EPA Guidelines Hurting Real Estate

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In this past week’s edition of the Long Island Business News (LIBN), there was an article entitled “Builders unprepared for stiffer lead paint regulations” by Michael H. Samuels. The article featured some key insights about continued and increased stressors placed on an already burdened industry – real estate construction and our world in general.

I’m going to start by bulleting a few points from the article. Then I’m going to give my opinion about the overall picture that it paints. For the record, I’m one of those “wackos” that believe the Federal government should spend less time in two places – our lives and our pockets.

So here’s some points the article made:

New Federal Regulations (what else is new) requiring contractors to follow guidelines while doing renovations where lead paint is present.
The Environmental Protection Agency ordered these rules (micro management of our lives at the “orders” of an overly funded Bureaucracy attempting to “protect” the “innocent victims” of our society…aka destroy as much commerce as possible and put as many businesses and people out of work so they don’t catch a cold, scrape a finger or…have the ability to feed their family – yes that’s right – I said it!). You can click here to read what the EPA says about lead paint.
In adults, lead paint can cause miscarriages, hypertension and digestive problems according to the EPA.
There were guidelines in place that contractors use anyway when dealing with renovations involving lead paint – another words, when you rehab a home that was built before 1978 (homes built before 1978 stand a very good chance of having lead paint on the walls of the home) the workers wear protective masks and goggles – simple.
It’s estimated that 80 million homes throughout the United States have lead paint in them
Lead paint was outlawed in 1978.
New regulations go into effect as of April 22, 2010 and require all workers at a work site to be certified at a cost of $225 per person to take a class.
High Efficiency Particulate Air Vacuum Cleaners must be used, built by HEPA manufacturers, which can’t keep up with demand…meaning there are contractors out there, that are certified but can’t get one of these “High Efficiency” Particulate Air Vacuums.
There aren’t enough trainings available to accomodate all the 235,000 or more firms affected by these rules of this federal bureaucracy
As of April 22nd, 2010, the EPA can begin fining contractors $37,500 per incident.

Okay so let’s get right to what I think because that’s what’s most important to me:

1. I believe the EPA should make recommendations…not requirements (especially in the midst of a financial meltdown of our country) on any state and for that matter I believe no federal agency should make a requirement upon any state whatsoever. Let the individual states decide on anything that impacts it financially or has any affect on the liberties of its residents. Period.

2. I do understand the need for any government to implement rules to protect people from environmental hazards like lead paint and give businesses guidelines to help it protect their staff, but I strongly disagree that a federal agency should have the right to implement rules against states, their companies and their workers that reside there.

3. The big picture isn’t that there shouldn’t be regulations to help businesses protect their workers and the general public, but to have this insanity imposed against an industry with a deadline right smack dab in the midst of a financial crisis where unemployment is over 17% (the real number – and on Long Island it’s over 7%) and to boot, not have enough trainings offered around the country to accomodate workers and also have manufactures unable to produce the “necessary” (mandatory) equipment to meet demand…….is insane.

4. People need to feed their families. Businesses need to be able to operate so that workers can have a job. The trickle down effect of businesses not being able to make a profit will lead to this republic’s demise. And specifically if construction contractors can’t work because of some stupid machine they can’t get and or their employees can’t get trained, then people can’t feed their families! This is dangerous territory.

5. We need people in our governmental offices that have common sense. Period. These regulations are just another example of a government imposing restrictions and adding cost burdens on businesses at a time when the impact can and probably will be financially crushing to families. Read it.

I’m just at a loss. I read articles like this all the time and I get sick to my stomach. We need jobs. People are hurting and we’ve got towns like Hempstead that have hurt job creation by blocking Charles Wang from developing that hell hole surrounding the embarrassing Nassau Coliseum. That’s just another example of local government being infiltrated by bureaucrats who think like the idiots on C-SPAN (yes – US Congressman and Senators).

People need to work. Period. Businesses need less regulation and less taxes so they can hire more people so that these people can work. I tell you what – go ask someone who’s unemployed right now and has a family to feed. You ask them if the EPA is helping them put food on their child’s plate. You ask them if they think the EPA should impose these demands on a hurting industry or whether he or she would be willing to just throw on a mask and goggles and work on a home their boss has financed so their business can make a profit and the workers can get paid.

Go ahead, ask them. In about a month (April 22nd – the $37,500 per day fine starts), they’ll be plenty of unemployed construction workers…but at least they won’t be “at risk” of lead-paint-related illnesses…they’ll just lose their home and not be able to feed their family. Yeah…that’s what they want.

By Thomas McGiveron, LSA