Local advocates shoot down those visiting from the Center for Legal Policy at the Manhattan Institute who argue the lawsuits are inappropriate.

06/20/2002

PROVIDENCE -- Members of a conservative New York City think tank came here yesterday to the "lead-paint capital of America" to argue against filing lawsuits against the companies that produced the lead-based paints years ago that are poisoning young children today.

They spent a few hours laying out their case. But in a few minutes, two local advocates passionately threw their arguments back at them, questioning both the think tank and the big corporations.

When it was over, Judyth W. Pendell, director of the Center for Legal Policy at the Manhattan Institute, said her group would have to question whether it really accomplished anything on its visit to Providence.

Rhode Island has a lead-poisoning rate 21/2 times the national average and it's the first state in the country to sue the paint companies, alleging they created a public nuisance with products they knew were dangerous. Since then, numerous other localities have filed similar suits.

Massive discovery has been going on for months and the trial is set for September.

Pendell opened an invitation-only forum at the Providence Biltmore by saying her group was looking for solutions to the lead-paint problem that use strategies other than legislation or litigation.

She echoed a defense of the paint industry that the industry has stuck to ever since Atty. Gen. Sheldon Whitehouse filed his lawsuit two years ago.

"My understanding is the paint industry stepped forward and voluntarily stopped marketing lead paint when it learned there were problems [in the 1950s]," Pendell said. Several speakers argued that lawsuits now punish the wrong people, do little to deter similar actions by others and probably won't help the victims.

In response, a lawyer for the Conservation Law Foundation and a policy aide for Providence Mayor Vincent A. Cianci Jr. pointed out that more than a few respected researchers have documented that the paint industry knew it was marketing a dangerous material for years. They asked Pendell how she expected people to believe otherwise.

"Why wouldn't you want to hold accountable companies that sold products and said they were safe and durable, at a time when they knew what they would do?" asked Stephanie Pollack of the Conservation Law Foundation. "It is hypocritical for the manufacturers to sell the products saying they were durable, and then blame the landlords when they deteriorated."

Bianca Gray of the mayor's office added: "We all know that in the U.S. and the world the knowledge of the problem was well known before the 1950s. Now the industry is the only piece of the puzzle that hasn't been addressed. What is its culpability? I don't hear from you honestly saying what part of the puzzle industry is going to play."

After the forum, Pendell was somewhat taken aback by the criticism.

"We're really trying to focus on a solution," she said. "There is a perception out there that we're here as a mouthpiece for industry, but that is not the case."

She said her organization is largely financed by individuals and foundations, and only to a small degree by corporations.

Pendell said her organization is not opposed to families of lead-poisoning victims suing landlords for the neurological damages caused by lead. But it is opposed to suits against the big corporations, theorizing that like the tobacco suits, much of the proceeds would go to lawyers and little would go to solving the problem.

The people running the paint companies weren't there when lead paint was made and marketed, she said. And if lawsuits are successful, innocent workers and shareholders would bear the brunt of the costs.

Daniel O. Chute, an industrial hygienist, said that lead paint causes only 1 percent of the lead problems in the environment. Other sources are batteries, lead shotgun pellets, plumbing, and roof flashing.

Randall Lutter, a resident scholar for the AEI/Brookings Joint Center for Regulatory Studies, said the lead-poisoning epidemic is largely past.

In 1980 he said nearly 100 percent of African-American children had blood lead levels of 10 micrograms/deciliter; now the rate is less than 10. (He said he wasn't aware of levels in Rhode Island; last year 2,832 or 8.7 percent of the Rhode Island children tested had levels of 10 or above.)

"This is one of the most dramatic public-health stories in the United States," Lutter said.

Some 25 million homes are reported to still have lead hazards, he said, but only about 100,000 have been cleaned up. Only about 100 of the 900,000 children with elevated lead levels win damage suits against landlords.

He argued suits against paint companies are inappropriate because the damages would be won by governments, rather than children. The defendants being sued aren't directly responsible. And companies would have to pay the damages, even though landlords are the ones responsible.

"These suits hold companies liable for past actions based on current information," Lutter said, pointing out that national blood-lead level guidelines have gone from 40 in 1970 to 10 in 1991.

"A more sensible policy would provide better incentives for landlords," he said.

State Sen. Thomas J. Izzo, D-Cranston, sponsor of lead-reform legislation recently approved by the General Assembly, got big applause when he took the podium and described his bill.

For the paint companies to argue they bear no responsibility is "difficult to deal with," he said. It would be much more constructive to take this approach: "What do you bring to the table that you can do?"

Leslie Lenkowsky, president of the Corporation for National Service, said volunteer efforts such as ClearCorps, an industry-supported group that cleans up contaminated homes, should be the leading answer.

But ClearCorps has had a spotty record around the country. In Providence, it has cleaned up 130 housing units, according to director Joan Carbone.