The State of Rhode Island and about three dozen municipalities, school districts, and housing authorities have sued the lead and paint industries to recover public expenditures to detect and abate lead-based paint hazards to protect children from lead poisoning.

The Alliance for Healthy Homes is not a party to any lawsuit and has no plans to participate in such litigation.

If state and local government suits ultimately produce judgments or settlements, the Alliance believes remedies should be crafted and proceeds used to provide the maximum health benefit to children at highest risk. After governments undertook litigation, the Alliance developed the following principles in consultation with experts in public health, affordable housing, and environmental protection. The Alliance strongly urges that remedies and relief be shaped in accordance with the following guidelines:

• Monetary damages and relief awarded in successful lawsuits against the lead industry should be dedicated to protecting children—the class that defendants’ actions have put most at risk—from lead poisoning.

• Lead poisoning protection efforts should focus on efficient and effective methods to prevent lead exposure before children are poisoned, instead of reacting to already-poisoned children. While medical monitoring, screening, and public health education remain part of lead poisoning prevention, by themselves they fall far short of preventing the problem by controlling lead hazards.

• Preventive solutions should be targeted to benefit children at highest risk—those living in older, poorly maintained housing in distressed communities.

• With the goal of getting rid of the lead poisoning problem in distressed communities, full abatement of lead-based paint in housing should be instituted in high-risk areas.

• The specifics of the local situation must guide the design of remedies, since the crux of the problem varies from community to community.

• Lead poisoning prevention efforts should be anchored in community-based programs. Prevention efforts and initiatives need to be based in the affected high-risk communities themselves and take full advantage of opportunities for developing long-term capacity within them.

• Enforcement, used in tandem with subsidies, is a critical component of solutions to achieve prevention.