More on Lead Paint Legislation

Published June 29, 2010 in the Salem News

Our view: New lead-paint rules a nightmare for contractors, homeowners

"Bureaucracy is the death of all sound work," Albert Einstein once said, and sadly, we haven't come very far since his time on this planet.

The latest victims of bureaucratic misfortune are contractors, and ultimately, homeowners, who make improvements in homes or other buildings that may contain lead paint.

Starting in April, the federal Environmental Protection Agency enacted a major change in how contractors deal with lead paint. The regulations have greatly increased the cost to consumers who want to have their homes painted or have work done that involves disturbing anything over six square feet in area that may contain lead paint.

Your bill will likely be 15 to 30 percent more under the new regulations. For people wanting to have the entire exterior of their home painted, the added cost will amount to thousands of dollars.

That's bad enough. For contractors, bureaucratic bungling has caused even more problems.

The new law calls for contractors to be professionally trained or face fines of up to $37,500 for each violation. But the EPA failed to ensure there would be an adequate number of trainers available to teach the 8-hour course. As a result, some states had no trainers in place when the law went into effect. Massachusetts had relatively few trainers — there were only a couple of dozen or so to handle the tens of thousands of contractors who needed to be trained. The entire state of Maine had only three trainers.

The net effect was many small contractors simply stopped working on homes that were built before 1978, the year that the United States banned the use of lead paint. Which means the pool of contractors has dwindled significantly.

Under howls of protest from Congress and trade organizations, the EPA last week postponed enforcement of the regulations until the fall, in hopes that trainers will catch up with the long line of contractors waiting to take the course.

No one would argue it's a bad idea to remove lead from homes and from buildings where children come in contact with it. Exposure to lead — in this case, through lead paint — can cause severe health problems. It is linked to developmental disabilities in children.

It's the disconnect between bureaucracy and the working world that it is supposed to regulate, that is most frustrating. Enacting laws from on high without giving contractors an adequate way to comply, is irresponsible. Congress should look into this matter, trace it through the EPA's chain of command, and hold the responsible bureaucrats accountable.

The United States banned lead from paint in 1978, and even back then we were decades behind the times. As early as 1904, doctors clearly traced lead paint's health impacts on children. In 1909, France, Belgium and Austria were the first nations to ban interior use of lead paint, followed in short succession by most European countries. America had a chance to join its League of Nations allies in 1922 in a ban on lead paint, but opted out.

Our efforts to catch up should be better planned than the fiasco we are currently witnessing.

Congress May Delay Fining for New EPA Lead Paint Laws

Congress may delay fining contractors and property owners until at least September to allow more time for training. The U.S. Senate voted 60-37 to approve a bill that would prevent contractors from being fined for not complying with a new U.S. Environmental Protection Agency rule on lead paint by blocking funds in a supplemental appropriations bill from being used to levy fines. A contractor who is not certified faces a fine of $37,500 per day. The bill, sponsored by Sens. James Inhofe, R-Okla., and Susan Collins, R-Maine, passed Thursday with the support of all of the Senate Republicans who were present and opposition from 36 Democrats and one Independent. The senator also called on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee to hold an oversight hearing on the rule.

The EPA's Lead Renovation Repair and Painting Rule, which went into effect April 22, 2010, requires that renovations of homes built before 1978 be supervised by a certified renovator and conducted by a certified renovation firm to prevent workers from contaminating homes with potentially harmful lead dust.

The new law was not well advertised so no one was aware that it would become effective in April of 2010 and the EPA has too few instructors to train everyone before the deadline. As of May 7, there were 212 training providers to service the entire country with 10,000 courses offered*. Massachusetts had only five instructors to cover the entire state and the Moderate Risk Deleading training that most property owners were certified in was not accepted by EPA as proper training.

The bill's passage is a sign that "there is bipartisan concern about the disastrous implementation of EPA's lead-based paint rule," Inhofe said.

Inhofe and Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., have also introduced another bill that would put off enforcement of the lead paint rule for at least a year, until contractors have a chance to take the required training course.



*EPA says that as of June 14, 2010, 247 accredited training providers have conducted more than 15,000 courses.