Democrats in the House of Representatives offered two new pieces of legislation this month intended to strengthen regulatory standards for lead and help schools replace lead piping. But neither measure has a path forward in the next several weeks before Congress adjourns for the year.
One proposal offered by Michigan Democrat Dan Kildee (H.R. 6311, the “National Opportunity for Lead Exposure Accountability and Deterrence (NO LEAD) Act,”) would direct EPA to overhaul the Lead and Copper rule, with the agency required to revise the standard within nine months of the bill’s enactment – though it is not clear whether a rule would have to be finalized or only proposed during this timeframe. The legislation would require the revised rule to include features such as:=
- Requiring water systems to make available to the public, within three years of the bill’s enactment, “an inventory of the material composition” of service lines at all of the community’s residential and nonresidential facilities, including a history of work performed on each line, and “all legal documents establishing the ownership of service lines” at all buildings in the community.
- Requiring utilities to notify the occupants of a particular building within two days “whenever a public water system detects a lead or copper concentration level above the action level” in that building. Additionally, within 10 days of the completion of an applicable monitoring period, a utility would have to make available to the public a report detailing all individual test results that came in above the action level.
- Prohibiting partial lead service line replacements.
- New testing protocols that forbid “techniques that minimize the detection of lead or copper in drinking water” and that require sampling to be conducted at least once per year.
- Revising the 90th percentile lead action level to 10 parts per billion by the end of 2020, and to five parts per billion by the end of 2026.
In April, Rep. Kildee introduced a slimmer version of this bill (as H.R. 5110) that would only require EPA to lower the lead action level. But that measure did not advance in Congress and the same is expected for this more comprehensive measure.
Another bill offered this month by Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.) would authorize $250 million over five years for a new grant program to help schools replace lead pipes and solder. H.R. 6334 is similar to another bill that Rep. Rush introduced in July (H.R. 5886) that would authorize $25 million for another grant program targeting school drinking fountains. Like the earlier measure, H.R. 6334 almost certainly will not receive a vote on the House floor before the year ends.