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After months of revising the lead paint bill that failed in the General Assembly last year, state Sen. Thomas J. Izzo will introduce a new bill in the Senate next week. Izzo, a Cranston Democrat who chairs the Senate Health, Education, and Welfare committee, said he and his staff have been working on the bill continuously since the end of the last session. He declined to discuss the specifics of the new bill because he has yet to complete it.
Last year, Izzo sponsored legislation that would have, among other things, phased out the “innocent owner” provision of state law, which presumes that a property owner is innocent until he has knowledge that an elevated lead level is present on his property.
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In filing a new bill, Izzo is attempting to deal with a problem that is particularly prevalent in Rhode Island and throughout the Northeast because of the region’s stock of older homes. The federal government banned the use of interior lead paint in 1978. Lead paint is considered to be dangerous when it is chipping only, not when it is intact. Children exposed to lead paint chips may suffer a variety of neurological disorders, such as learning disabilities and behavior problems.
But Izzo, who said he has been meeting with the various groups that have a stake in the lead paint legislation, acknowledged it is unlikely that even this new bill will win everyone’s support. Given the number of interested parties, including insurance companies, Realtors, homeowners, and landlords, and lead paint activists, it is difficult to please everyone. In fact, Izzo said a good lead paint bill is one that “everyone is going to find something wrong with.” That means that no one side got away without compromise, he said.
Realtors will watch this new legislation closely. Since a single lead-paint mitigation project can cost from $7,000 to $15,000, they are concerned about how any new legislation is worded. Specifically, they favor a bill that targets negligent property owners, rather than one that hits those who have tried in good faith to keep their properties safe.
One of the concerns is that many of the properties that contain lead paint are two and three-family homes, which is where many first-time buyers get their start, said Ronald Phipps, president of the Rhode Island Association of Realtors.
”We are committed to a safe environment; lead’s a serious problem,” Phipps said. “We just want to make sure the resolution is reasonable. When the bill targets the innocent homeowner, the diligent homeowner, versus the slumlord, we’ve got a problem.”
The association is spending some $20,000 on an advertising campaign to make people aware of the dangers of lead paint that is not well-kept, said Susan Arnold, the association’s executive director. Many people are unaware of the hazards chipping lead paint can pose, she said.
This is an issue that affects almost everyone, and yet very few people are aware that it truly affects their property,” Arnold said.
Izzo said the bill is likely to be assigned to the Health, Education, and Welfare committee, as it was last year. If it passes the committee it will go to the full Senate for a vote. If it passes there it will go the House, which is not expected to offer a competing lead paint bill this year, Izzo said.
