This is probably a big part of it. Environmentalists are not their voters. Basically attacking everything "leftists" are for, whether it's a good idea or not.

It used to be that environmental conservation was a part of conservative ideology, but MAGA isn't anything like what conservatism used to be in the US.

Wasn't the EPA started by Nixon? Why are they so against it? It doesn't seem like some hyper-woke thing to me, but I guess I'm a dumb lefty.

Because big oil money juices right wing media and guess what industry finds keeping water and air clean to be a negative in their bottom line?

Get enough money and you can buy a party position.

Are PFAS's a by-product of stuff like teflon and plastic production and the like? I know big oil is evil but I'm not sure that they're the boogieman in this case.

In this specific case, no they aren't the main villain. They are more the catalyst that turned the republican party into the anti-environment party (and thus anti-clean water).

The EPA regulating PFAS means it can also regulate the effects of fracking.

That's the context to understand how Republicans went from the Nixon party who created the EPA to today's party that hates all parts of the EPA.

Yeah, no argument there. Spending decades trying to undermine the EPA has other consequences.