BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SB 1073
Page 1
Date of Hearing: June 28, 2014
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENTAL SAFETY AND TOXIC MATERIALS
Luis Alejo, Chair
SB
1073 (Monning) - As Amended June 21, 2016
SENATE VOTE: 33-2
SUBJECT: Residential housing: lead-based paint
SUMMARY: Requires the Department of Public Health (CDPH) to
update regulations governing lead-related construction work to
conform to the federal Environmental Protection Agency's (US
EPA) Lead Renovation, Repair, and Painting Rule. Specifically,
this bill:
1)Requires, by July 1, 2018, CDPH to review and amend its
regulations governing lead-related construction work,
including training and certification for workers and
accreditation for trainers in lead-safe work practices to
comply with the state's regulations on Accreditation,
Certification and Work Practices for Lead-Based Paint and Lead
Hazards and the US EPA's Lead Renovation, Repair, and Painting
Rule (40 C.F.R. 745).
2)Requires the amended regulations to include, but not be
limited to, the following:
a) A regulation requiring employers to maintain and provide
access to written files for each separate job or phase of
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work, where the work process used is different or the work
is performed at noncontiguous locations, noting specified
information related to the location of the work and scope
of the work; and,
b) A regulation requiring a copy of the worker and firm
certification to be provided before the start of the job to
the prime contractor or other employers on the site and to
be posted on the jobsite beside the California Occupational
Safety and Health poster.
3)Requires CDPH to adopt regulations establishing fees for the
certifications or accreditations.
4)Requires the fees imposed to be established at levels not
exceeding an amount sufficient to cover the costs of
administering and enforcing the standards and regulations
adopted under the provisions of this bill.
5)Requires the fees to be deposited into the Lead-Related
Construction Fund.
6)Appropriates $500,000 from the Childhood Lead Poisoning
Prevention Fund to CDPH to develop, initiate, and administer
the provisions of this bill until adequate fees can be
collected for the ongoing administration of the provisions of
this bill. Requires the appropriation to be repaid to the
Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Fund upon determination by
the Department of Finance that sufficient moneys are available
in the Lead-Related Construction Fund to repay that amount.
Prohibits any interest from being paid by the Lead-Related
Construction Fund at the time of repayment.
7)Authorizes CDPH to implement and administer the provisions of
this bill through all-county letters or similar instructions
from CDPH until regulations are adopted.
8)Requires CDPH to adopt emergency regulations to implement the
provisions of this bill by July 1, 2017. Authorizes CDPH to
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readopt any emergency regulation that is the same as or
substantially equivalent to an emergency regulation previously
adopted.
9)Requires the initial adoption of emergency regulations and one
re-adoption of emergency regulations to be deemed an emergency
and necessary for the immediate preservation of the public
peace, health, safety, or general welfare and exempts those
regulations from the purview of the Office of Administrative
Law, but requires those regulations to be submitted to the
Office of Administrative Law for filing with the Secretary of
State, and requires that each shall remain in effect for no
more than 180 days, by which time final regulations may be
adopted.
10)Requires persons engaged in doing renovation, repair, or
painting work in a residential or public building that will
disturb lead-based paint for compensation to have a
CDPH-issued certificate to conduct lead-related construction
work, abatement, or lead hazard evaluation.
11)Requires that no reimbursement is required because the only
costs that may be incurred by a local agency or school
district will be incurred because this act creates a new crime
or infraction, eliminates a crime or infraction, or changes
the penalty for a crime or infraction.
EXISTING LAW:
UNDER FEDERAL LAW:
1)Establishes the federal Lead-Based Paint Poisoning Prevention
Act to create a prohibition against the future use of
lead-based paint. (42 United States Code 4851)
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2)Establishes the federal Residential Lead-Based Paint Hazard
Reduction Act of 1992 (also known as Title X) to require
anyone selling or leasing single- and multi-family housing
units built before 1978 to disclose information about
lead-based paint hazards to prospective buyers or tenants.
(Public Law 102-550)
3)Establishes the US EPA's Lead-Based Paint Renovation, Repair
and Painting (RRP) Rule to require workers to be certified and
trained in the use of lead-safe work practices, and requires
renovation, repair, and painting firms to be US EPA-certified.
(40 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) 745).
4)Prohibits the use of lead for residential use in the United
States. (16 CFR 1303)
UNDER STATE LAW:
1)Establishes the Residential Lead-Based Paint Hazard Reduction
Program to require any person offering lead-related
construction courses to meet DPH certificate requirements.
(Health & Safety Code (H&S) § 105250, et seq.)
2)Establishes the Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Act of
1991, which requires CDPH to adopt regulations establishing a
standard of care at least as stringent as the most recent
United States Centers for Disease Control screening
guidelines, requiring all children to be evaluated for risk of
lead poisoning by health care providers during each child's
periodic health assessment. (H&S) § 124125, et seq.)
FISCAL EFFECT: According to the Senate Appropriations
Committee, enactment of this bill could result in one-time costs
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of $231,000 to CDPH to develop regulations regarding the
standardized training courses, certification procedures, and
other requirements, and ongoing costs of up to $1.135 million
annually, beginning Fiscal Year (FY) 2017-18, to implement and
manage the program and required information technology systems.
Some or all of these costs may be offset with application fee
revenue.
Amendments to the bill included an appropriation of $500,000
from the Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Fund to CDPH to
develop the program, and require that funds are repaid once fee
revenue is sufficient to administer the program.
COMMENTS:
Need for the bill: According to the author, "SB 1073 follows the
lead of fourteen other states that have aligned their state's
lead laws and the federal RRP regulations. The bill would
require the California Department of Public Health to develop
training and certification for lead safe work practices that
[are] specific to California. This California RRP certification
would take the place of the U.S. EPA's RRP certification for
work done in California. This bill would also improve
enforcement by giving state and local enforcement agencies the
ability to ensure those doing renovation and repair work on
pre-1978 homes are certified on lead safe work practices ?
"The California Department of Public Health already administers
other lead certifications (abatement workers and inspectors, for
example). Adding certification for lead safe work practices
will fit well into this existing structure."
The problem with lead: Lead has been listed under California's
Proposition 65 since 1987 as a substance that can cause
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reproductive damage and birth defects and has been listed as a
chemical known to cause cancer since 1992. According to the
Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, lead has
multiple toxic effects on the human body. Decreased intelligence
in children and increased blood pressure in adults are among the
more serious non-carcinogenic effects.
There is no level of lead that has been proven safe, either for
children or for adults. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC) considers any blood lead level more than 10
g/dl (micrograms of lead per deciliter of blood) to be unsafe
for children and for pregnant or nursing women. The CDC found
that approximately 900,000 U.S. children between 1 and 5 years
old have abnormally high levels of lead in their blood.
Lead is a state priority: The Governor's May Revise for the FY
2016/2017 Budget noted, "Public health experts increasingly
recognize that lead poisoning can occur at lower levels of
exposure than previously understood. Children under age six are
at the greatest risk - even low levels of exposure can cause
irreparable damage to a child's central nervous system and
result in other developmental and behavioral problems. Children
of low-income families are disproportionately exposed to lead
poisoning."
The Governor's FY 2016/2017 Budget includes $8.2 million for
CDPH to extend services to children who have been exposed to
lead, consistent with the guidance for treatment from the CDC
for monitoring, education, and basic services to children.
Establishing lead levels: Only in the late 1970s did
comprehensive epidemiological studies of children's blood lead
levels begin, raising modern concerns about low asymptomatic
blood lead levels.
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When the federal Lead Poisoning Prevention Act was passed in
1971, a blood lead level of 60 g/dl was considered safe. In
1991, the CDC lowered the blood lead level of concern to 10
g/dl or more, where it remained until 2012, when the CDC
established a new measure of blood lead levels the reference
level that was set to include the highest 2.5 percent of tested
children. That reference value, which is not health-based and
will change over time, is currently 5 g/dl.
Lead-based paint history: When lead-based paint was marketed
before 1978, it was a legal product in great demand because it
was washable and durable. It was repeatedly endorsed by the
federal, state, and local governments, and specified for use on
government buildings until the mid-1970s. For example, the 1950
California Department of Education vocational book on painting
endorsed the use of white lead paint.
As uses of lead pigments in paints evolved, so did the primary
pathways through which children were thought to be exposed to
lead and the level of exposure thought to be safe. It was not
until 1974 that household dust emerged as a possible pathway for
lead exposure. The theory was that children were licking their
hands or putting objects in their mouths that had become dirty
with lead-contaminated dust.
In 1978, the federal government banned consumer uses of lead
paint. Although the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission
banned the use of lead-based paint in 1978, buildings built
prior to the ban still likely have lead paint. Due to the
significant health issues caused by lead exposure, California
requires anyone who performs lead-based paint risk assessment or
removal to be certified or accredited by CDPH.
State action on lead paint: In 1991, the California Legislature
enacted AB 2038 (Connelly, Chapter 799, Statues of 1991), the
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Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Act of 1991, which
established a program within the State Department of Health
Services (DHS, which is now CDPH) to meet the requirements of
the federal Residential Lead-Based Paint Hazard Reduction Act of
1992 and Title X of the Housing and Community Development Act of
1992. It required DHS to adopt regulations regarding the
accreditation of training providers that engage in or supervise
lead-related construction work, and required the establishment
of fees for the accreditation of training providers, the
certification of individuals, and the licensing of entities
engaged in lead-related occupations. The fees are deposited into
the Lead-Related Construction Fund.
In 2003, the Legislature enacted SB 460 (Chapter 931, Statutes
of 2002) to establish the requirement that lead safe work
practices be used in pre-1978 buildings. SB 460 added lead
hazards to the conditions that make premises uninhabitable and
substandard. It also prohibited an individual from disturbing
more than a "de minimis" amount of lead-based paint without
"containment" (a system, process or barrier used to contain lead
hazards inside a work area).
SB 460 also required any person being paid for lead construction
including inspection, risk assessment or designing plans for the
abatement of lead hazards and any person performing lead
inspections or abatement in a public elementary, preschool or
day care center to have a certificate from DHS.
Lead-Based Paint Renovation, Repair and Painting (RRP) Rule:
Common renovation activities like sanding, cutting, and
demolition can create hazardous lead dust and chips by
disturbing lead-based paint, which can be harmful to adults and
children.
On April 22, 2008, the US EPA issued the RRP requiring the use
of lead-safe practices and other actions aimed at preventing
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lead poisoning. Under the RRP, beginning in April 2010,
contractors performing renovation, repair and painting projects
that disturb lead-based paint in homes, child care facilities,
and schools built before 1978 must be certified and must follow
specific work practices to prevent lead contamination. This
includes in-house maintenance staff and many types of outside
contractors.
Until that time, the U.S. Department of Housing Urban
Development and US EPA recommended that anyone performing
renovation, repair, and painting projects that disturb
lead-based paint in pre-1978 homes, child care facilities and
schools follow lead-safe work practices.
Under the RRP, child-occupied facilities are defined as
residential, public or commercial buildings where children under
age six are present on a regular basis. The requirements apply
to renovation, repair or painting activities. The RRP does not
apply to minor maintenance or repair activities where less than
six square feet of lead-based paint is disturbed in a room or
where less than 20 square feet of lead-based paint is disturbed
on the exterior. Window replacement is not minor maintenance or
repair.
The challenge with the RRP is that many of the specific training
requirements either undermine California's requirements, or
create confusion with California's requirements.
The intent of SB 1073 is to create a California-specific program
that ensures compliance with the US EPA and eliminates any
confusion over the requirements needed for certification in
California. SB 1073 does that by building off the existing
program established under SB 460 and by ensuring that all
persons doing renovation, repair, or painting work in a
residential or public building are appropriately certified or
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accredited to perform work on lead-based paint.
Arguments in support: According to the California Association of
Code Enforcement Officers:
"Code enforcement officers routinely respond to complaints
about unpermitted work and lack of maintenance on homes, many
of which contain lead-based paint.
The US EPA's RRP has elements that are not as protective as
California law. As a result, trainees are often confused, as
what they need to know to pass the federal exam is sometimes
in conflict with what is allowed in California.
In addition to creating regulatory confusion, the US EPA's
enforcement capacity is extremely limited. Because of the lack
of enforcement, RRP has not been as effective as it could be,
leaving children, workers and their families at risk with
little recourse.
There are more than 280,000 licensed General Contractors in
California, but fewer than 35,000 of those have become RRP
certified.
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SB 1073 would create a California-specific RRP program on Lead
Safe Work Practices, and grant enforcement authority to local
agencies already enforcing the state's lead laws."
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION:
Support
Healthy Homes Collaborative (Sponsor)
AAA Lead Consultants
Alameda County Board of Supervisors
American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists District IX
Arc and United Cerebral Policy California Collaboration
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Barr & Clark
California Association of Code Enforcement Officers
California Pan-Ethnic Health Network
California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation
Coalition for Economic Survival
HomeSafe Environmental, Inc.
Inner City Law Center
Inquilinos Unidos/United Tenants
Physicians for Social Responsibility
Public Health Institute
Society for Allergy-Friendly Environment
Western Center on Law and Poverty
Opposition
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None on file.
Analysis Prepared by:Paige Brokaw / E.S. & T.M. / (916)
319-3965