The Scene:
The Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday set stringent new standards for airborne lead particles, following the recommendations of its science advisers and cutting the maximum allowable concentrations to a tenth of the previous standard. It was the first change in federal lead standards in three decades.
The Players:
Mr. Johnson’s usual critics in environmental groups offered uncharacteristic words of praise. “This is a great step in the right direction,” said Gina Solomon, a scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council.
But Robert N. Steinwurtzel, a lawyer for the Association of Battery Recyclers, a group of six companies that use a smelting process to disassemble and recycle as many as 115 million car batteries annually, called the new standard problematic. “It potentially threatens the viability of the lead recycling industry,” Mr. Steinwurtzel said.
And in the declining marginal benefits category:
The new standard, Professor Lanphear [a professor in the health sciences department at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia who is an expert on lead toxicity] said, “will make a difference, but won’t lead to dramatic reductions” in blood-lead levels of younger children, which are now 80 percent to 95 percent lower than they were in the 1970s. Improvements in blood-lead levels had “begun to plateau” in recent years, he added, and the new standard could result in renewed progress.
