During last month’s NAHB spring board meeting in Washington, D.C., remodelers visited the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to discuss concerns over the Lead: Renovation, Repair and Painting (RRP) rule, including a proposal to implement clearance testing on specific remodeling jobs.

Ongoing problems with the rule include last year’s removal of the opt-out provision, the lack of accurate lead testing kits and serious underestimates of the rule’s compliance costs.

Under the current rule, remodelers are required to use a white paper cloth to clean work areas and then compare the color of the residue on the cloth to an EPA-supplied card to determine whether lead paint dust has been removed from painted surfaces.

Under the proposed clearance testing rule, remodelers would be required to have a lab test samples from surfaces in the work area and immediately outside it or hire a certified testing specialist to examine the home.

As well as the expense of testing, remodelers would face higher liability insurance costs under the proposal, both of which would be passed on to the home owner, making the job more costly.

OMB Reviewing Clearance Testing Proposal

In a meeting with OMB and NAHB representatives, NAHB Remodelers Chairman Bob Peterson, CGR, CAPS, president of ABD Design/Build in Fort Collins, Colo.; Bob Hanbury, CGR, president of House of Hanbury in Newington, Conn.; and Mike Nagel, CGR, CAPS, partner with Men at Work Chicago, said the EPA should revise its lead rule.

The agency failed to quantify the benefits of the rule changes, no relevant alternatives were included in the economic analysis and no small business advisory panel was convened to assess the rule, which is usually a regulatory requirement, they said.

On the matter of clearance testing, the remodelers from NAHB disputed the EPA’s claim that the new rule would raise consumer awareness of lead hazards, pointing out that consumer disclosure laws on lead already exist.

NAHB Policy Analyst Matt Watkins emphasized that existing rules already require home owners to disclose lead hazards at the time of sale and receive the EPA’s “Renovate Right” pamphlet before a renovation.

“Adding costly and unnecessary lead testing would only further confuse consumers who have expressed dislike for the costs associated with the current regulation,” Nagel said.

“Remodelers have particularly experienced confusion and opposition to the rule from home owners without children after removal of the opt-out clause,” he said.

The NAHB remodelers also disagreed with the EPA’s contention that clearance testing would improve the cleaning habits of contractors, pointing to previous research by NAHB and the EPA showing that remodelers leave renovation areas cleaner than they find them and, in most cases, with significantly reduced levels of lead dust.

“The EPA provided no data or evidence that clearance testing is a necessary addition to the rule,” said Hanbury. “In fact, the rule is so new that they don’t have data about how successful it is at reaching the goal of reducing lead hazard exposures in children and pregnant women.”

OMB is currently reviewing the clearance testing requirements before the changes are finalized.

Losing Business

Looking at his business records over the last year under the lead rule, Peterson said that 15 of the 16 projects leads he had on pre-1978 homes would have qualified for the opt-out provision, which was previously available to homes where there were no children or pregnant women residing.

Eleven of the 15 home owners said they would have opted out, and the owners of the one home where there were small children did not move forward with the remodeling job due to its cost.

Peterson’s company completed two projects under the lead rule, both for older couples who would have signed the opt-out waiver before it was rescinded.

In the first project — which included remodeling two bathrooms and a closet — the additional cost for RRP compliance was $2,140. A second project to replace three windows cost an additional $420 per window, an added $1,260 for the project.

“I’m seeing in my remodeling business that not only are customers choosing not to undertake remodeling work but less work is ultimately done because of the need to pay for the increased costs of the lead rule,” said Peterson.

“This is especially frustrating for home owners who would have qualified for the opt-out waiver,” he said.

Paul Emrath, NAHB vice-president of survey and housing policy research, criticized the EPA’s economic analysis for failing to estimate how much business remodelers would lose as a result of the compliance costs.

He provided OMB with results from NAHB’s Remodeling Market Index showing that in response to the rule’s cost potential customers are switching to uncertified contractors, taking on do-it-yourself projects or simply choosing to do less remodeling.

Additionally, the remodelers explained that requiring contractors to conduct lead clearance testing is wholly inconsistent with the federal regulatory distinctions between renovation and abatement activities. Requiring remodelers to conduct clearance testing and pass clearance levels turns them into abatement workers, which was not intended by Congress or the regulation, they said.

In a meeting with Mike Nagel, a remodeler from Chicago, EPA Assistant Administrator Steve Owens asked if NAHB could collect data from remodelers on actual costs for a project under the lead rule and share the results with the agency.

That effort is now underway.

For more information on the lead rule, visit www.nahb.org/leadpaint; or email Matt Watkins at NAHB, or call him at 800-368-5242 x8327.

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