In early April 2025, New Mexico enacted a statute restricting intentionally added PFAS in products, similar in scope to Maine’s and Minnesota’s existing laws. The New Mexico statute imposes a ban on sales and distribution within New Mexico for multiple categories of products containing intentionally added PFAS, which will become effective January 1, 2027 for cookware, food packaging, dental floss, juvenile products; and on January 1, 2028 for carpets or rugs, cleaning products, cosmetics, fabric treatments, feminine hygiene products, textiles, textile furnishings, ski wax, and upholstered furniture. In addition, a reporting requirement will go into effect starting on January 1, 2027, pursuant to which manufacturers will have to provide to the state agency certain informational disclosures for any products sold, offered, or distributed in New Mexico that contain intentionally added PFAS. A “currently unavoidable use” exemption will be available starting January 1, 2032, contemporaneously with the effective date of a full ban on sales and distribution of all products with intentionally added PFAS that fall outside of the statute’s exemptions. Under the statute, the exemptions, including the currently unavoidable use exemption once effective, would apply to both the sales ban and the reporting requirements. The statute contemplates regulatory rulemaking to flesh out the process for determinations of the currently unavoidable use exemption.
Importantly, New Mexico’s statute is the first nationwide to provide an express exemption from its sales ban and reporting requirements to products that contain fluoropolymers consisting of polymeric PFAS – such as PTFE. This exemption is something that industry has been pursuing in the various states that have or are considering bans; it remains to be seen whether New Mexico’s approach may suggest a new path forward in states that have not yet adopted restrictions, or a path for amendments to existing state bans.