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Biden administration announces plan to replace 100% of lead pipes in US homes
The Biden administration on Thursday announced a "whole of government strategy" to remove dangerous lead from Americans' drinking water, including billions of dollars to begin replacing 100% of the lead pipes servicing the nation's homes.
Environmental groups praised the plan, which includes a promise to begin the process of strengthening the nation's drinking water standards to reflect the science showing that lead is toxic for children at any level.
But lawyers at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), which has been leading efforts to fight lead, said they worry that the plan lacks a solid timeline and fails to deliver enforceable requirements.
The set of actions announced by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) included the release of the first $2.9bn of $15bn approved in Biden's infrastructure plan for local water agencies to begin replacing lead pipes and called for the efforts to focus on the low-income communities who face the most risk of lead poisoning. It also listed 15 new actions across 10 federal agencies to address lead dangers from both water and paint.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by istartedi on Friday December 17 2021, @11:54PM
This comes up again and again. Both sides have their respective axes to grind. Both sides can use absolute figures, or pretend to normalize data to suit their ends. One seemingly effective way around this is to use, instead of nominal dollars, the percentage by which the debt increased during their administration. Submitted for your consideration that even that is not sufficient. Why? Because merely owing a lot of money is only half the picture. The other half of the picture is your ability to pay it back. Based on that, I consider the Debt to GDP ratio [stlouisfed.org] to perhaps be the least biased method, although since I'm making a selection there's the possibility of selection bias.
When looking at that chart, the big take-away is that when it comes to debt the 2008 housing/financial crisis and Covid are the two big increases in recent decades. If it went back further, WW2 would also loom large.
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