Reconsideration of the Dust-Lead Hazard Standards and Dust-Lead Post-Abatement Clearance Levels

<RULE> ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY <CFR>40 CFR Part 745</CFR> <DEPDOC>[EPA-HQ-OPPT-2023-0231; FRL-8524-02-OCSPP]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2070-AK91</RIN> <SUBJECT>Reconsideration of the Dust-Lead Hazard Standards and Dust-Lead Post-Abatement Clearance Levels</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> As part of EPA's high-priority efforts to reduce childhood lead exposure, and in accordance with a U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit 2021 opinion, EPA is finalizing its proposal to lower the dust-lead hazard standards to any reportable level as analyzed by a laboratory recognized by EPA's National Lead Laboratory Accreditation Program (NLLAP). EPA's lead-based paint (LBP) regulations do not compel property owners or occupants to evaluate their property for LBP hazards or to take control actions, but if a LBP activity such as an abatement is performed, then EPA's regulations set requirements for doing so. EPA is also finalizing changes to lower the post-abatement dust-lead clearance levels to 5 micrograms per square foot (µg/ft <SU>2</SU> ), 40 µg/ft <SU>2</SU> , and 100 µg/ft <SU>2</SU> for floors, window sills and troughs respectively, the current levels in New York City. Due to feedback from public comments, EPA is also finalizing changes to the nomenclature to adopt the terms dust-lead reportable levels (DLRL) and dust-lead action levels (DLAL). Given the decoupling of the action levels from the reportable levels, EPA is finalizing revisions to the definition of abatement so that the recommendation for action based on dust-lead applies when dust-lead loadings are at or above the action levels, rather than the hazard standards, as has been the case historically. The dust-lead hazard standards will be described as DLRL moving forward ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> after publication of this final rule) and the dust-lead clearance levels will be described as DLAL. Additionally, EPA is finalizing several other amendments, including revising the definition of target housing to conform with the statute. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This final rule is effective January 13, 2025. The incorporation by reference of certain material listed in this rule is approved by the Director of the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> as of January 13, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> The docket for this action, identified by docket identification (ID) number EPA-HQ-OPPT-2023-0231, is available online at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> Additional information about dockets generally, along with instructions for visiting the docket in-person, is available at <E T="03">https://www.epa.gov/dockets.</E> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> <E T="03">For technical information:</E> Claire Brisse, Existing Chemicals Risk Management Division (7404M), Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics, Environmental Protection Agency, 1200 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20460-0001; telephone number: (202) 564-9004; email address: <E T="03">brisse.claire@epa.gov.</E> <E T="03">For general information on lead:</E> The National Lead Information Center, 422 South Clinton Avenue, Rochester, NY 14620; telephone number: (800) 424-LEAD [5323]; online form: <E T="03">https://www.epa.gov/lead/forms/lead-hotline-national-lead-information-center.</E> <E T="03">For general information on TSCA:</E> The TSCA Hotline, ABVI-Goodwill, 422 South Clinton Ave., Rochester, NY 14620; telephone number: (202) 554-1404; email address: <E T="03">TSCA-Hotline@epa.gov.</E> <E T="03">For hearing- or speech-impaired assistance:</E> Persons may reach the telephone numbers for the contacts through TTY by calling the toll-free Federal Communications Commission's Telecommunications Relay Service at 711. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Executive Summary</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Does this action apply to me?</HD> You may be affected by this action if you conduct LBP activities in accordance with 40 CFR 745.227; if you operate a training program required to be accredited under 40 CFR 745.225; if you are a firm or individual who must be certified to conduct LBP activities or renovations in accordance with 40 CFR 745.226; or if you own, manage, and/or conduct abatement, rehabilitations or maintenance activities in most pre-1978 housing that is covered by a Federal housing assistance program in accordance with 24 CFR part 35. You may also be impacted by this rule if you administer the LBP activities program in States, territories, or Tribes that are authorized by EPA to operate their own lead abatement programs (40 CFR part 745, subpart Q) (see Unit V.A. for more information). You may also be affected by this action if you operate a laboratory that is recognized by EPA's National Lead Laboratory Accreditation Program in accordance with 40 CFR 745.90, 745.223, 745.227, and 745.327. You may also be affected by this action, in accordance with 40 CFR 745.107 and 24 CFR 35.88, as the seller or lessor of target housing, which is most pre-1978 housing. See 40 CFR 745.103 and 24 CFR 35.86. You may also be affected by this action if you are a resident of target housing, even if you would not be subject to the requirements of this action. Due to the change in the definition of “target housing,” you may also be affected if you are a firm or individual who must be certified to perform renovations in target housing or child-occupied facilities (COFs) in accordance with 40 CFR part 745, subpart E. The following list of North American Industrial Classification System (NAICS) codes is not intended to be exhaustive, but rather provides a guide to help readers determine whether this document applies to them. Affected entities may include: • Building construction (NAICS code 236) ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> single-family housing construction, multi-family housing construction, residential remodelers). • Specialty trade contractors (NAICS code 238) ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> plumbing, heating, and air-conditioning contractors, painting, and wall covering contractors, electrical contractors, finish carpentry contractors, drywall and insulation contractors, siding contractors, tile and terrazzo contractors, glass, and glazing contractors). • Real estate (NAICS code 531) ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> lessors of residential buildings and dwellings, residential property managers, and property owners, as well as those property owners that receive assistance through Federal housing programs). • Child day care services (NAICS code 624410). • Elementary and secondary schools (NAICS code 611110) ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> elementary schools with kindergarten classrooms). • Other technical and trade schools (NAICS code 611519) ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> training providers). • Engineering services (NAICS code 541330) and building inspection services (NAICS code 541350) ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> dust sampling technicians). • Lead abatement professionals (NAICS code 562910) ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> firms and supervisors engaged in LBP activities). • Testing laboratories (NAICS code 541380) ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> those laboratories that analyze dust wipe samples for lead). • Federal agencies that own residential property (NAICS codes 92511, 92811). If you have questions regarding the applicability of this action to a particular entity, consult the regulations or contact the technical information person listed in the <E T="02">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT</E> section. <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. What is the Agency's authority for taking this action?</HD> EPA is finalizing this rule under the authority of sections 401, 402, 403, 404, and 406 of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), 15 U.S.C. 2601 <E T="03">et seq.,</E> as amended by Title X of the Housing and Community Development Act of 1992 (also known as the Residential Lead-Based Paint Hazard Reduction Act of 1992 or “Title X”) (Pub. L. 102-550) (Ref. 1) and section 237(c) of Title II of Division K of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2017 (Pub. L. 115-31, 131 Stat. 789), as well as sections 1004 and 1018 of Title X (42 U.S.C. 4851b, 4852d), as amended by section 237(b) of Title II of Division K of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2017. TSCA section 403 (15 U.S.C. 2683) mandates EPA to identify LBP hazards for purposes of administering Title X and TSCA Title IV. Under TSCA section 401, LBP hazards are defined as conditions of LBP and lead-contaminated dust and soil that “would result in adverse human health effects,” (15 U.S.C. 2681(10)) and lead-contaminated dust is defined as “surface dust in residential dwellings” that contains lead in excess of levels determined “to pose a threat of adverse health effects . . .” (15 U.S.C. 2681(11)). EPA has referred to the dust-lead portion of the LBP hazards as the dust-lead hazard standards. As explained in Unit IV.A. of this final rule, going forward EPA is also describing these as the dust-lead reportable levels in order to better connote their purpose under the revisions. In this document, EPA has endeavored to use the term dust-lead hazard standards or DLHS to describe the standards in place prior to this final rule and the term dust-lead reportable levels or DLRL to describe the standards in place going forward. TSCA section 402 (15 U.S.C. 2682) directs EPA to regulate LBP activities, which include risk assessments, inspections, and abatements. TSCA section 401 (15 U.S.C. 2681) defines abatements as “measures designed to permanently eliminate lead-based paint hazards” and the term includes “all . . . cleanup . . . and post[-]abatement clearance testing activities” (15 U.S.C. 2681(1)). EPA has referred to the dust-lead level to be ac ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 350k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━