EPA lowered the level of lead in dust considered safe to a near-zero limit — a public health move meant to protect kids’ brain development but that has housing associations worried.
The rule “will bring us one giant step closer to finally getting lead paint out of homes and childcare facilities across our country,” Michal Freedhoff, assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, said during a call with members of the press.
The final lead-dust rule will trigger hazardous reporting requirements for any detection of the neurotoxic heavy metal in dust, and it will reduce the action — or clearance — levels from Trump-era standards. It also weakens the threshold for abatement action from the levels originally proposed in July 2023, but keeps the no-tolerance level for reporting the same.
Forty-six years after the federal government banned lead in paint, EPA estimates 31 million homes still have lead-based paint, the main source of lead contamination in dust. Approximately 3.8 million homes house at least one child younger than 6 — the population at the highest risk of decreased kidney function, lowered IQs or other behavioral problems due to exposure.
