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6.7.2001 00:05
Compromise possible on lead-paint bills
• A Brown University professor says Massachusetts does a much better job protecting children from poisoning.
BY PETER B. LORD
Journal Environment Writer
PROVIDENCE
-- There may be a chance for passage of lead-paint legislation in the General Assembly after all.
Key sponsors of competing bills aimed at reducing lead-paint poisonings in Rhode Island said yesterday they expect to meet soon and try to forge a compromise in order to pass the legislation.
Neither side would divulge details, but both said the talks are being prodded by parties not involved in the current deadlock over the two bills.
Sen. Thomas J. Izzo, D-Cranston, sponsor of a bill that has already passed in the Senate, said yesterday "it would be fair to say there are folks in the community who are going to try to bridge the differences. There are a number of folks who want to see us come out with something this session."
Roberta Aaronson, executive director of the Childhood Lead Action Project, which is lobbying against Izzo's bill in favor of its own, said meetings may be held next week. Aaronson said she's open to the idea but she's wondering which side will be asked to make the big concessions.
Governor Almond is also anxious to see a bill pass this year, according to his spokeswoman, Lisa Pelosi. "He wants something worked out. He doesn't want it to die again this year," she said.
Izzo's bill has failed to pass in the General Assembly for the last two years. This year it was referred to the House Corporations Committee. But on Tuesday, in another sign that compromise may be under way, Izzo's bill was transferred to the House Finance Committee, which is handling the CLAP legislation. Finance Committee Chairman Anthony Pires didn't return a call for comment.
Yesterday morning a professor of pediatrics at Brown University called on legislators to strengthen Rhode Island's lead-poisoning laws this year and responsibly represent the community that elected them rather than "the community of special interests which affects legislation."
Dr. Lyman A. Page, clinical professor of pediatrics at Brown, spoke at a breakfast meeting in Warwick for lead-poisoning prevention groups. The meeting was hosted by the Rhode Island Health Department.
Studies show that the lead-poisoning rate in Providence County is three times that of Worcester County, in Massachusetts, Page said. Both communities have similar housing, but Massachusetts has a much tougher law requiring landlords to abate lead problems. And the law is enforced.
A more recent study shows that the odds of a child being poisoned in a house that has already poisoned another child are four times higher in Providence than Worcester, Page said, further proof that the Massachusetts law works.
"If we had the law they have in Massachusetts, we'd eliminate 80 percent of the poisonings", Page said.
For too long in Rhode Island the lead problem has been one of corporate interests winning out over the interest of people and the privileged prevailing over the unpriviledged, he said.
Last year, nearly 3,000 Rhode Island children were poisoned by lead. Experts believe most of the lead comes from paint wearing off poorly maintained buildings in the poorer sections of Rhode Island's cities.
Studies clearly show that lead poisoning lowers intelligence, Page said. But he said its effect on children's behavior may be more important -- it causes aggression, attention-deficit problems, even criminal behavior. And there's no safe threshold for lead, he said. Even minute concentrations cause damage to human nervous systems and brains and recent studies suggest much of that damage may be irreversible.
State Health Director Patricia A. Nolan said the new studies make it clear that focusing on screening children for elevated lead levels is not an adequate response.
It's time to focus on prevention, she said, and that means new legislation must be enacted. She said later she thought Izzo's bill is close to the Massachusetts law and, with a few changes, it could do the job.
Page noted, however, that Izzo's bill is similar to the law in Maryland, and that state isn't doing very well in reducing lead poisonings.
The Health Department gave out numerous awards yesterday to medical groups, hardware stores and advocacy groups that have worked to reduce lead poisonings and promoted Lead Poisoning Prevention Month.
The department also gave a Health Promotion Excellence Award to The Providence Journal for its recent six-part series describing the lead-poisoning problem in Rhode Island.
Page said The Journal series "has established an aura in which it should be easier to convince the legislators that the people who voted for them, not the ones who buy their lunches, are going to insist on some changes in the law.
"The series has done a bang-up job of dramatizing and popularizing and educating the public on an issue a civilized society has to recognize," he said.
The Izzo bill is supported by the paint and insurance industries. It encourages landlords to clean up their buildings and it provides legal protection for those who do.
CLAP's bill, strongly supported by trial lawyers, mandates insurance coverage and allows tenants to sue owners of apartments where children are poisoned.
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