Congress Approves
FY05 Funding Levels, Cuts Key Programs
On November 20, Congress approved FY 2005 budgets for agencies
such as the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
(CDC), and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS).
In almost all instances, Congress reduced funding for programs important to
lead poisoning prevention, affordable housing, and environmental health. The
amounts included in the Consolidated Appropriations Bill were then reduced by
an additional 0.8% across-the-board cut to meet budget caps.
HUD’s Office of Healthy Homes and Lead Hazard Control
(OHHLHC) suffered a $7.3 million cut, with the office funded at $166.7 million.
$91.9 million will go to lead hazard control grants, $7.9 million to Operation
LEAP, $9.4 million for technical assistance, and $9.8 million to the Healthy
Homes Initiative grant program. Congress also agreed to continue the urban lead
hazard reduction grant program that targets areas with the worst lead hazards,
setting funding at $46.6 million, $3.1 million less than FY 2004.
EPA’s environmental health budget experienced a mix
of increases and cuts over FY04. Both the environmental justice and asthma programs
were provided with more funding, while the lead hazard reduction program was
cut by more than $3 million. The radon program was funded at approximately the
same level as FY04.
A variety of housing programs operated by HUD were also
significantly impacted by the budget bill. Congress undermined the Section 8
Housing Choice Voucher program with extremely restrictive language in its report
that limits funding to vouchers that were actually being used in the period
of May to July 2004. This means that local housing authorities that currently
have more vouchers in use than they did five months ago will start at a funding
loss, making fewer vouchers available to families in need throughout FY05. Community
Development Block Grants (CDBG) and the HOME Investment Partnership Program,
both of which are often used to fund rehabilitation of older, substandard housing,
were also cut deeply, with CDBG funding reduced by more than $225 million and
HOME funding reduced by nearly $100 million. Almost every other housing program
important to families across the nation also saw funding reductions.
The full text of the bill, as well as the conference committee
report language, is currently available at the Library of Congress THOMAS website,
http://thomas.loc.gov/home/approp/app05.html.
Readers are advised that many of the report documents are very large and may
take a substantial time to access.
HUD Letter Reveals
Lack of Grant Application Review
On November 11, HUD wrote Senator Richard G. Lugar (R-IN)
to respond to concerns about its review and award of $167 million in grants
for lead poisoning prevention and healthy homes this year [see www.afhh.org/aa/aa_HUD_Lugar_letter.pdf].
HUD’s letter makes no response to many concerns, including its $1.98 million
grant to AIMCO, the largest private landlord in the United States. However,
in attempting to explain its reliance on contract reviewers, HUD’s letter
all but admits that agency staff never read the majority of the grant applications.
According to HUD’s response to Senator Lugar, “Application Review
Teams (ARPs) comprised of HUD staff conducted quality assurance reviews on a
minimum of 30 percent of the contractor evaluations.”
HUD’s letter also suggests that the ARPs relied on
“the rank order list of applications provided by the contractor,”
rather than exercising their own judgment in weighing funding decisions. The
letter heightens concerns that the Office of Healthy Homes and Lead Hazard Control
(OHHLHC) improperly delegated responsibility to contract reviewers and failed
to have agency staff evaluate and rank the grant applications, as called for
by the Office’s Desk Guide.
The Department also made the false claim to Senator Lugar
that “improprieties” in previous years’ award of competitive
grants prompted the hire of outside reviewers as a “grants management
reform” and “to ensure integrity of the competitive process.”
In fact, until this year, HUD’s competitive process for awarding lead
hazard control grants was above reproach and without criticism or controversy
over the past decade. Indeed, this competitive grants program was highlighted
and praised as one of HUD’s most effective programs.
In late October, HUD’s Inspector General opened an
investigation of the breakdown in OHHLHC’s application review and grant
award process. Anyone who has information about HUD’s process for reviewing
and ranking 2004 lead safety and healthy homes grants can forward such information
to HUD’s Inspector General at www.hud.gov/offices/oig/hotline/index.cfm.
The Alliance for Healthy Homes has created a four-part
Lead-Safe Housing Policy Guidance to assist state and local policy makers and
government agency staff in establishing a prevention-based framework to advance
lead-safe housing. This guidance can be helpful to health and housing practitioners
as well as other advocates for children’s health in every city, county,
and state.
Ending lead poisoning as a public health problem requires
making our housing stock lead-safe. Blood lead screening, case management services
for children with elevated blood lead levels (EBLs), and raising public awareness
are all important supporting strategies, but identifying and treating children
after the damage is done is not protective. The only sure way to protect children
from lead poisoning is through primary prevention strategies—preventing,
identifying, and controlling lead hazards in housing, especially deteriorated
lead-based paint and lead dust hazards.
The Lead-Safe Housing Policy Guidance includes four components:
Basic Lead-Safe Housing Standards, a three-tiered approach to setting clear,
workable, and protective standards that define rental property owners’
duties; Legal Authorities, which includes a spectrum of legal authorities and
enforcement options to support effective government programs; Programmatic Opportunities,
including strategies for state and local agencies to strengthen code enforcement
and build technical capacity to expand the supply of lead-safe housing; and
Reference Materials, which lays out applicable federal law, regulations, and
standards, fundamental tenant safeguards, and a glossary of common terms.
Lead Paint
Lawsuits Move Forward in Milwaukee and Rhode Island
In separate decisions handed down in early November, judges
in Milwaukee and Rhode Island allowed lawsuits against the lead paint industry
to proceed to jury trials.
In the Milwaukee case, the District I Court of Appeals
of Wisconsin overturned Circuit Court Judge Timothy Dugan’s 2003 dismissal
of the City of Milwaukee’s case against Mautz Paint and NL Industries,
Inc. The city is suing the two paint companies for creating a public nuisance
by selling lead paint and lead pigments that have poisoned 19,000 Milwaukee
children since 1995. The city is seeking $85 million from the corporations to
fund lead paint abatement in 41,000 older homes.
The Court of Appeals rejected the paint companies’
argument that the city’s inability to prove which company made the lead
paint in which houses invalidated the suit. Instead, the Court agreed with the
city that in a public nuisance suit, the city need only show community-wide
marketing and sales of lead-based paint and lead pigments to hold Mautz and
NL Industries accountable. The city helped make its case by releasing a letter
from Mautz that urged its retail stores to sell as much of the remaining stock
of lead-based paint as possible before the ban took effect in 1978. Additional
evidence indicates that NL Industries was heavily involved in promoting lead-based
paint and opposing any regulation of the product. For the full text of the decision,
visit www.wisbar.org/res/capp/2004p/03-2786.pdf.
In Rhode Island, Superior Court Judge Michael Silverstein
refused to delay a public nuisance trial any further. Rhode Island’s legal
efforts to hold the lead paint industry accountable have already ended in one
mistrial, and a second trial was delayed by a year at the request of both the
state and the defendant paint companies. In the latest request for delay, the
paint industry asked for more time so they could gather information on a select
number of homes that it suspects have poisoned the most children. The judge
ruled that such specific information was not needed in a case that seeks to
demonstrate a nuisance in homes throughout the state.
HUD and
EPA Settle Large Lead Hazard Disclosure Case Against Massachusetts Landlord
On November 22, HUD and EPA reached an agreement with a
large Boston-based real estate company that requires the owner to remove lead
hazards from over 10,000 apartment units in seven states and to pay a fine.
Winn Residential Limited Partnership violated federal law by failing to disclose
to tenants the possibility of lead hazards in their homes. HUD and EPA indicate
that this agreement represents one of the largest disclosure enforcement actions
ever undertaken by the agencies, second only to the 2002 AIMCO settlement.
Winn Residential and its affiliates own and operate more
than 235 housing developments throughout the United States. The company will
pay a $105,000 fine and undertake lead hazard control measures needed in its
properties at a cost of up to $3.7 million. The disclosure agreement will reduce
the risk of lead poisoning of tenants of Winn Residential in California, the
District of Columbia, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania,
Rhode Island, and Virginia.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has put
on hold its controversial plan to study how pesticides impact the health and
development of young children. The Agency was set to move forward with an experiment,
called the Children’s Environmental Exposure Research Study (CHEERS),
where parents in Duval County, Fla., who had used pesticides in their homes
would receive $970, children’s clothing, and a new camcorder in exchange
for allowing their children to participate in the study.
The study raised two significant red flags among both environmentalists
and career EPA staff. Advocates and staff objected to the notion that the EPA
would encourage low-income families to expose their children to dangerous residential
pesticide exposures in exchange for money and material goods. Scientists have
already linked pesticides to developmental and neurological problems in children,
and many of the chemicals are also known carcinogens and suspected asthma triggers.
Environmental groups also objected to the major role the
American Chemistry Council (ACC), a chemical industry organization, was set
to play in the study. The ACC had agreed to pay for $2 million of the study’s
total cost, which some charged could bias the study results.
EPA says the study is undergoing further independent review
and has not been cancelled. The review is due back to EPA by Spring 2005.
Michigan
Panel Recommends Rental Property Registry, Other Action
Michigan’s Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Task
Force released a report on November 16 that recommends creation of a statewide
rental property registry and other steps to eliminate childhood lead poisoning
in the state by 2010.
The task force, commissioned by Governor Jennifer Granholm
(D), specifically recommended that Michigan enact legislation to create a statewide
registry of rental properties built before the 1978 ban on lead-based paint.
The task force also recommended that the state establish a public health trust
to provide funding for lead hazard control and remediation, as well as other
primary prevention efforts.
Last year, 3,100 Michigan children whose blood was tested
were found to be lead poisoned. Because of incomplete screening, the state estimates
up to 20,000 children in Michigan may suffer from lead poisoning.
Group Pushes
for Full Review of Lead in Air Standards
Environmental advocates in Missouri rejected an EPA suggestion
to limit the scope of a required review of the Agency’s ambient air standards
for lead. The Agency had suggested that it confine the review to Missouri and
a few other states where lead smelters directly impact the environment. The
Agency has since started a nationwide review of the standard and says it will
issue a plan for updating the standard in mid-2005.
The Missouri Coalition for the Environment and Missouri
Attorney General Jay Nixon filed separate lawsuits against EPA in 2004, alleging
that the Agency violated federal law by failing to review the ambient air standard
for lead since 1990. The Clean Air Act requires such reviews every five years.
Though EPA has started the review
process, it wants until June 2009 to complete the update of the rule. The plaintiffs
are asking the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri to impose
a deadline of 2007. The standard itself was last updated in 1978 and was based
on a blood lead level that was three times what is presently deemed acceptable.
NRDC Report
Documents Environmental Health Threats to Latinos
The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) released a
report in late October that documents a variety of environmental health threats
to Latinos in the United States. Hidden Danger: Environmental Health Threats
in the Latino Community shows that while indoor hazards and pollution pose health
risks for all Americans, a large percentage of Latinos live in urban and rural
areas where they face heightened threats from pesticides, lead, and a variety
of outdoor pollution sources.
The report documents that Latino children are twice as
likely as non-Latino white children to be lead poisoned, as lead poisoning disproportionately
impacts minority communities in both urban and rural areas. Pesticide exposure
is also of great concern, especially when pesticides are applied in the home.
NRDC highlighted two pesticide exposure threats that significantly
impact Latino communities across the country. Individuals in households where
Spanish is the primary language are less likely to read pesticide safety and
warning labels, because those labels are almost always only printed in English.
Because of this, Latino families rely heavily on advice from store employees,
many of whom are not specifically trained to give out accurate information on
pesticides. The reliance on store employees and other word-of-mouth information
increases the likelihood that pesticides may be incorrectly applied, which can
greatly increase health risks.
Latino communities are also targets of unscrupulous dealers
in illegal pesticides. In cities like New York, the illegal pesticide trade
includes such products as Tempo, Tres Pasitos, Miraculous Chalk, and
polvo de avión. These pesticides, sold to combat roaches, rats,
and mice, are sold in both small neighborhood stores and by street vendors.
Street versions of many of the products may contain 200 to 400 times the dose
of pesticide that would normally be used to combat pests. In urban and border
areas, polvo de avión is of particular concern, as it is sold
in unmarked bags and contains the highly toxic chemical methyl parathion, which
can cause brain and nerve damage in children.
To begin addressing these problems, NRDC recommends that
federal and state agencies collect relevant data documenting the environmental
health risks to which Latino communities are exposed, and that more studies
assess environmental health threats that uniquely or disproportionately impact
Latinos. In addition, NRDC urges government authorities, industries, and landlords
to provide environmental health information and warnings in Spanish, as well
as Spanish-language guides to tools and methods, such as integrated pest management,
that can improve environmental health.
Children
Harmed by Lack of Safety Standards on Bulk Rat Poisons
An EPA decision to revoke safety standards on bulk sales
and use of rat poisons contributed to more than 50,000 childhood poisonings
in 2004, according to a lawsuit filed by West Harlem Environmental Action and
the Natural Resources Defense Council.
In 2001, EPA removed federal regulations over rat poisons,
also known as rodenticides, intended to reduce the risks these products pose
to children. The EPA made the decision after consulting with companies that
produce pesticides. Children poisoned by rodenticides sometimes suffer internal
bleeding, anemia, and coma. Several hundred American children required hospitalization
in 2003 because they ingested rat poisons.
Rodenticide pellets are often scattered throughout schools
and on playgrounds and are also used by some public housing authorities in large
quantities. While the poisons are dangerous to all children, African-American
and Latino children living in low-income communities are the most heavily impacted.
In New York State, African-American children made up 57 percent of all kids
hospitalized for rodenticide poisoning, even though they only make up 16 percent
of the population. Twenty-six percent of such poisonings involved Latino children,
who comprise just 12 percent of the population.
Rat infestations are a rampant problem in New York City
and other urban areas, but in many cases, housing authorities, landlords, and
homeowners can use integrated pest management (IPM) to lower rat populations
and bar them from entering homes and apartments in the first place. IPM plugs
building entryways that rats use and removes food sources that rats need to
survive. IPM also uses lower-toxicity baits secured in tamper-proof boxes to
kill rats that are already present, ensuring that children are not accidentally
poisoned.
A research study published in the November issue of Thorax
indicates that pregnant women who are exposed to a variety of substances may
put their children at greater risk of developing allergies and asthma after
birth.
The study showed that women who smoke or inhale allergens
such as pollen, dust mites, and dog dander were twice as likely to have children
who develop allergies by age 10 and up to three times as likely to have children
diagnosed with asthma by age 10. The study’s authors note that allergies
and asthma are also influenced by genetics, but that prenatal environmental
factors also appear to play a significant role.
Smoking cigarettes during pregnancy is a particularly striking
risk factor. The researchers say they have shown that mothers who smoke while
pregnant are more likely to have children who wheeze, even if the mothers quit
smoking following childbirth. Dust mites, another risk factor, are found in
most homes and apartments but are often present at high concentrations in substandard
housing.
Journal Publishes
National Center Article on Effects of Lead Hazard Control Treatments
The November 2004 edition of the Journal of Occupational
and Environmental Hygiene (Vol. 1, Issue 11, pp. 716-724) published an article
on the effects of lead hazard control treatments on clearance dust lead levels.
Researchers from the National Center for Healthy Housing and the University
of Cincinnati Department of Environmental Health analyzed data from the “Evaluation
of the HUD Lead Hazard Control Grant Program” to develop the article.
The study concluded that, "When methods for work site containment, lead
hazard control, and cleaning similar to those recommended in the 1995 HUD guidelines
were followed, contractors were successful in meeting 1995 clearance dust lead
loading standards. Previous studies demonstrated that when such precautions
are not followed, additional lead hazards may be generated in a dwelling. Although
clearance standards have been lowered since this work was conducted, the clearance
dust lead loadings reached in the study suggest that contractors who take proper
precautions can routinely achieve clearance at the current standards."
The article also emphasizes the importance of treating
all areas of the property, including the exterior of the building and soil,
and making sure that the surfaces to be cleared are in good condition.
Center for
Indoor Environments and Health Issues Mold Guidance for Clinicians
The Center for Indoor Environments and Health at the University
of Connecticut Health Center released a mold and moisture guidance document
in November. “Guidance for Clinicians on the Recognition and Management
of Health Effects Related to Mold Exposure and Moisture Indoors” is intended
to help doctors and other medical practitioners diagnose illnesses that may
stem from excessive indoor moisture and exposure to certain types of mold. A
grant from EPA supported the production of the document. The guidance document
can be found at www.oehc.uchc.edu/clinser/MOLD%20GUIDE.pdf.
Funding Opportunities
The EPA has released a Request for Applications (RFA) for
Radon Communications, Education, Outreach, and Risk Reduction Projects. National
nonprofit organizations are eligible to apply for awards that will range in
size from $30,000 to $70,000. EPA is seeking project proposals that will generate
increased public awareness of the health risks of radon exposure, increase the
number of homes tested and mitigated for elevated levels of radon, and increase
testing and mitigation of multi-family dwellings in low-income
communities, among other outcomes. Initial proposals are due to EPA by January
17, 2005. To view the full RFA, visit www.epa.gov/air/grants/04-16.pdf.
The EPA is soliciting grant proposals to conduct activities
to prevent childhood lead poisoning in vulnerable populations, including projects
to: (1) Address areas with high incidences of elevated blood-lead levels; (2)
identify and address areas with high potential for undocumented elevated blood-lead
levels; (3) develop tools to address unique and challenging issues in lead poisoning
prevention; and (4) identify tools that are replicable and scalable for other
areas. Activities eligible for funding include outreach and public education,
data gathering, monitoring, training, inspections and assessments, demonstrations,
and new, innovative approaches for identifying or reducing lead poisoning. EPA
is awarding grants which will provide a total of approximately $750,000. The
agency anticipates awarding individual grants of $25,000 to $100,000. This grant
program is open to a wide range of applicants, including state governments,
local governments, federally recognized Indian Tribes, nonprofit organizations,
and public and private colleges and universities. Grant proposals are due by
January 31, 2005. More information can be found here.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) have announced
the pending availability of FY 2005 funds for a grant program for Public Health
Conference Support. This funding may be used by organizations and agencies to
put together conferences in the "Healthy People 2010" focus areas,
including Educational and Community-Based Programs and Environmental Health.
Eligible conferences can include education, disease prevention, and applied
research components. The grant program will not fund the same conference conducted
more than once during the grant period, but applicants can apply for funding
for more than one different conference during the project period. Applications
may be submitted for CDC support by public and private nonprofit organizations
and by governments and their bona fide agents, such as private nonprofit organizations,
universities and colleges, foundations and civic groups, and federally recognized
tribal governments. Applications for ATSDR support may be submitted by the official
public health agencies of the States and the District of Columbia, or their
bona fide agents. Letters of Intent for Cycle B of the grant program are due
February 3, 2005, and the full application deadline is April 6, 2005. More details
are available at http://fr.cos.com/cgi-bin/getRec?id=20041102a107.
Subscribe/Unsubscribe
To subscribe or unsubscribe to this newsletter, send an
e-mail (afhh@afhh.org)
or fax (202-543-4466) with "Subscribe" or "Unsubscribe"
in the subject line. If you received this issue of the Alliance Alert
via fax, please send us your e-mail address for faster delivery and to conserve
resources. Thank you!
