Lead Paint Rule All Wet
If you are planning home renovations, expect to pay extra if you live in an older home. A federal court has ruled that a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rule related to lead paint applies to all homes built before 1978 — without exceptions. That means regulatory costs will be passed on to homeowners, even where lead paint poses little-to-no health threats.
Lead paint can be an issue for children under six years old that are chronically exposed to relatively high levels of peeling paint and related dust. Health impacts range from lead poisoning in severe cases to modest impacts on learning ability. Risks exist largely in older homes that are not properly maintained, often in low-income neighborhoods where residents cannot afford proper repairs and upkeep. Lead paint does not pose the same problem for people over the age of six.
Fortunately, the problem has diminished over the past several decades. Since 1997, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that the number of children with elevated lead blood levels found in their surveillance samples has declined from 7.61% to 0.83% by 2008.
Nonetheless, a 2008 EPA rule requires that those contracted to perform home remodeling and repairs must take an eight-hour course and gain certification before they can work on homes that might contain lead paint. Before beginning a project, remodelers must also test for lead paint in these older homes in the areas they plan to work. If lead paint is present, the contractor must implement “lead free-work practices,” as defined by the regulation. According to EPA, these practices are designed to contain the work area to minimize dust, and ensure thorough cleanup.
Originally, the rule allowed homeowners who did not have children six years of age and younger, or pregnant women living in the home, to opt out of lead-safe work practices because the risks of lead in those cases are negligible. But the Obama EPA eliminated that provision in 2010. According to EPA estimates, elimination of the opt-out rule increased regulatory costs by more than $500 million in the first year, by more than $300 million in the second year, and by more than $200 million in the following years.
The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) opposed the elimination of the op-out option rule and argued its case before the D.C. Circuit Court, but the court has recently ruled the law valid. The only hope for change now lies with Congress. Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla.) and Rep. John Sullivan (R-Okla.) both have introduced legislation to restore the op-out provisions (H.R. 5911 and S. 2148).
The Obama regulation’s cost is “substantial,” says NAHB, because it
increases the cost of the rule without providing a corresponding benefit. … NAHB is concerned that home owners will turn to unlicensed contractors, decide to do the project themselves, or defer maintenance instead of paying the additional $2,400 our members estimate is added to the cost of every project subject to the regulation.
An article in The Fiscal Times detailed the impact on one small business in Ohio:
The new rule’s detailed compliance requirements, related paperwork, and purchases of EPA required equipment added thousands of dollars to the cost of doing business and made it much harder for her [owner Kathy Faia] to compete for remodeling contracts. Business has dropped off by more than two thirds, and she had to lay off one of her workers. ‘I’m just barely hanging on,’ she says. ‘They [the EPA] are over-regulating and sucking all of the fun out of the remodeling business.’
Requiring homeowners without any children in their home to comply with the lead-paint rule does nothing to address lead-paint problems and likely provides zero health benefits. It does make it difficult for many small businesses to survive. And ironically, regulations that make remodeling more expensive could exacerbate the cases where health risks exist by discouraging repairs that would otherwise reduce lead-paint-based risks.
This is straight out of the cap and trade bill. I remember Boehner reading this stuff about lead paint and how this stuff will destroy the housing markets by making homes unsellsble for stupid, illogical reasons.
One of the areas hardest hit is the very liberal Northeast with all of the old historic homes. Good, they deserve it so let them pay for electing liberals who LOVE these kind of regulations and bow to the environmentalists. What do the legislators care, they aren’t paying the costs involved.
I have had a finish carpentry business for over 30 years. When this law was being contemplated, I got on the internet and tried to determine what the damage to children actually looked like if/when they were or had been exposed to paint containing lead. To my surprise, the only thing that showed on Google was over 14 pages of advertisements for attorneys who would try your lead exposure case against landlords, contractors, or builders. I could not for the life of me find out just what happened when a child was exposed to lead paint! I remodeled my own home in the early 90s when my children were young and I’m sure there was lead in the paint. But there was no demonstrable toxicity showing up in my kids. I had no issues. And other than making sure we had masks, we took no special steps. Now, the fines can be leveled that will destroy all but the largest contractors. This will surely make it virtually impossible for young families to sell their homes unless they have been able to afford the extra $5,000 to $10,000 that these extra steps cost. In short, this is a ridiculous and tyrannical regulation. And I’m sure every industry has been weighed down by similar irrelevant yet restrictive procedures. God help us all.
In my young half-a-century of life, I have never been exposed to the results of what happens to a kid who eats his house. Or his bicycle.
Lead paint? It’s all a BS scam based, once again on pseudo-science, giving bureaucrats something to do. What’s criminal is that they’ve gotten away with it for decades.
This is what happens when a law establishing an executive agency and does not limit what that agency can do. The agency should be required to petition the Congress if they want increased powers. This way it is debated (and hopefully defeated) as opposed to some unaccountable bureaucrat legislating from their tax payer funded vacation suite in Las Vegas. Time for Congress to start putting handcuffs on these out of control agencies.
From what I have read, congress passed laws that directed the EPA to take these steps.
EPA is a rogue agency. With or without legislative direction. We have to eliminate this cancer, along with the HHS and TSA. Good luck with that, however.
To make matter worse, the EPA did the rule change with no grandfathering. So if you were already in the middle of project that the homeowner exempted.. well, you are now in violation of the law. Fines are over $30k
The cases I found of lead poisoning were all due to homeowners doing work themselves and allowing their kids to basically get covered in crap while the work is going on. The EPA rule btw, excludes homeowners. This makes it real fun if you are a contractor doing work while the homeowners is also doing his own projects. How do you work on a property if you have to follow rules and the other person does not?
The EPA needs to be eliminated. It has become a leviathan.
OFFTOPIC: Attention PJ crew.. there is something wrong with the posting system. I keep getting ‘You are posting too quickly’ errors, no matter how long I wait to post.
There is a systemic problem with EPA regulation, which has existed since it was created. The problem is assessing the cost of technical compliance, and the scientific basis of regulations (not here addressed). Both should be, but are never solved. The question, “Is it worth the cost?” is never answered. The EPA estimates the cost at a dime; industry estimates it at a dollar. In all cost estimate disputes, the number centers on who has skin in the game, risk of loss. In this case, the remodeller, normally a small, under capitalized, non technical, business person, believes it will destroy his business. The EPA regulator carries no employment risk, and holds that it is not too expensive.
This imbalance must stop. Every company’s tax return should have an entry, defining the cost of EPA regulation (and perhaps other government regulation). When the accrued national sum exceeds the EPA target, the overage should be deducted from next year’s EPA budget. Skin in the game is the answer. There is no ethical reason why lay offs in the EPA, should vary from the employment of other Americans. Both must face real world cost limitations. No revenue, no job.
I come from an industry, electric power engineering, in which more than 2/3 of its employees were permanently laid off. Almost none found comparable employment. What these highly skilled Americans did, in a competitive world, ceased to have any value, while the Americans, who regulated their livelihood out of existence, grew in number. This is unAmerican, fundamentally wrong. The risk of complying with good ideas should be spread evenly throughout our society.
Fiscal discipline would stop the larding on of costs, on present and future Americans. It is unchecked and pandemic in government. Risk sharing is the only answer. Otherwise we are slaves, subordinate people whose fruits of their work, go, by law, to masters.
The image of the EPA was one of an agency created to combat pollution in the environment. As such, you’d have propaganda with bald eagles, bubbling streams, etc., all paid with the taxpayer dime.
While the goal of reversing pollution trends that resulted literally in rivers catching fire was always laudable, and no one wants asbestos in their home these days, I’d say we hit that level of societal correction decades ago.
The major polluters have either been shut down or become smart enough they would not be caught. As such, the only perceived miscreants left for the agency to go after are the small fry.
In this case, small 1 or 2 person residential re-modelers.
At this point, the EPA appears to be a government agency in search of the next dragon to slay as a way of justifying it’s continued existence.
Best way to deal with this is to take a cleaver to its budget, cut it to the bare bone, and thereby force it to focus on the most egregious polluters rather than trying to ban copper jacketed bullets because they contain a lead core, or shutting down a bicycle manufacturer because the EPA is concerned some kid is going to try to suck the miniscule trace amount of lead out of the valve stem of his bicycle inner tube by mouth – or mandating massive cost increases on a business that is already operating on the bare margins of survivability, all in the name of eliminating from the world an element that occurs naturally in nature.
Um, no. Here, let me fix that for you:
There, now it describes what’s REALLY going on.
It’s not the EPA but it’s other well-intentioned goverment busybodies, go ahead and ask me about – automobile air bags!
The EPA science behind this would get an F in a 7th grade science exhibit. It is pitiful. This is driven by the belief that black kids are abnormally subjected to lead paint and hence under the performers(no evidence whatsoever that is the cause), hate of mining as a business, hatred of industry, hatred of America in general.
The greedy billionaires selling these home remodeling kits don’t want these safety regulations cutting into their profit margins. The hysterical antagonism in the corporate controlled media to any compassion at all mitigating against unbridled corporate greed is jaw-dropping to behold.
Why should they be allowed to make any money at all by exploiying so basic a need as housing anyway. In a compassionate society safe and afforfable housing would be an absolute right. Greed should not be allowed anywhere near such a fundamental human need as housing.
This particular safety issues also dovetails very nicely with the rest of the corporate agenda. The brain damage cause by the resulting lead poising will inevetible empower right-wing politicians because people will become too stupid to see through corporate propaganda. This will entrench corporate power even further. That is why the promotion of lead poisoning is so very important to corporations everywhere.
This is a far too simplistic viewpoint. It is destroying our nation. The only absolute right any human has, is to be dead. Life demands a series of risk assessments, with compassionate consideration for the weak, and ignorant. From the air we breath, to the food we eat, to the structures we live in, to the foreigners we engage, all demand decisions, and risk acceptance on the allocation of scarce resources. For material things, science informs us of what is dangerous, if used improperly. All things, used improperly, can be dangerous.
It is a fact that virtually all structures built before 1778 have lead in the paint. To remove this metal, at the atomic level, creates a cost far beyond the value of the structure. When strict requirements were imposed, the owners abandoned housing stock which, through regulation, fell to a negative worth. No one spends ten dollars to earn one dollar. As a result property was abandoned and vast slums were created. Slums are housing which violates housing code requirements.
This forces technical decisions. What is the danger? Ingestion of flaking lead paint. How do we protect residents, without making their home worthless? A new paint job will capture most, not all, the loose material, at a modest cost. What are the standards for air born lead during remodeling, to protect the workers? How do you organize and “Prove” that it is being done correctly? This forces health scientists into conflict with commercial remodelers, and code engineers. What are the compromises, and the risks?
Greed is a factor. Arrogance is another. Fear of losing one’s life time investment is a third. Life is not simple, particularly for those who care.
My apologies. Phone calls distract; 1778 should read 1978.
Sir, methinks your sarcasm detector may need to be recalibrated.
I once met the former Chief Chemist of one of the leading lead paint manufacturers. A PhD, a world authority in paint chemistry, he had been unemployed for fifteen years. He had lost his career, house, family, health, and mental stability. He could only speak in garbled phrases.
I have read that lead ingression is similar to other metals, somewhat harmful. The underlying science which “proved” that it is really bad, is a history of fraudulent studies. Data was simply erased, if it indicated any thing other than bad. This is not my field; I do not know.
Ergo you are correct. My sarcasm detector in matters of child health versus the destruction of careers, and industries, by technically stupid people is non existent. I don’t joke in cancer wards either. Life is deadly serious, for responsible adults.
Grow up.
The morons at EPA are so stupid that they didn´t understand that the paint goes in the walls, not in your food. That’s why all the regulations imposed on it. Maybe a couple decades ago one of the EPA chief officers fed her child with strawberry-looking Sherwin-Williams paint on top of her cereal, and that’s where the whole lead-paint story started.
I am taking down some serious bank on government regs. Lead and asbestos. Love it.Love capitalism and love gov. regs. OBTW, they are fundamentally correct.
I’ve never had a lead paint issue, I’ve never known anyone who has and, honestly, I’ve never remodeled a house.
But, this seems like a good idea but an overreaction. I have little choice but to except the long standing idea that lead paint is bad for children and for pregnant women. So, it seems to me, getting rid of lead paint, wherever it may exist, sounds like a good idea to me but at the same time, the argument that the added cost will make people choose not to do the work at all, to ignore the home or whatever also makes sense.
I’d like to see a happy compromise. If there are no children or pregnant women, let the lead paint stay if the home owner does not wish to pay for the removal at the time, but make sure to notify the home owner that selling the house without notifying any future buyer of the lead paint would be a crime. I THINK This is probably already on the books, you can’t sell a car and not tell a buyer of a known issue, I can’t imagine the same idea isn’t in real estate law.
At the same time, require the home owner (or better yet, the contractor who found/suspects lead paint) to notify the town/city/county/state where the lead is located so that it will be a matter of public record for anyone to find, including any future owners of the property.
The idea is to keep children and pregnant women safe. This should do that without adding significantly to the cost of the renovation.
Jefferson:
Lead paint notifications are already on the books for sales and rentals. Please note: lead paint is only an issue if it is ingested. So if the paint is in good shape and the kids are not eating it, then it is a non-issue health wise.
My apartment is situated in a very old building and honestly I didn’t expect to pay extra money for any additional renovations. I hope it is not so much though as I was planning to concentrate mostly on my home repair.