What Happened
In December 2025, Unleaded Kids submitted comments to EPA raising concerns about its proposed consent decree with Lowe’s Home Centers for alleged violations of the Lead-Safe Renovation, Repair and Painting (RRP) rule performed by the company’s installers. The agency found “potential RRP violations at over 250 home renovation jobs in 23 states” primarily for jobs between 2019 and 2021. These violations occurred despite a previous 2014 consent decree designed to ensure compliance with the RRP and all applicable federal, state, and local requirements. See our blog for details.
In an April filing with the federal district court in central California, EPA asked the court to finalize the proposed consent decree as written. Based on EPA’s recommendation, on July 8, the court agreed, determining that the consent decree was procedurally and substantively fair, reasonable, and consistent with the law. EPA has not yet updated its webpage describing the decision.
EPA’s Responses to Unleaded Kids’ Concerns
Lowe’s Home Centers should assess risk at the 250 homes where alleged violations occurred. Our primary request was that EPA should require Lowe’s Home Center “to conduct a lead-based paint risk assessment for those homes pursuant to 40 CFR 745.227(d) and abate any lead-based paint hazards found pursuant to 40 CFR 745.227(e) unless clearly unrelated to the renovation work that violated TSCA. The passage of four or more years since the renovation should not be used as an excuse to leave lead-based paint hazards unabated.”
EPA refused this request, claiming that violating the RRP does not necessarily indicate that hazards were present and noting that Lowe’s Home Centers disputes that violations occurred and that a lack of documentation meant there were hazards. EPA did note that going forward, the company must take corrective action when it does not follow the consent decree and that lead hazards1 must be abated.
Lowe’s Home Centers should explicitly offer customer’s dust clearance testing. As we explained in a June blog, many RRP’s lead-safe work practices are likely to create—and leave behind—dust-lead hazards that exceed the agency’s action level of 5 micrograms of lead per square foot (µg/ft2) on the floor. We noted that the “dust-lead action levels for floors has dropped by 8-fold since the RRP was promulgated,” and wanted to make sure that customers were aware or the dust clearance testing option provided in the rule.
EPA failed to acknowledge the request or address this concern.
Consent decree should be more transparent. We asked EPA to make public redacted or summarized versions of Lowe’s Home Centers’ periodic reports submitted pursuant to the consent decree. It should also provide more details on the alleged violations including “the locations where they occurred, how the penalty was calculated, or how the proposed consent decree remedies the shortcomings of the first one.”
In an absurd misreading of our requests, EPA claimed that we wanted the consent decree to publicly identify the addresses of the private residences where the potential violations occurred and that the periodic reports submitted by Lowe’s Home Centers include customer names and addresses. The agency said that the “required disclosure of the periodic compliance reports could violate the Privacy Act and restrictions against disclosing confidential business information,” ignoring the option for a summary or redacted version to be released.
While EPA did not explain how it calculated the $12.5 million penalty, it did explain that the amount was set in 2024, before the current administration.
Lowe’s Home Centers should be required to confirm contractor’s compliance with OSHA’s lead standard. We made this request given the risk to employees and their families and the company’s violations of the first consent decree it signed where it agreed to comply with all applicable federal, state, and local requirements.
In response, EPA said “Although the EPA does not have authority to enforce or resolve violations of the OSH Act, this comment points out an additional route of exposure. Given Lowe’s focus on lead-based paint safety in this settlement, we expect that Lowe’s will also act to ensure compliance with OSHA’s Lead Standard.”
Why It Matters
Transparency and accountability are critical to build credibility with the public. It is especially vital for violations involved lead-based paint that may cause permanent harm to a child’s developing brain.
In this case, Lowe’s Home Center had allegedly violated a previous consent decree it signed. In addition, EPA took more than five years to resolve those violations.
Our Take
We believe our requests to EPA were reasonable and justifiable. We are disappointed that EPA ignored or distorted them. Ultimately, EPA’s actions appear inconsistent with its May 2026 commitments “to support state, local and Tribal government action under a cooperative federalism model,” and “streamline and promote effective risk communications to support individuals with information to take further action to protect themselves and their communities”.
We encourage Lowe’s Home Center to voluntarily address our concerns and:
- Notify the 250 customers where the alleged violations occurred.
- Explicitly offer dust clearance testing services to new customers.
Post on its website redacted or summarized versions of its periodic reports and address compliance with OSHA lead standard in those reports.
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- Presumably dust-lead hazards must only be abated only to the action level of 5 µg/ft2. ↩︎