Before President Trump was even sworn into office, a rushed congressional proposal was introduced that would repeal protections for millions of fetuses, infants, children, and adults from being poisoned by lead in tap water. This legislation would revoke the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) rule that requires water systems to remove nine million lead service lines—the pipes that deliver water from the water main in the street to the homes of tens of millions of Americans. The clear message: “Let them drink lead!”
Never mind that the EPA rule would prevent our kids from losing 200,000 IQ points and avoid thousands of deaths in adults from heart attacks due to lead in tap water. And ignore the fact that the benefits of reducing lead in tap water would outweigh the costs by tenfold or more. And disregard how, without the rule, nearly a million children would be born with a low birth weight, which puts them at risk of developmental complications, and thousands of kids would get ADHD due to lead in their water.
The proposal to repeal the EPA’s Lead and Copper Rule Improvements is seriously misguided. It is well-known that there is no safe level of lead and that the drinking water of tens of millions of Americans is contaminated with lead. We also know that the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law provided $15 billion in grants to water systems just to remove their lead pipes and an additional nearly $12 billion for drinking water infrastructure that states could put toward lead pipe removal. Many other sources of funding are also available, and the American Rescue Plan Act provided hundreds of billions of dollars to municipalities and states that could explicitly pay for lead pipe removal, which many cities have used for this purpose.
The congressional repeal proposal, termed a “resolution of disapproval” of the EPA lead in drinking water rule under the Congressional Review Act, would not only revoke that rule but would prohibit the agency from ever adopting a “substantially similar” rule. This would cause the country to revert to an old ineffective rule that the EPA has said (see page 71577 here) would mean that 95 percent of the nation’s lead service lines could remain in use. So, millions of families across the country will continue to use what are essentially lead straws. These proposals are deeply unpopular: No one voted to have more toxic lead in their family’s tap water. In fact, polling shows that about 9 in 10 voters, including most Republican voters, supported a rule to require water systems to replace all of their lead pipes within 10 years.
Why would anyone demand repeal of an EPA rule that would provide such important health benefits? The water utility industry lobbying group American Water Works Association, which has been pushing to repeal the EPA’s rule, argues that the rule would make water unaffordable for low-income people. But as my colleague Larry Levine has documented in detail, this is inaccurate and ignores key facts.
First, as noted above, there are tens of billions of dollars in federal dollars available to help water systems replace their lead pipes. (While President Trump’s controversial and vague executive order freezing climate and energy funding may cast a shadow over whether Bipartisan Infrastructure Law water infrastructure funding may also be frozen, the wide and bipartisan support for these resources show that this problematic freeze should be lifted.) Also, this is not the only funding available; there are numerous other sources of federal funds, and many states are kicking in money to help with this effort. And if water systems truly are concerned about the cost of water being a burden for low-income ratepayers, they should jettison their regressive rate structures and adopt low-income affordability programs, as some cities have done, so that no one loses access to water because they can’t afford the bill.
Second, water affordability is already a problem for some low-income people—but the cost of the lead rule, as a tiny fraction of the total future cost of needed upgrades to our water systems, is not the cause of unaffordable water bills. The water industry says that the total requirements to upgrade our water infrastructure will cost $3.27 trillion or more in the coming two decades; the cost of removing lead pipes, even using the industry’s vastly exaggerated costs for this effort, is less than 3 percent of that estimate.
Gutting the EPA’s lead rule will not solve the affordability challenge. Instead, Congress should ramp up funding to water systems, especially small and disadvantaged communities that need the help. And Congress should enact a low-income household water assistance program to help these households pay their water bills (akin to the LIHEAP program for home energy assistance).
Finally, the industry’s other argument against the EPA lead rule—that it is allegedly impossible to comply with the rule’s requirement that most water systems remove lead pipes within 10 years—is belied by the evidence. Many communities—like Newark, New Jersey; Madison. Wisconsin; Lansing, Michigan, and dozens of other towns and cities (see list starting on p. 2-7 here)—have already done it in less time, and many other cities like Akron, Ohio; Detroit; Denver; Milwaukee; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; and St. Paul, Minnesota, have committed to completing the job in a decade or less. The EPA rule also includes extensions of the 10-year deadline that the agency says will be available to hundreds or possibly thousands of water systems that have a high concentration of lead pipes.
Repealing protections against lead in tap water is not the answer. No family should ever have to choose between drinking water that is safe and being able to pay their water bill. Every person in the wealthiest nation in the history of the world has a right to safe and affordable drinking water flowing from their kitchen tap. Congress can help make that happen, and repealing protections against lead-contaminated tap water is the last thing Americans want or deserve.
