A Community Voice on Lead Paint: Examining the Role of Cost-Benefit Analysis in Environmental Regulation.

An estimated 29 million housing units in the United States still contain deteriorated lead paint and elevated levels of lead-contaminated house dust, over forty years after the ban on residential use of lead paint. Such "legacy" lead paint in homes built before 1978 has disproportionately inflicted irreversible, life-long health harms on communities of color and poor people. The Ninth Circuit, in A Community Voice v. EPA, held that the threshold for identifying risks from lead paint must be strictly based on health-based standards, without consideration of cost. While an important win for environmental justice advocates, the decision in A Community Voice was no panacea. The scheme for lead paint regulation in the United States is a complex patchwork of federal and local regulations with significant gaps that often enable and encourage inaction. The decision addressed the risk identification aspect of lead regulation; however, the need for lead paint abatement in U.S. homes remains urgent while a robust response remains unpromised. Further, the question persists of what role cost considerations should play in regulating toxic substances such as lead, which has no safe exposure level. This Note contends that cost-benefit analysis has fundamental flaws that could cause the government to inadequately account for health outcomes when regulating toxic substances like lead. Understanding that cost considerations are entrenched in the regulatory process, however, policymakers could embrace distributional weighting tools to better account for equity concerns in cost-benefit analyses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]