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6.27.2001 00:05
Fate of lead-paint reform
uncertain after House hearing
• State Sen. Thomas Izzo lines up an impressive array of backers, but House Finance Committee Chairman Antonio J. Pires says he needs to confer with the House leadership about how to proceed.
BY PETER B. LORD
Journal Environment Writer
PROVIDENCE
-- With time running out on this year's legislative session, state Sen. Thomas J. Izzo finally got a chance to present his lead-paint reform legislation to the House Finance Committee last night. But judging from the committee's reaction, it's difficult to say how the bill will fare.
The committee let Izzo and dozens of witnesses planning to testify for and against the bill wait for more than six hours while it handled other business and members attended a session of the House.
When the witnesses finally were allowed to testify shortly after 7 p.m., about half the 18 committee members left the hearing room. The committee didn't have the necessary quorum of 10 to vote, if it wanted to.
At times, as few as five committee members heard testimony from Izzo's supporters and critics.
But some of the committee members who remained did compliment Izzo and several said they planned to support his bill.
When the hearing finally ended after 10 p.m., committee Chairman Antonio J. Pires said he supported the Izzo bill, but he didn't know how his committee felt and he needed to confer with the House leadership about how to proceed.
Izzo lined up an impressive array of backers and offered an amendment designed to answer some complaints from critics. The committee is scheduled to meet today, so if it votes out the bill it could easily make it to the House floor before adjournment, which many predict will happen by week's end.
Izzo's bill passed the Senate overwhelmingly last month.
Last night, Governor Almond submitted a letter calling the bill a step in the right direction. Health Director Patricia A. Nolan strongly supported the bill, testifying that "the important part of this legislation is it concentrates on fixing houses, not on fixing children."
It is time to "move our efforts beyond treating the children already poisoned and fixing their houses," she added. "Too few homes, especially homes for low-income families with children, are lead safe. There are thousands of homes in Rhode Island that contain lead-paint hazards for our children, which still need to be made lead-safe."
About 3,000 young children every year are poisoned in Rhode Island by consuming lead paint in deteriorating housing. The poisoning rate here is 21/2 times the national average. Many victims suffer from neurological damage that causes loss of intelligence and behavioral problems.
The focal point of the current Rhode Island law is to survey young children for lead poisoning and then inspect the housing of those who are poisoned and demand cleanup of the lead.
Izzo said his bill is designed to induce landlords to clean their houses so there would be fewer poisonings.
Izzo said his bill has generated widespread support and shouldn't be blocked solely because of the complaints from a Providence-based advocacy group, Childhood Lead Action Project, and some trial lawyers.
"We have gotten to the point I believe where we have accommodated most concerns. There are one or two issues that are just unresolvable," Izzo said. "It is time for us to move forward. We have worked on this in a very focused way for three years."
Izzo said his bill calls for creation of a technical center where homeowners can go and get advice about lead problems in a nonthreatening way.
It sets a control standard for making apartments safe that is far cheaper to accomplish than the abatement standard now in force. And it gives tenants the right to call on landlords to make their apartments safe from lead before their children get poisoned.
Critics included Roberta Aaronson, executive director of CLAP; Pierre R. Erville, an environmental health consultant; Vincent L. Greene, a lawyer who handles many lead cases, and several parents of lead-poisoned children.
Erville said the amendments don't go far enough and don't address the state's biggest problem, its failure to enforce it current lead regulations.
Izzo's proposal to give landlords some liability protection as an inducement to clean their properties has been proven not to work in other states, Erville said.
"There's a dangerous myth going around that we need to incorporate carrots, or incentives, to get landlords to do the right thing. The truth is we need the political will to enforce the law vigorously," he said.
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