Lead paint rules need to be stronger to protect children from lasting brain damage, the Environmental Protection Agency agreed in 2011. But then it failed to take action, and after the years of delay by the Obama EPA, the Trump EPA announced it would need six years to update the regulation. Six years. The Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit is not having it:
The judges on Wednesday issued a writ of mandamus, an unusual court order that requires an official or agency to perform a certain duty, in this case for the E.P.A. to issue a proposed rule within 90 days and finalize it within a year after that. The judges said in doing so they were mindful of the agency’s arguments that officials needed more time to deliberate a complex new standard.
“We must observe, however, that E.P.A. has already taken eight years, wants to delay at least six more, and has disavowed any interest in working with petitioners to develop an appropriate timeline through mediation,” the ruling said.
Meanwhile, the court said, the risks to children from lead poisoning under standards the E.P.A. has already called insufficient are “severe.”
Good news, yes, but one possible outcome is that Scott Pruitt, Donald Trump’s EPA administrator, will scrap the whole thing despite the risk of brain damage to thousands more children. And even if the EPA does come up with a new rule, it will only go into effect after another year, following on years of delay and damaged children.