October 2024 was an impressive month for children’s—and adults’—health! Driven by the White House’s unprecedented emphasis on lead poisoning prevention, two major EPA rules, supported with actions by other federal agencies, October has been a Children’s Environmental Health Month for the ages.
EPA’s October finalized improvements to its Lead and Copper Rule (LCR) and revamped interior dust lead standards turned years of talk about “no safe level of lead exposure” into policy and action. By going back to the specific language in the laws Congress wrote, the agency overhauled two rules that were grounded on the discredited premise that there is some level of lead in the environment that children’s brains can safely be exposed to.
To reach this watershed moment, EPA translated decades of scientific research into policy and developed economic tools to rigorously evaluate the options. The agency’s action will lead to long-term benefits that
- Enable children to improve their lifetime earnings by avoiding the IQ losses attributed to lead that limit their potential. While these improvements may not be noticeable in individual children, they are huge when millions of children are impacted each year.
- Reduce premature deaths from heart disease by avoiding the damage from lead exposure accumulated over individual lifetimes. While the risk from lead to an individual may be small, it is a significant step in the nation’s efforts to reduce the No. 1 killer of Americans.
- Protect fetuses from lead exposure in the womb that can result in low birth weights, which puts them at risk of longer and more expensive hospital stays after birth.
- Avoid some childhood cases of ADHD that contribute to inattention, impulsiveness, and hyperactivity, which is especially disruptive in the learning environment.
Many Parties Contributed to Success
EPA did not act on its own or in isolation. The rules represent the combined efforts of
- Scientists who studied the many ways lead harms the body, the public health implications, and the real-world options to reduce exposure.
- Advocates, especially parents of children harmed by lead, who demanded action and made the risks posed by lead nearly impossible to ignore.
- Politicians on both sides of the aisle at the federal, state, and local levels who listened to the parents, examined the evidence, and found the funding to make a difference.
- Leaders in the regulated community who set an example of what can be done, spoke up when it mattered, and helped their colleagues see the need for change.
- Public health professionals who communicated to families and communities about lead risks in a balanced manner that helped them act without being paralyzed with fear.
A closer look at each rule shows how significant the action is and provides models for future success.
Improvements 20 Years in the Making
More than 20 years ago, when Washington D.C.’s water utility changed the chemical it use to disinfect water from chlorine to chloramine in order to reduce harmful byproducts. As a result, lead levels at the tap jumped, often to huge levels. The lead was primarily from lead service lines (LSLs). These lead pipes connected the main under the street to homes. Advocates, scientists, and politicians demanded action.
EPA responded with short-term changes to the LCR in 2007 and a commitment to make long-term revisions. In 2014, the agency sought the advice of its National Drinking Water Advisory Council (NDWAC) for guidance on those revisions. A year later, when the tragedy of Flint, Michigan, made plain that LSLs must go, NDWAC called for a fundamentally new approach—replace all LSLs, not as a last resort but as an essential part of protecting public health.
The American Water Works Association, the organization representing the regulated community, supported the recommendations and helped form the Lead Service Line Replacement Collaborative as a “joint effort of 28 national public health, water utility, environmental, labor, consumer, housing, and state and local governmental organizations to accelerate full removal of the lead pipes providing drinking water to millions of American homes.”
Replacing LSLs earned bipartisan support. By March 2018, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, a fierce opponent of rules and mandates, said “eradicating lead from drinking water is one of his top priorities” and called for infrastructure investments to replace all LSLs within 10 years.
In December 2020 EPA published the long-awaited revisions to the LCR, which was a helpful stepping stone but kept the flawed framework in place. It would allow LSLs to remain in use forever, falling far short of NDWAC’s recommendations.
When President Biden took office, he made replacing LSLs a top priority for his Administration, working with Congress to secure bipartisan support for $15 billion in infrastructure funding for LSL replacement projects. And he pressed EPA to dig deeper and improve the LCR in light of the requirements of the Safe Drinking Water Act.
On October 8, EPA finalized those improvements, giving utilities until 2037 to replace virtually all LSLs.1 Utilities had an option for communities with a high percentage of LSLs in the system to convince state regulators more time was needed. EPA estimated that annual benefits of the rule will exceed the annual costs by up to 13 times.
Interior Dust: A 2009 Petition, 2 Court Orders, 3 Rules
In 2009, healthy homes and lead poisoning prevention advocates, lead by the National Center for Healthy Housing (NCHH), petitioned EPA to tighten its standards for interior dust2 contaminated with lead from lead-based paint because the evidence showed that 18% of children living in such homes would blood lead levels higher than considered unsafe at that time. The petition also asked EPA to revise the definition of lead-based paint from 5,000 ppm to the amount allowed in new paint.
EPA granted the petition and began working with HUD on the effort. Within a few years, progress stalled.
Supported by Earthjustice, in 2016 other advocates asked the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to order EPA to make a final decision. The next year, the Court ordered EPA to act, prompting the agency to tighten the dust standards. But it was only a half-measure that ignored the paint standards and botched the dust standards. In addition, the rule implied that there was a level of lead exposure that did not pose a hazard and was safe. In explaining the rule, EPA said that residences could be considered safe even when a quarter of children who live there would be exposed to so much lead that they would lose more than two IQ points.
Earthjustice went back to court and challenged EPA’s rule. They asked the Court to direct EPA to review the paint, soil, and interior dust standards and set hazard standards that did not consider the cost of compliance—in essence to be honest with the public that measurable levels of lead were not safe. In 2021, the court agreed.
The Biden/Harris Administration and EPA took the court’s ruling seriously that prior efforts were insufficient and contrary to the law. They made revising the dust lead rule a priority, and, in 2023, EPA proposed revisions. Many commenters supported the proposal and called for modifications that would help smooth the way for implementation. In particular, the commenters asked EPA to revamp the rule by using terminology that was more explanatory and consistent with that other agencies used for food and drinking water to describe the standards.
On October 24, EPA largely agreed with these commenters and finalized a rule tightening and clarifying the standards for interior dust contaminated by lead, primarily from lead-based paint. In recognition that there is no safe level of lead exposure, any measurable level of lead in dust is considered reportable and acknowledged as a dust-lead hazard. EPA estimates that the long-term benefits of the rule will exceed the costs by up to eight times.
EPA still needs to address standards for soils and the definition of lead-based paint. Currently, the agency is forecasting it will propose changes to soil standards in 2026 and 12 months or more for lead-based paint definition.
Our Take
Leadership matters—and made for a remarkable October!
However, progress demands that agencies continue to update their standards as scientific evidence develops. Making that happen takes many years of effort. These rules demonstrate that progress demands persistence as well as a willingness to reassess conventional wisdom when confronted with the scientific evidence—not just on lead but also on other environmental threats.
In reality, our environment will never be “lead free” or “lead safe.” Decades of using lead in paint, pipes, fuel, and consumer products make that impossible. And, as an element, it doesn’t go away.
In addition, we are always surprised at finding new sources of exposure. Look no further than to last year, when a Wall Street Journal investigation revealed there an estimated 75,000 miles of abandoned lead pipes used in telecom cables hanging from telephone poles or laying on the bottom of lakes, rivers, and streams that appear to be releasing lead into the environment. Rather than striving to reassure people with unachievable goals, for toxics like lead where the scientific evidence is so powerful, we need to be honest with the public. In addition, we need to use the tools EPA has developed to make smart decisions to drive people’s exposure closer to zero. EPA’s rulemakings provide us with an example for broader action in other areas.
One thought on “White House, EPA Turn Talk into Action: An Unprecedented October”
Congratulations to the USA for doing so much to prevent lead exposure and poisoning and to you Tom for all your work. The UK is falling even further behind. No one disagrees that we have a problem, but no one takes responsibility for fixing it. The evidence and action from the USA keeps us trying.