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Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 4 / Thursday, January 7, 2021 / Rules and Regulations
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window sills in relation to their application in lead risk reduction programs, how the lower dust-lead loadings can be reliably detected by laboratories, the effectiveness of these levels at eliminating dust-lead hazards, and consistency with the revised 2019
standards and across the Federal Government.
EPA did not propose to change the post-abatement clearance level in 40
CFR 745, subpart L for window troughs, and is not modifying the level at this time. Because the revised 2019
standards updated the DLHS for floors and window sills and because EPA
wanted to act as expeditiously as possible to update the DLCL in recognition of the updated DLHS for floors and window sills, EPA believes it has reasonably focused this rulemaking to update the DLCL so that attaining these levels demonstrates elimination of dust-lead hazards under the revised 2019 standards. As a result, and after careful review of the public comments, EPA is finalizing its proposal to only revise the DLCL for floors and window sills at this time.
E. What are the estimated incremental impacts of this action?
EPA has prepared an Economic Analysis of the potential incremental impacts associated with this rulemaking Ref. 7. The analysis is focused on a subset of the target housing i.e., most pre-1978 housing and child-occupied facilities where abatement activities are subject to this rule. The analysis, which is available in the docket, estimates incremental costs and benefits for abatements where a dust-lead level is between the original DLCL 40 mg/ft2 for floors and 250 mg/ft2 for window sills and alternate levels, including the revised DLCL of 10 mg/ft2 for floors and 100 mg/ft2 for window sills. Based on data from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development HUD, EPA estimates that the vast majority of floors and window sills are already clearing at levels below the revised DLCL of 10 mg/ft2 and 100 mg/
ft2 after the completion of an abatement.
EPA identified in the proposal that there was uncertainty about whether some state and local regulations already use the same levels in EPAs DLHS as DLCL, and about whether some abatement contractors voluntarily conduct additional cleaning to ensure that the dust-lead levels fall below the DLHS following an abatement. To the extent that these situations occur, then the costs and benefits of meeting the DLCL estimated in the Economic Analysis would be attributable to the 2019 DLHS Rule and not to this
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regulation. For the final rule Economic Analysis, EPA contacted states with authorized lead programs and found that several have already revised or are in the process of revising their regulations to adopt clearance levels of 10 mg/ft2 on floors and 100 mg/ft2 on window sills. In addition, one locality has adopted clearance levels below the original federal levels of 40 mg/ft2 on floors and 250 mg/ft2 on window sills.
Abatements in these jurisdictions will clear below the levels of 10 mg/ft2 on floors and 100 mg/ft2 on window sills even without revisions to the federal clearance levels. As a result, EPA has narrowed the range of estimated benefits and costs in the Economic Analysis of the final rule by including abatements in these jurisdictions in the baseline.
EPA estimates that 57% to 61% of the abatements otherwise affected by the clearance levels in this rule will take place in these jurisdictions. As a result, the Economic Analysis does not account for the benefits and costs of these events. The information on state regulations and its use in the final rule analysis is described in sections 2.3 and 3.1.3C of the Economic Analysis. EPA
did not obtain any information indicating the extent to which abatement contractors in other states and localities where the clearance levels are still 40 mg/ft2 on floors and 250 mg/ft2 on window sills are voluntarily using 10 mg/ft2 on floors and 100 mg/ft2 on window sills as clearance levels. Instead, section 8.3 of the Economic Analysis presents sensitivity analyses reflecting different assumptions about abatement contractor actions in the baseline. In order to expand the range of possible estimates, EPAs final estimates of the incremental impacts of this action include a lower bound assumption that half of abatement contractors are voluntarily applying the hazard standards as clearance levels.
As in the Economic Analysis for the 2019 DLHS Rule, there is also uncertainty about the blood lead levels at which investigative actions and lead hazard reduction activities might be taken and the exact nature of these activities. Most states set a blood lead level at which an environmental investigation is recommended or required. Based on guidance posted on environmental and public health department websites for each state, these blood lead action levels range from 5 micrograms per deciliter mg/dL
to 25 mg/dL. In eight states AK, IN, MD, ME, MI, NE, OR, and PA the action level for an environmental investigation is a blood lead level of 5 mg/dL.

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Fourteen states CA, GA, IL, KS, LA, NC, NH, NJ, NV, OH, TX, VT, WA, and WV
and the District of Columbia use an action level of 10 mg/dL. Nineteen states AL, AZ, CO, DE, FL, HI, IA, ID, KY, MN, MO, MS, NM, NY, RI, SC, UT, VA, and WI use an action level of 15 mg/dL.
Four states CT, MA, OK, and TN use an action level of 20 mg/dL or above.
Five states AR, MT, ND, SD, and WY
have no policy recommendation or requirement for the blood lead level at which an environmental investigation should be conducted. The differences between states may reflect the prevalence of lead hazards in each state and their relative prioritization of lead hazards and other funding needs.
EPAs analysis includes two scenarios for the number of instances where clearance testing is performed that will be affected by the rule: 1 Where dustlead loadings are tested because a childs blood lead level equals or exceeds 5 mg/dL the current Centers for Disease Control and Prevention CDC
blood lead reference value Ref. 8, and a loading is at or above the DLHS; and 2 where dust-lead loadings are tested because a childs blood lead level equals or exceeds the action level set by the state the child lives in, and a loading is at or above the DLHS.
Consequently, the Economic Analysis includes a range for the number of abatement events affected by this rule revising the clearance levels. The upper end of the range is approximately 11,000 events, which assumes that when a childs blood lead level equals or exceeds 5 mg/dL an environmental investigation occurs that includes testing the dust-lead loadings in their home. The low end of the range is approximately 1,200 events, which assumes that dust-lead loading testing occurs when a childs blood lead level equals or exceeds the state blood lead level action level. The benefit and cost estimates are highly sensitive to this range. The following is a brief outline of the estimated incremental impacts of this rulemaking.
1. Benefits Incremental actions to meet the revised DLCL of 10 mg/ft2 for floors and 100 mg/ft2 for window sills after abatements where a baseline postintervention loading is between the original DLCL of 40 mg/ft2 for floors and 250 mg/ft2 for window sills and the revised DLCL would reduce exposure to lead, resulting in benefits from avoided adverse health effects. In the Economic Analysis of this rule, EPA quantified the benefits of reduced lead exposure to children from avoided Intelligence Quotient IQ loss as an indicator of
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