New lead paint regulations likely this year

A commission studying the issue is expected to draft legislation and send it to both houses of the General Assembly.

Tuesday, April 26, 2005, BY PETER B. LORD, Journal Environment Writer

PROVIDENCE -- It is beginning to look like new lead paint regulations for thousands of landlords will go into effect sometime this year, but it also looks like they won't be the same rules that came out of the state Health Department last year.

The special legislative commission studying the new regulations met yesterday at a round table with the intent of listening to each other rather than the many witnesses who jammed recent hearings.

The room was lined with many of those same witnesses -- child advocates who want to see the regulations left intact and landlords who want them thrown away or weakened.

Commission members once again were divided, with some siding with the landlords and others with the advocates.

"I don't think anything was clearly decided," Sen. Rhoda Perry, D-Providence, said afterwards. She co-chaired the meeting with Rep. Roger A. Picard, D-Woonsocket.

Nevertheless, she said the commission would draft new legislation and send it to both houses of the legislature during the current session.

Perry and Picard said it did seem clear to them that the commission will recommend going ahead and imposing regulations anywhere from three to six months after the July 1 deadline now set by law.

The commission agreed there is still much it needs to learn. It wants to find out if most lead poisoning cases now are caused by a relatively small number of landlords. It wants to know where the poisonings are occurring and what the rules are in Massachusetts.

One thing the commission learned, to its surprise, was that penalties of five years in jail and $5,000 fines for landlords who are repeated violators were established in the state's original 1992 lead paint legislation. They were not new. And they were rarely imposed.

The commission plans to meet next on May 16 at 3 p.m. with Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch and members of the state auditor general's staff, who have been directed to determine if the state now has the resources to enforce the new regulations.

Imposition of the regulations was already postponed from last year to this year because the General Assembly didn't believe the state had trained enough inspectors and provided enough three-hour lead-awareness classes for landlords. Recently, the House voted overwhelmingly to delay the regulations another six months beyond the current July 1 start-up date.

Rep. William San Bento, D-Pawtucket, and Sen. David E. Bates, R-Barrington, both insurance agents, pushed for dramatically scaling back the regulations.

San Bento argued for exempting elderly landlords, owners of vacation properties and houses in historic districts. He also called for eliminating requirements for repairs to be done by lead-certified contractors because he said they would charge more.

The two also argued for targeting neighborhoods where poisonings are common and leaving other landlords alone.

Picard questioned whether the elderly renting to families with small children should be exempted.

Bates also said the new regulations would be onerous to landlords in the poorest neighborhoods because low-income people tend to move a lot.

If you require a landlord to get an inspection every three or four months, that apartment is not going to be affordable," Bates said. "You can't protect everybody from everything."

Afterward, advocates complained that committee members are poorly informed about the proposed regulations.

Roberta Aaronson, director of the Childhood Lead Action Project, said once a house gets a lead-safe certificate, that is good for 12 months, regardless of how many times tenants move.

She said felony cases have rarely been brought, even against the worst landlords responsible for poisoning many children.

And she said there is a lot of confusion about the differences between regulations in Massachusetts and those proposed in Rhode Island.

She said CLAP would offer a lead-awareness class for legislators today at the State House.

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