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This seems like a lame excuse. Surely the USA can up their water plumbing requirements without replacing lead-based paint on other surfaces. Other nations have regulated this for decades now. It's about progress, not perfection.

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In the US, lead pipes in new construction were banned almost 40 years ago. This is not a matter of the pipes not being regulated, it's an issue of replacing older pipes.

I also think it’s one of those , “if we just wait long enough the problem fixes itself” type of things. That said, the question becomes, how long does a lead pipe work without failing? I suspect that amount of time is longer than anyone wants to admit. Apparently we’d rather give the externalized cost to prisons instead of plumbers.

$17B for 10 years https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/6/12/18661193/l...

Assuming that it doesn't balloon like any real projects

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