Thursday, December 16, 2021

Harris announces Biden administration's new lead pipe and paint removal effort

By Kevin Liptak and Kate Sullivan, CNN 

Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday announced a new administration push to eliminate lead from water pipes and homes in the next decade using billions in new funding allocated through the new bipartisan infrastructure law.

WASHINGTON, DC - OCTOBER 12: Vice President Kamala Harris delivers remarks to the National Congress of American Indians 78th Annual Convention, in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on October 12, 2021 in Washington, DC. Harris spoke on how the Biden-Harris Administration is helping tribal nations through the the President's Budget, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal, the Build Back Better Agenda, and the American Rescue Plan. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

"Here's the truth, and it's a hard truth: Millions of people in our country, many of them children, are still exposed to lead every day," Harris said at the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations in Washington.

The vice president said many parents across the country have told her they were worried "that every time they turned on the faucet to give their child a glass of water that they may be filling that glass with poison."

"The science is clear about what drinking water from a lead pipe can do to the human body," Harris said. "For adults, it can cause an increase in blood pressure and decreased kidney function. In children, it can severely harm mental and physical development. It can stunt growth, slow down learning and cause irreparable damage to the brain."

Through the administration's new Lead Pipe and Paint Action Plan, agencies will take a number of steps meant to remove the toxic metal from places where people live, work or go to school. Harris said the push would focus on communities that have "historically been left out or left behind."

The Environmental Protection Agency will begin the process of writing new regulations that would protect communities from lead in drinking water; the Department of Labor will form technical assistance hubs to fast-track removal projects with union workers; agencies will commit to removing lead service lines and paint in federally assisted housing; and a new Cabinet group will focus on lead removal in schools and child care facilities.

Harris said up to 10 million American households and 400,000 schools and child care centers could be exposed to lead through service lines or other fixtures. Low-income communities, and communities of color, are disproportionately affected.

The administration is allocating $15 billion from the bipartisan infrastructure law for lead service line replacements at the EPA through the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund. It will also allocate an additional $11.7 billion in state revolving funding, which is funding administered by a state to provide low-interest loans for investing in water and sanitation infrastructure.

The EPA will allocate $3 billion of this $15 billion to states, tribes and territories to replace lead pipes next year, Harris said. The EPA is also launching a new regulatory process to protect communities from lead in drinking water.

When the drinking water for the city of Flint, Michigan, was contaminated in 2014 it put a national spotlight on the issue of lead in drinking water. The water contamination in Flint lasted for years, and many advocates say race and poverty factored into how Flint wasn't adequately protected.

The US Department of Treasury will clarify that the $350 billion for the State and Local Fiscal Recovery Fund that was in the emergency Covid-19 relief bill, known as the American Rescue Plan, can be used to replace lead service lines as well as lead faucets and fixtures.

The EPA and Department of Labor will establish regional technical assistance hubs to help fast track lead pipe removals in coordination with labor unions and local water agencies. The Department of Housing and Urban Development will also award grants in low-income communities to remove lead paint and other home health hazards.

The administration also outlined billions of dollars in funding in the President's Build Back Better bill, which passed the House but faces an uncertain path in the Senate, that will go toward this goal.


White House unveils plan to replace every lead pipe in the U.S.

Josh Lederman 

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden promised his infrastructure proposal would replace every lead pipe in the country. Now the White House says it has a plan to deliver, despite a significant funding gap.

© Provided by NBC News

The administration’s plan for lead pipes and paints, unveiled by Vice President Kamala Harris in a speech Thursday, illustrates how officials are hoping to cobble together enough money to meet Biden’s goal through sources like the infrastructure law, Covid relief funding and the president’s stalled Build Back Better bill.

As many as 10 million U.S. households, schools and care facilities get their drinking water through lead pipes, and each pipe can cost thousands of dollars to replace. Lead poisoning can cause serious health problems, especially for children, whose physical and mental development can be severely affected.

The amount of funding at Biden’s disposal may determine whether the president can deliver on an issue that has come to symbolize how infrastructure shortfalls have disproportionately put low-income and minority communities at risk, especially in the wake of water crises in Flint, Mich., and Newark, N.J.

Senior administration officials briefing reporters ahead of Harris’ speech insisted they have sufficient resources to replace within a decade what they estimated were between 6 million and 10 million lead pipes and service lines. The exact number is unknown.

Replacing all of them could cost more than $60 billion, according to an estimate from the American Water Works Association, which represents water suppliers.

Biden initially sought $45 billion from Congress to complete the task. In the end, Biden got only $15 billion for lead pipes as part of the bipartisan infrastructure bill he signed into law last month.

Earlier in the year, Biden had cast the project as an economic win, saying it would “put plumbers and pipefitters to work.”

“It’s going to replace 100 percent of the nation’s lead water pipes so that every child and every American could turn on the faucet at home or at school and drink clean water,” Biden said in June.

The White House plan says the administration intends to augment the $15 billion from the infrastructure law with another $15 billion for pipes and paint in the Build Back Better Act, Biden’s domestic spending package that’s currently stalled in the Senate after passing the House in a largely party-line vote.

Senate Democrats are struggling to get everyone on their side of the aisle behind the $1.7 trillion bill, with moderate Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., balking over the price tag and economic effects of another massive surge in federal spending.

The White House plan for lead pipes and paints also counts on states deciding to use their share of a $350 billion pot of money from the American Rescue Plan, a Covid-relief stimulus bill passed in March, on removing lead pipes. On Thursday, the Treasury Department is expected to publicly clarify that states, territories and tribes may use that funding for lead pipes. Still, the administration can’t force states to use it for that purpose, and it’s likely much of it has already been spent on other projects.

Harris announced the strategy during a visit to AFL-CIO headquarters, just down the street from the White House on Black Lives Matter Plaza.

“There is no reason in the 21st century for why people are still exposed to this substance that was poisoning people back in the 18th century,” Harris said. She added that more than half of American children under six are at risk of lead exposure.

In a parallel step to accelerate the replacement of dangerous old pipes, the Environmental Protection Agency is expected to announce Thursday it will put forth new, stronger regulations on drinking water and lead and copper pipes, senior administration officials said.

Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Mich., said her suburban Detroit district has at least 10,000 lead service lines, and possibly twice that number.

“I’ve had parents come up to me with tears in their eyes, worried for the wellbeing of their children because there is lead in the school’s water,” Dingell said. “This is unacceptable.”

EPA details push to tighten rules for lead in drinking water

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration took steps Thursday aimed at reducing lead in drinking water, announcing plans to release $2.9 billion in infrastructure bill funds next year for lead pipe removal and impose stricter rules to limit exposure to the health hazard.



Vice President Kamala Harris made the case for the administration’s push to eliminate every lead service line in the country, reiterating the administration's pledge that the effort would create jobs across the country and begin to undo the harm pollution has caused in poor, often minority communities.

“The challenge that we face is, without any question, great. Lead is built into our cities. It is laid under our roads and it is installed in our homes," Harris said in remarks at AFL-CIO headquarters in Washington.

The White House estimates between 6 million and 10 million U.S. households and 400,000 schools get water through lead service lines, which connect buildings to the water main and can leach particles of the neurotoxin into drinking water and potentially cause severe developmental and neurological issues — especially when consumed by children. In recent years, the risks facing cities with lead service lines have come into focus, most notably after the Flint, Michigan, water crisis.

The administration estimates 24 million homes are at risk of having lead paint, which can pose significant health risks even when absorbed at low levels.

While the EPA considers how to strengthen the nation's lead-in-water rules, it will allow the previous Trump administration’s overhaul of lead regulations to move forward, officials said Thursday. The Biden EPA's requirements are expected to be finalized by 2024, and would require the replacement of remaining lead drinking water pipes “as quickly as is feasible."

“The science on lead is settled — there is no safe level of exposure and it is time to remove this risk to support thriving people and vibrant communities,” said EPA administrator Michael Regan in a statement.

Some environmental advocates were lukewarm to the administration’s announcement, saying the 10-year goal for replacing lead lines and other provisions were vague on commitments and detail.

“The top priority must be to require removal of all lead pipes within the decade and to set a strict at-the-tap standard, which is the only way to prevent another generation of kids from drinking water through what is essentially a lead straw,” said Erik Olson, senior strategic director of health at the Natural Resources Defense Council. "Good intentions won’t be enough to get the job done,” he added.

John Rumpler, senior attorney with Environment America, called the administration’s plans “long-overdue and an indispensable step toward securing safe water.” He also said the EPA should set a 10-year deadline to replace lead service lines, as New Jersey did in July.

At a Thursday briefing, deputy White House national climate adviser Ali Zaidi acknowledged the difficulty of locating and mapping out lead lines, which can be hard to assess in older cities and towns.

“A little bit of this ... is mapping the topography of the mountain as we’re starting to climb it,” Zaidi said. “We have to go out there, we have to collect the data. There are communities around the United States where we do not know where the pipes are.”

The White House also has plans to commit $5 billion for the removal of lead-based paint in Democrats' $2 trillion social and environmental package. That bill remains stalled in the Senate.

The Trump-era rule said public water systems should replace 3% of their lead service lines each year if lead levels exceed 15 parts per billion. That rate is lower than the previous 7% standard established in 1991, but Trump administration officials said at the time that the rule eliminated loopholes that allowed water systems to avoid removing pipes and would actually make the replacement process faster.

But environmental groups were critical, saying it allowed removal to happen too slowly.

The Trump administration also set requirements to ensure water systems prevent lead in pipes from corroding into drinking water. And it revamped lead testing to make sure the samples water systems use in testing come from water sitting in lead pipes instead of near the faucet — a move that experts say could push lead level results higher for many utilities around the country.

The Biden EPA said it is considering ways to strengthen key parts of the regulation, including the 15 parts-per-billion threshold,

Congress approved $15 billion for lead service line replacement in the infrastructure bill — about a third less than what the White House and water experts say it would cost to replace them nationally.

Administration officials spoke about additional efforts being taken to limit lead exposure, including more childhood surveillance testing for lead exposure by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and grants from the Department of Housing and Urban Development to remove lead paint in public housing. The Treasury Department is also announcing that surplus COVID-19 relief funds can be used for lead service line replacement projects.

“There is no reason in the 21st century for why people are still exposed to this substance that was poisoning people back in the 18th century,” Harris said.

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Phillis contributed from St. Louis.

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The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP’s environmental coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/environment

Suman Naishadham And Michael Phillis, The Associated Press

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