As part of its drinking water strategy, the US Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) attempts to streamline the cost of compliance by regulating contaminants as groups with similar health effects, co‐occurrence, common analytical method(s), and common treatment or control processes. When the announcement to regulate up to 16 carcinogenic volatile organic compounds (cVOCs) as a group included compounds not currently listed in the USEPA analytical methods most commonly used for VOC analysis (methods 524.2 and 524.3), a review of the state of the science of analytical methods was performed. Findings indicated that USEPA method 524.3 can support lower‐level detection of currently regulated VOCs as well as some additional VOCs included in the cVOC group, but a modified sample preservation protocol for (method 524.3) and additional methods (liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry and method 526) will be needed to detect all compounds in the proposed cVOC group at meaningful levels. The number of analytical methods required for the cVOC group will significantly affect the feasibility and analytical cost of compliance monitoring for the cVOC rule if the list remains as proposed.