“It is important that we focus on things that change people’s lives,” said President Joe Biden while in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, this week as he focused on the effects of lead pipes in the nation’s antiquated infrastructure system.
Lead pipe remediation was a campaign promise that took three years to implement as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency had to overturn a Trump-era policy. Now, as the process is moving forward, President Biden told theGrio exclusively that his administration is focusing on “where the most good can come from our actions.”
The president’s goal is to remove all lead pipes in the U.S., which is expected to be completed by around 2040. The issue of lead pipes became a national concern during a well-publicized contamination crisis in Flint, Michigan. However, Flint is just one of the many examples of lead pipe water contamination around the country.
“Anything that diminishes the cognitive capabilities of the brain and development is dangerous … some of it kills you. Some of it makes you a different person than you would ordinarily be,” President Biden lamented.
In the meantime, hazardous lead pipe exposure can be lessened as communities wait for the nationwide efforts to be completed. The EPA currently works to mitigate the harmful impacts of lead in water with chemical agents that lower lead levels. Officials also say installing filters to detect lead in homes helps.
The EPA has studied the impact of lead on high schoolers over the years. Prolonged exposure hampered their cognitive abilities, as evidenced by the number of children receiving special education services.
“Think of the mom or dad who has a child that goes to school with 40,000 … lead pipes and drinking the water — comes back with brain damage,” said Biden. He emphasized, “It’s devastating!”
The lead pipe contamination project is similar to a lead paint issue in which the Biden-Harris administration embarked on a dual action plan in 2021. The plan would deploy resources from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act while leveraging federal, state, and local governments to deliver clean drinking water, replace lead pipes, and remediate lead paint.
The plan includes over 15 new actions from more than 10 federal agencies, ensuring federal compliance to replace the pipes by 2040.
The president acknowledged the law required that “all new homes could not have lead pipes.” However, older existing homes are typically exposed to contaminated pipes.
“We have thousands and thousands and thousands” of homes with lead pipes, Biden noted.
Removing lead pipes is part of Biden’s broader Black agenda. The president told theGrio that there are other actions that he wished he could’ve taken while in office, but he didn’t qualify or quantify them.
Key agenda items like passing the police reform bill, the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, and restoring critical parts of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were elusive during Biden’s presidency.