EPA Promises
Lead-Remodeling Regulation by End of Year
November 08, 2005 — By John Heilprin, Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The Environmental
Protection Agency said Monday it would propose regulations by the end of
the year to limit people's exposures to lead paint during home
remodeling.
EPA Deputy Administrator Marcus Peacock told Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill.,
in a letter that EPA staff are working diligently to propose a
regulation by Dec. 30.
Obama said last Friday that he would block high-level EPA nominations
until he received that commitment. In response to EPA's letter, he
removed a senatorial "hold" Monday on President Bush's nomination of
Susan Bodine to become EPA's assistant administrator for solid waste and
emergency response.
The office Bodine would oversee includes the Superfund program for
cleaning up the nation's worst toxic messes as well as emergency
cleanups from hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma. It is now headed by an
acting assistant administrator.
"Too many children have needlessly suffered from lead-paint poisoning,
and we've already waited far too long to take action to protect them,"
Obama said, citing EPA figures estimating that lead paint from home
remodeling leads to illnesses in 28,000 people each year.
The agency will propose regulations requiring contractors to use greater
care when they tear out ceilings, walls and other fixtures covered with
lead-based paint. Congress in 1992 ordered EPA to develop those
regulations by 1996, but the Clinton and Bush administrations never
complied.
Earlier, Obama also had threatened to block Peacock from taking over
EPA's No. 2 position if it did not issue the regulation.
Source: Associated Press
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