How Not To Lead On Lead
I recently posted on the new, federal Renovation, Repair and Painting Rule that
is designed to address lead paint when encountered in home renovation. Some changes were made to the Rule, but a delay of implementation of the Rule was refused by EPA even though the changes resulted in doubling the number of regulated companies. However, it looks like EPA has had a slight change of heart.
Cynthia Giles, EPA's assistant administrator for enforcement, issued "Further Implementation Guidance" on June 18th stating that no EPA enforcement action will be taken against renovation and repair firms for failing to be certified until October 1st, thus allowing a delay of about four months for those firms who have not yrt received their certification. Also, for individual workers who have not yet obtained their training, they can avoid enforcement action if they apply to enroll in a class by September 30th and their training is completed by December 31, 2010. All lead safe work practices required by the Rule will apparently continue to be enforced. Further, there could still be state enforcement in states that have passed laws to implement the program, those being Wisconsin, Iowa, North Carolina, Mississippi, Kansas, Rhode Island, Utah and Oregon.
The delay was at the request of National Home Builders Association, which has argued for more than a year that the training timetable imposed by EPA was impossible to meet.
This is the kind of action that can cause one (or more) to lose confidence in their regulatory agencies. It isn't that the delay was a bad idea -- doubling the number of of the regulated entities would cause difficulties even to the best run program. The problem is that it took a flood and a vote by the Senate to get them to move. And then when they did finally act, it was so late that different renovators (some who made the deadline and some who did not) in different parts of the country (some in states with their own laws and some without) will be affected differently. Not a great start for the program.
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