congress, led by Rep. Chris Smith of New Jersey.
Red States Use Safe Drinking Water Act to Force Mifepristone Wastewater Investigation
The Safe Drinking Water Act doesn't care about politics.
Democrats used that framework for 30 years to regulate everything from corn herbicides to paint thinners, often over fierce Republican objections.
The atrazine fight is the textbook example: environmental groups spent a decade pressuring the EPA to restrict a farm herbicide under the Safe Drinking Water Act, citing hormone disruption in wildlife and documented effects on human fertility.
Republicans called it regulatory overreach. Democrats called it protecting the water supply.
The mifepristone petition invokes the identical statute, the identical Contaminant Candidate List mechanism, and the identical hormone-disruption rationale – and the parties have swapped positions entirely.
The coalition's letter cites the FDA's own 2000 approval document, which acknowledged that mifepristone "may enter the environment from excretion by patients" and through pharmaceutical waste disposal.
The FDA said harmful effects were "not anticipated" – in the year 2000, when mifepristone was used in 6 percent of abortions.
That same FDA assessment was never updated as the drug's use exploded from a niche procedure to the dominant method of abortion in America after the Dobbs decision.
The coalition is asking the EPA to fill the gap the FDA left open for 26 years.
Patty Murray can call it junk science.
But the Republicans are using her laws, her agency, and her regulatory framework – and she has no legal argument for why it doesn't apply.
Sources:
- Chris Dickerson, "Hanaway leads push for EPA abortion pill water safety tests," Legal Newsline / The Center Square, June 5, 2026.
- Joseph MacKinnon, "Abortion pills in America's water supply: Republican AGs call for the EPA to investigate possible contamination," Blaze Media, June 11, 2026.
- "Senator Murray Presses EPA Administrator on Agency Siding with Mega Polluters," Senate Appropriations Committee, May 13, 2026.
- "Senator Murray Slams Republicans for Sham HELP Committee Hearing to Discredit Medication Abortion," Murray Senate Office, 2025.
- "Wyden Statement on Supreme Court Mifepristone Ruling," Wyden Senate Office, June 13, 2024.
