EPA proposes stricter regulations on lead exposure in residential buildings

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is proposing tighter rules for exposure to lead in residential buildings and child care facilities. 

The new draft rule from the EPA would lower its lead dust hazard level to any level greater than zero — meaning any amount of lead found in a building would be considered hazardous.

The Biden administration is also reducing the dust lead clearance levels that limit how much lead can remain after cleanup has taken place.  

According to the agency, the rules would be expected to limit lead exposure for 250,000 to 500,000 children younger than 6 annually. 

Exposure to lead can damage a child’s brain and nervous system and cause slowed growth and development as well as learning, hearing and speech problems.

“The Biden-Harris Administration is taking a whole-of-government approach to ensuring that the most vulnerable among us — our children — are protected from exposure to lead,” EPA Deputy Administrator Janet McCabe said in a statement. 

 “This proposal to safely remove lead paint along with our other efforts to deliver clean drinking water and replace lead pipes will go a long way toward protecting the health of our next generation of leaders,” she added. 

The U.S. banned residential use of lead paint in 1978. But according to the EPA, 31 million homes built before that time are estimated to still contain lead paint, and 3.8 million contain at least one child younger than 6.

The agency expects the rule to cost between $536 million and $748 million per year based on potential compliance expenses for landlords, remodelers and others.

The rule garnered praise from environmentalists, including those who sued in the past to get the limit reduced. 

“EPA is finally proposing to do what the law requires, adopt truly protective lead standards,” Eve Gartner, director of Crosscutting Toxics Strategies at Earthjustice, said in a written statement. 

“This is a leap forward in the country’s long-delayed efforts to eliminate lead exposures in millions of residences and childcare facilities that still have lead-based paint,” Gartner added.  

The Trump administration had also tightened lead dust rules, but environmentalists said at the time that those rules did not go far enough to adequately protect public health.