The EPA will soon finalize lead paint regulations without your say unless you act soon. NAHB is asking for you to contact the EPA to extend their April 10^th, 2006 deadline, as well as provide your own comments on this potentially overreaching and highly expensive regulation – using this form letter or your own. Without the extension, NAHB may not be able to effectively counter EPA’s false or poorly-reasoned rationales used to justify this new rule.  (Read more about the rule here.)

 

When the federal government creates new rules and regulations, it allows for a public comment period where individuals, businesses and organizations are asked to review the rule and provide their take. Once the April 10^th deadline closes, the EPA will review all the comments and finalize the lead paint rule, estimated to cost more than $5 billion a year in compliance.

 

Due to the vast amount of material (tens of thousands of pages) the EPA provided as basis for their regulation, NAHB needs more time to examine all of the information. An extension will also give NAHB the ability to better complete its research on lead exposure rates during typical remodeling activities. This new research will help NAHB defend cost-effective and proper regulations to each potential hazard, instead of an overbearing one-size-fits-all approach.

 

However, you must act fast. There are two ways to contact the EPA: The first is through regular mail using this letter. The second is online at www.regulations.gov, where you can search for the regulation by using the identification EPA-HQ-OPPT-2005-0049. On the far right is a button to send comments online.

 

To learn more about the lead paint regulations, visit here. To view the new regulation in its entirety, click here.