A collection of trade associations has sued in federal court to block New Mexico’s PFAS labeling requirement for consumer products, arguing that the regulation violates the First Amendment and the dormant Commerce Clause.

The plaintiffs—including the American Chemistry Council, Alliance for Automotive Innovation, American Coatings Association, National Association of Manufacturers, and several other industry groups—filed their complaint on July 1, 2026, along with a motion for a preliminary injunction based solely on their First Amendment claim.  As it stands, the labeling requirement applies to nearly all products manufactured for sale in New Mexico on or after January 1, 2027.  While several other states have adopted PFAS labeling rules, none apply so broadly.

The federal suit follows a state-court challenge to the labeling requirement, which also alleges First Amendment violations.  That case, filed by a paint manufacturer in May, separately argues that the regulation violates state law because it exceeds statutory authority and imposes an impracticable labeling deadline.

Regulatory Background

New Mexico’s PFAS Protection Act, enacted in 2025, phases in prohibitions on products containing intentionally added PFAS and requires manufacturers to report their use of PFAS to the state.  The law defines PFAS broadly but exempts certain products from its requirements, including fluoropolymers.

In April 2026, following a rulemaking hearing, the New Mexico Environmental Improvement Board (EIB) approved regulations proposed by the New Mexico Environmental Department (NMED) to implement the Act, including a labeling requirement.  The mandated label consists of the term “PFAS” inside an Erlenmeyer flask symbol.  Notably, the statutory exemptions to the prohibitions and reporting requirements do not extend to the labeling mandate.

The First Amendment Claims

The plaintiffs’ First Amendment arguments center on which level of scrutiny applies.  Compelled commercial speech is ordinarily subject to heightened scrutiny, which the plaintiffs argue the labeling requirement cannot survive.  A lesser standard applies only to disclosures that are purely factual and uncontroversial, relate to the terms under which a product or service is offered, and are not unduly burdensome—the test established in Zauderer v. Office of Disciplinary Counsel.  In the preliminary injunction motion, the plaintiffs contend the label fails on every count.

Not purely factual.  The plaintiffs argue the Erlenmeyer flask symbol doesn’t convey factual information so much as a warning.  Commercial manufacturing doesn’t actually use Erlenmeyer flasks, they note, and there is ongoing scientific debate over which substances even qualify as PFAS.  Like a skull-and-crossbones for poison or a flame symbol for flammability, the flask is designed to signal danger, the filing argues.  While NMED testified that the flask tells costumers that the product contains a chemical “they might want to know about,” that interpretation “does not pass the straight face test,” since the state “does not require the Erlenmeyer flask graphic for any other chemical on the neutral theory that consumers ‘might want to know about’ it.”

Not uncontroversial.  The filing next argues that this warning is controversial because the risks associated with PFAS as a class are “at best unsettled.”  For example, the plaintiffs point to fluoropolymers, which they say are understood to present little to no risk when used in products.  To the extent that uncertainty exists on this point, they argue it does not help New Mexico, because it only suggests that the question is controversial.  “If the government wants to present its position concerning an unsettled scientific topic to consumers, then it must do so itself,” the filing states.

Not related to the consumer transaction.  The plaintiffs argue that any upstream or downstream harms associated with PFAS—including releases from manufacturing or disposal—fall outside Zauderer‘s scope because they don’t relate to the terms of the transaction with the consumer.

Unduly burdensome.  Finally, the plaintiffs assert that compliance will be extraordinarily costly and disruptive, potentially running into the hundreds of millions of dollars, in part because manufacturers with global distribution chains may need to relabel their entire product lines.

The motion for a preliminary injunction ends by requesting that the court, at a minimum, enjoin enforcement of the labeling mandate as applied to products only containing fluoropolymers or PFAS to which consumers will not be exposed.

The Dormant Commerce Clause Claims

The complaint also raises two Commerce Clause claims not included in the preliminary injunction motion.

The first argues that the regulation improperly reaches conduct entirely outside New Mexico.  No products containing intentionally added PFAS are manufactured in the state, the complaint notes, yet the mandate applies even when a manufacturer never directly transacts in New Mexico—for instance, when it sells to a third-party wholesaler that independently distributes there.  The plaintiffs argue this amounts to direct regulation of interstate commerce.

The second claims that the regulation’s burdens on interstate commerce exceed its local benefits.  In part because no products are manufactured with intentionally added PFAS in New Mexico, the complaint argues, the costs of compliance will fall almost entirely on out-of-state commerce.  New Mexico had less burdensome alternatives—like carving out fluoropolymers or eliminating the flask symbol—that would have a lesser impact, evidencing that the requirement is excessive, the complaint concludes.

The case is American Chemistry Council v. Kenney, No. 1:26-cv-2130 (D.N.M.), filed July 1, 2026.  A hearing on the preliminary injunction motion has been set for August 27, 2026, at 8:30 AM MT.