Letter to the Hon. Ben Carson, HUD - Escalate Response to Lead Poisoning Crisis

Letter

Dear Secretary Carson:

I write to express my concerns about the Department of Housing and Urban Development's (HUD) response to addressing the lead poisoning crisis in this country. As Secretary of the agency primarily responsible for ensuring Americans have access to safe housing, you are on the front lines of combating a public health emergency that impacts thousands of children and families every year.

While lead-based paint, gasoline, and other sources are no longer in use, their lingering effects are devastating. Numerous scientific studies have shown that children exposed to lead in their homes, schools, and child care centers face significant health and developmental challenges including diminished learning abilities, speech delays, and damage to the kidneys, heart, and brain. According to the Green and Healthy Homes Initiative, the costs associated with addressing the effects of childhood lead poisoning is over $50 billion.

In Maine, lead poisoning is a major environmental health threat for children, primarily a consequence of exposure to dust from lead paint found in our state's old housing stock. In a study published by Maine's Department of Health and Human Services, Maine Medical Research Institute, and the Harvard School of Public Health, of children diagnosed with lead poisoning, 79 percent live in housing with identifiable lead paint hazards. Additionally, 69 percent were found to live in rental housing and 87 percent live in housing built before 1950. Compounding the problem, this week the Maine Affordable Housing Coalition revealed that Maine has the lowest rates in New England for testing children for exposure to lead poisoning. In addition to the 1,800 children who have been poisoned in Maine over the past five years, over 800 have been poisoned but were not screened.

Due to the high prevalence of childhood lead poisoning, in 1991 Maine set a statutory goal through the Lead Poisoning Control Act (LPCA) to eradicate this public health threat by 2010. While we have yet to completely eliminate childhood lead poisoning, our state has taken major steps over the past decade that has reduced the number of cases from 1,500 to just over 300.

In June 2015, I was part of a successful effort in the Maine State Legislature to amend the LPCA's definition of childhood lead poisoning to match the Center for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) blood lead reference level of 5 µg/dL. This change required Maine's Health Department to lower the threshold at which it must inspect dwelling units for the presence of lead hazards from a blood lead level of 15 µg/dL to 5 µg/dL. As a result, our state experienced a seven-fold increase in the number of dwelling units inspected for lead hazards, and a six-fold increase in dwelling units under orders to remove identified sources of lead. Additionally, as state representative for Lewiston, Maine, I sponsored legislation that provided $4 million in state funding for lead-abatement aid to remove lead poisoning threats from buildings.

Lead poisoning is entirely preventable. As our work in Maine shows, when the political will and resources are brought to bear, we can make significant progress in an effort to end this public health crisis. While I am encouraged to see that President Trump has requested that Congress appropriate $290 million for lead-safe homes for Fiscal Year 2020, an increase from previous years, there is more that can be done.

First, HUD should work with the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Veterans' Affairs to require identification and lead hazard remediation of lead based paint and lead service lines in all federally owned homes and homes with federally supported or insured mortgages. I believe that this important change will end federal involvement in the sale of foreclosed properties with lead hazards.

Second, HUD should require all states and local governments receiving federal lead poisoning prevention funding to establish environmental investigation and medical case management at the CDC reference level of 5 µg/dL. While Maine has taken steps to comport to this standard, the majority of states have not, leaving too many children in unsafe properties without any sort of intervention. By making eligibility for federal funds conditional on states and localities improving their own standards, we will be able to identify and remediate more properties where children are exposed to lead.

Lastly, I urge you to work with Congress to provide the funding necessary to address the lead-based paint that is found in more than one million homes across the country. Increasing the budget for lead hazard reduction funding to $2.5 billion annually for the next five years would result in the remediation of an estimated 220,000 homes each year. The economic case for this funding level is clear - for every dollar invested in abatement, taxpayers receive $17 to $221 in return. In Maine, the total number of both confirmed and unidentified lead poisoned children has resulted in a potential economic loss of about $1.9 billion due to the effects of lead on their intellectual function. Extrapolate that amount to the rest of the country and we are losing billions of dollars in economic productivity as a result of childhood lead poisoning.

In short, the long-term costs of lead poisoned children are far greater than the immediate costs of the increase in funding necessary to remove these lead toxins. Rather than smaller investments over an extended period of time, it would cost this country less overall to make a larger investment in lead abatement upfront before more children and families suffer from lead exposure.

For too long, the federal government, under both parties, has failed to adequately address the childhood lead poisoning crisis in this country. One child diagnosed with lead poisoning is one too many. Thank you for your attention to this important matter and I look forward to working with you in an effort to eliminate lead poisoning from our communities.

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