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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: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 18 2021, @07:07AM (2 children)
If it was Trump or COVID or something else, why did inflation take so long to kick into high gear?
Similar connected question: why did the supply chain problems take so long to manifest, almost 2 years later?
I think blaming it on COVID is just as specious.
Possible cause is that COVID relief money is drying up and people are demanding back payments, for example.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday December 18 2021, @01:50PM
Well, how long did it really take? For example, deficits [thebalance.com] in recent years were below 5% until 2020 (it's still a hideous growth rate). We've since had two years of deficit growth above 10%. At a glance, the last two years have seen deficits at least 3 times larger than in previous years. And there's lag on that money hitting the economy. So it looks consistent to me.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 18 2021, @11:32PM
If it was pressure from on high to show how wonderfully fast the ship was that caused the sinking, why did it take until nearly the end of the voyage for the Titanic to sink?
It's ALMOST like policy decisions that lead to third, fourth and fifth-order effects take a bit of time to show up in large, complex systems. Whodathunkit?
Meanwhile, the people who like neat, simple solutions and who vote for politicians that misrepresent big, complicated problems as simple, easily solved ones, point out how absurd it is that X may have caused Y, when Y took two years to manifest after X...