Tell the EPA to protect children from dangerous airborne lead

Although lead causes brain, kidney, developmental and cardiovascular damage in children, the EPA has proposed new airborne lead standards that are weaker than scientists recommend. Send a comment by the July 21st deadline telling the EPA to strengthen the standards to levels that will protect children from this dangerous toxin.

Dear Administrator Johnson and EPA staff,

I urge you to strengthen the standard for airborne lead to the levels necessary to protect the health of our citizens and children, as recommended by EPA's independent scientific advisory committee and by its own scientists. Lead is a potent neurotoxin that causes brain and kidney damage and cardiovascular injury.

A strong, effectively enforced standard for airborne lead is vital to the health and success of our children and our communities. Thousands of public comments submitted earlier in this process asked the EPA to strengthen the standard. EPA's own scientific advisers and staff and the many other scientists and doctors who submitted comments recommend that the agency's 30-year-old lead standard be strengthened significantly to a level of no more than 0.2 micrograms per cubic meter in air in order to adequately protect public health.

I am therefore very disappointed to learn that the EPA is proposing a range of standards up to 0.3 micrograms per cubic meter in air, levels which are unhealthy according to the latest science. We may have made progress in reducing lead levels, but that does not justify failing to make the further changes that we now know are needed. The EPA must heed the latest science and the advice of its scientific advisers and strengthen the standard to a level that will adequately protect America's children from the tragic, lifelong effects of lead exposure.