The Senate commission trying to produce strong incentives for cleaning up the state’s lead hazard problem seems to be grappling with potentially insoluble issues.
In a March 4 meeting, the 15-member Senate Commission on Lead Hazards, which has been working for about seven months, was still debating provisions that could determine who pays to abate lead hazards in the state’s housing stock. Though most commission participants – ranging from community advocates to real estate industry representatives – agree lead hazards should be cleaned up, they do not agree on how the tab should be split.
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One commonly cited estimate indicates nearly 10 percent of the state’s housing stock needs lead abatement work, which could cost about $300 million.
In a recent interview, Susan Arnold, executive director for the Rhode Island Association of Realtors, said she fears putting too much of the financial burden on landlords could drive up rental property prices and make it difficult for some people to buy homes. Arnold is not on the commission, although the RIAR is represented. At the same time insurance industry representatives contend they can’t afford to absorb the entire cost either, because that could increase premiums and prevent companies from providing certain coverage.
The panel was also still considering including a provision making it possible for people, whose children are lead poisoned, to go after paint companies for compensation – much the way some smokers with health problems have sued tobacco companies.
Residential paint containing lead has been banned in the United States since 1978. Paint isn’t the only culprit, however; lead hazards can also be caused by gas-contaminated soil and by soldering once used to install plumbing fixtures.
Some panel members contend the compensation provision would kill any bill.
”The paint industry will come after this with everything they’ve got they have objected to this in every other place in the country,” said Jack Anderson Jr., executive director of the National Center for Lead Safe Housing.
Roberta Hazen Aaronson, from the state’s Childhood Lead Action Project, said, however, that she wasn’t daunted by that prospect.
”I relish the fight, because we’re talking about an evil force here,” Aaronson said, adding some companies sold lead paint in the United States even after it was disallowed in some European countries. “I think we could really mobilize our forces in this state and get it into the bill.”
Other points still being ironed out by the commission:
A proposal to eliminate the state’s “innocent owner provision,” which essentially protects landlords from any liability in cases where children are lead poisoned, if they were unaware of their property’s lead hazards. A draft version circulated at the meeting, proposed eliminating that status by January 2003.
A liability cap that would limit what insurance companies pay if a child is poisoned. Representatives from the National Association of Independent Insurers, which has 619 members that write nearly 30 percent of the country’s property-casualty insurance, suggested a $25,000 maximum.
An educational component, which could help teach landlords and homeowners throughout the state about lead hazards and abatement projects.
Despite the loose ends, Sen. Thomas J. Izzo, who chairs the panel as well as the Senate Health, Education and Welfare Committee, told the group he is determined to produce legislation this session. Izzo, D-Cranston, urged members to carefully consider the consequences, before taking a position that could derail the process.
”We keep losing focus of the one thing that hooked me back in ’91 – that is to protect kids in this state,” he said. “Politically we are truly walking a fine line here there isn’t a lot of room here to be radical.”
In an interview before the meeting, Izzo said, “the conversations are really tenuous and delicate. This is the kind of issue that it is very easy for one interest group to dig their heels in.”
The General Assem-bly’s legislative filing deadline passed in early February, but the senator said the commission has been given permission to file late.
Rhode Island youngsters suffer from lead poisoning, and high blood-lead levels, at a rate about three- to four-times higher than children in other states, according to data from the state Department of Health. An average of 25 children wind up in Rhode Island hospitals with lead poisoning each year.
Children who are lead poisoned can suffer permanent neurological damage and learning disabilities.
In a recent interview with Providence Business News, the Department of Health’s commission representative, Walter Combs, said “we recognize childhood lead poisoning as one of the most serious environmental health threats facing children here in Rhode Island.”
State health officials cite several reasons for the state’s high incidence of lead poisoning, including the fact state has a large number of homes built before1978.
