Biden-Harris Administration Strengthens Standards to Protect Millions from Exposure to Lead Paint Dust, Announces New Actions to Address Toxic Lead Exposure
President Biden and Vice President Harris have been clear that all Americans deserve to live free from fear of toxic lead exposure. Since Day One, the Biden-Harris Administration has marshalled a whole of government effort to reduce all sources of lead exposure, issuing a comprehensive Lead Pipe and Paint Action Plan that guides federal action to achieve a lead-free future.
Today, as we continue to mark National Lead Poisoning Prevention Week, the Biden-Harris Administration is taking action to further reduce lead exposure by issuing a final Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rule to strengthen requirements for the removal of lead paint dust in pre-1978 housing and child care facilities.
Lead is a neurotoxin that can irreversibly harm brain development in children, lower IQ, cause behavioral problems, and lead to life-long health effects. There is no safe level of lead exposure. Yet, due to decades of inequitable infrastructure development and underinvestment, lead poisoning disproportionately affects low-income communities and communities of color.
Today’s final rule sets new standards for lead abatement activities that will better protect children and communities from the harmful effects of exposure to dust generated from lead paint. The rule will help protect people in communities across the country from these harms, and is expected to reduce the lead exposures of up to nearly 1.2 million people every year, providing public health and economic benefits up to 30 times greater than the costs. Although the United States banned lead-based paint in residences in 1978, an estimated 31 million houses built before 1978 still contain lead-based paint, and 3.8 million are home to one or more child under the age of six, putting them at risk of lead exposure.
Since the announcement of the Biden-Harris Lead Pipe and Paint Action Plan, the Administration has taken hundreds of actions across more than 10 agencies to reduce the risk of lead poisoning in drinking water, paint, soil, food and household products, the workplace, and to combat lead exposure internationally – including more than 100 actions in the past year alone. Some of the actions since the latest Action Plan progress update in November 2023 include:
Reducing Exposure to Lead from Paint and Dust in the Home – Lead in household dust originates from indoor sources such as deteriorated, lead-based paint on surfaces. In the last year, the Administration has worked diligently to identify, help tackle, and eliminate these exposures in several ways: