The Biden administration advanced its crackdown on lead contamination with the announcement Monday of two multi-agency agreements to get more lead paint out of homes and increase data sharing about which communities are most at risk.
The first memorandum of understanding — between EPA and the Department of Housing and Urban Development — updates and reaffirms a 1997 agreement between the two agencies on their coordinated efforts to enforce lead-based paint standards in housing.
first memorandum of understanding
The second MOU — among EPA Region 3, HUD and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — initiates a pilot program that shares data on which communities have the highest blood lead levels.
second MOU
“HUD has a particular interest in using the shared data to facilitate its engagement with state and local lead hazard control programs, healthy homes programs, and housing rehabilitation programs, for the purposes of improving its targeting of funding, conducting special projects, or other collaborations,” Matthew Ammon, director of HUD’s Office of Lead Hazard Control and Healthy Homes, said in a statement.