WASHINGTON, DC--Under threat of a lawsuit and political pressure, the Bush administration today filed in federal court a pledge to finalize rules requiring that repairs and renovations in pre-1978 housing and child-care facilities are done in a lead-safe manner.
The legal settlement between the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, PEER, was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
When fully implemented, the lead-safe standards will close the principal pathway by which children in millions of homes across the U.S. are exposed to lead dust, PEER said.
Dust thrown up in renovation and repair of older residences permeates carpeting, ductwork and soil, so that children breathe the dust for months. In cities with older housing bases, such as Minneapolis and New York, a large percentage of children suffer from elevated blood lead levels.
In Chicago, for example, more than 20 percent of children under age five have blood levels above those associated with harmful health effects, such as mental retardation, stunted growth and premature death.
By law, the EPA was supposed to adopt lead-safe regulations for repairs and renovations in older housing by October 28, 1996. Up until 2005, EPA claimed that, while tardy, it was still working to develop rules. That year, however, PEER discovered "the EPA public statements were false because the agency had made a secret decision to abandon the rules altogether."
PEER and a coalition of community groups filed suit against the EPA in December 2005.
The federal agency proposed lead repair and renovation rules in January 2006, facing the lawsuit and under political pressure led by Senators Barack Obama of Illinois and Hillary Clinton of New York, currently the final two contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination.
According to EPA estimates, each year 1.4 million children under age seven are at risk of lead exposure due to unsafe repair and renovations.
Environmental Protection Agency
www.epa.gov
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