NFIB

The Lead Reporting Rule: Another Adverse Impact on Small Business Owners
11/04/2002

Reports on the adverse effects of breathing lead and lead dust span more than a 25-year history, especially in housing. For TRI purposes, however, lead was only recently reclassified by the Clinton administration as a "persistent, bio-accumulative and toxic chemical," which served as the basis for lowering the threshold reporting of lead from 25,000 pounds to 100 pounds in 2001. The rule, which required firms with more than 10 employees to report to EPA, became effective on April 17, 2001.

Although the scientists at EPA could not agree on the reasons for lowering the lead reporting thresholds to only 100 pounds annually, EPA imposed the regulation anyway. Independent research organizations such as the Regulatory Studies Center at George Mason University concluded that communities would be no better off with such detailed information now available to the public.

Reviews by both EPA and GAO could also reach no agreement on the cost of the regulation. While there was some general agreement that it would "probably" cost about two percent of annual revenue, there was clearly no precise standard upon which this was based. Rather, it all depended upon how costs were derived, and how reasonable they were. Nor was there any discussion whether small manufacturers would remain in business if the regulation ate most of their profit, a non-existent discussion.

Finally, running the $75,000 per firm cost assumption through NFIB's Regulatory Impact Model (RIM) indicated further negative effects on the economy-including job losses in the only sector of the economy doing well at present-construction. Further losses can also be expected by small business owners that own restaurants-one of the most sensitive industries to income losses in the economy.