Enforcing Lead Laws and Regulations
The legacy of toxic lead exposure affects communities across America. The goal of the Environmental Protection Agency’s enforcement and compliance assurance program is to protect public health, deter would-be violators, cleanup lead contamination, and ensure compliance by entities subject to our nation’s laws related to lead exposure and contamination.
EPA, working with other federal agencies, and its state, local, and Tribal government partners, helps ensure compliance with multiple environmental laws and regulations to prevent or reduce exposure to lead in the air, land, and water. The agency enforces violations through civil administrative actions and partners with the Department of Justice and its U.S. attorneys to take civil judicial actions and prosecute criminal actions on EPA’s behalf.
Information on all the agency’s lead related work is available on the agency’s Lead website.
The information below highlights EPA’s enforcement and compliance assurance program’s work to ensure that those who violate federal laws to prevent and reduce exposure to lead in paint, soils, drinking water, air, plumbing products, hazardous waste, and other environmental sources are held accountable, as well as its work to ensure cleanup of sites contaminated by lead.
- Addressing Lead in Paint
- Addressing Lead in the Environment
- Addressing Lead in Plumbing Products
- 2025 National Lead Poisoning Prevention Week Enforcement and Compliance
- What you can do if you suspect a problem or violation
Addressing Lead in Paint
The single largest cause of childhood lead poisoning is from exposure to lead from deteriorated or disturbed lead paint. Nearly 30% of homes in the United States, mostly those built before 1978, have lead-based paint. Millions of people across America continue to be exposed to lead in their homes, childcare facilities, and in other buildings where lead-based paint is peeling, chipping, cracking, or damaged.
EPA inspects worksites and records of renovation firms, abatement firms, property managers, landlords, and real estate agents for compliance with lead-related environmental laws and regulations and takes enforcement action where necessary. Enforcement actions can take different forms under three lead-based paint rules under the Toxic Substances Control Act:
- Renovation, Repair & Painting
- Lead Activities (Abatement)
- Lead Disclosure (for real estate transactions)
EPA also issues administrative orders to clean up imminent hazards from lead-based paint under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act.
Lead Paint Enforcement and Compliance Activities
Enforcement activity can include civil penalty or criminal prosecution of firms that fail to safely perform renovation or abatement projects in homes and daycares and real estate owners or agents who fail to disclose lead-based paint information to renters and buyers. Fiscal year 2025 enforcement activity highlights include:
EPA Investigates Lead Violations at Privatized Military Housing and other Federal Government Housing - EPA is continuing efforts to increase the compliance of property management companies with TSCA’s Lead Renovation Repair and Painting rule and Real Estate Notification and Lead Disclosure rule to protect our military families living in privatized military housing, as well as individuals and families living in other federal government housing. In fiscal year 2025, these lead-based paint investigations resulted in the issuance of nine subpoenas to subcontracting companies who performed renovations at military bases and over a dozen off-site compliance monitoring activities at military bases across the country. This work ensures that our service members, government employees, and their families are protected from exposure to lead-based paint in their homes on federal facilities and military bases. (Read the Leavenworth Military housing Lead-Based Paint Violation press release.)
EPA Obtains a Multi-Million Dollar Settlement for Broad Remediation of Company’s Housing Portfolio - In December 2024, EPA reached a settlement with the Lilmor Management LLC TSCA and other defendants to resolve hundreds of violations of the TSCA lead-based paint Disclosure and Renovation Rules at more than 50 apartment buildings where more than 130 children have tested positive for elevated blood-lead levels since 2012. The settlement requires the defendants to pay $6.5 million in civil penalties to EPA, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the state of New York, including money for restitution that the state will make available to affected tenants. It also requires the defendants to identify and abate all lead-based paint at an estimated cost of $10 million, remediate substandard housing conditions across more than 2,500 apartments, and designate a compliance monitor, and fund an independent housing specialist to oversee the work. (Read the Lilmor Management Settlement Agreement press release.)
Addressing Lead in the Environment
Lead in Soil
Storage, Disposal and Cleanup of Hazardous Wastes Containing Lead
The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act addresses the safe handling, treatment, storage, and disposal of wastes containing lead to ensure that they do not endanger human health or the environment. EPA, in cooperation with states, verifies compliance with RCRA requirements by inspecting facilities, reviewing records, and taking enforcement action where necessary.
RCRA also includes authority for EPA to require the cleanup of certain types of lead contamination. RCRA cleanups may be implemented through permits and administrative orders. Since 1984, EPA has issued hundreds of RCRA cleanup orders, many of which address lead contamination. In some cases (e.g., at some smelters and refineries), lead may be the primary contaminant or risk-driver addressed by the order. Similar to Superfund cleanups, cleanups using RCRA authorities can be complex and take many years to complete.
Lead at Superfund Sites
EPA uses the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, commonly referred to as Superfund, to address lead contamination and reduce lead exposure in many communities. These cleanups are often large, complicated, and can take many years to complete. You can learn more by visiting EPA’s Superfund website and Lead at Superfund Sites webpage.
In FY 2025, EPA negotiated several settlement agreements with responsible parties to address the cleanup of lead contamination at Superfund sites, continuing the agency’s long-term goal to reduce exposure to lead in soil as laid out in the Federal Action Plan to Reduce Childhood Exposures and Associated Health Impacts.
EPA Secures $151.1 Million Settlement to Clean Up the Raritan Bay Slag Superfund Site - In February 2025, the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey entered a CERCLA settlement that required certain potentially responsible parties at the Raritan Bay Slag Superfund site in Old Bridge Township and Sayreville, New Jersey to pay a total of $151.1 million. EPA received $132.4 million as reimbursement for past cleanup work and to pay for remaining cleanup work, and the other $18.7 million resolved the claims of the Natural Resource Trustees. The primary sources of contamination at the site are lead-containing slag from a lead reclamation process and spent battery casings. This settlement will continue to fund the remedial action for the site’s seawall sector, which will protect people from exposure to lead. (Read the $151 Million Settlement Agreement for the Raritan Bay Superfund Site Cleanup press release.)
Lead in Drinking Water
Control of lead in drinking water is regulated under the Safe Drinking Water Act. Public water systems must comply with the national primary drinking water regulations. These regulations include treatment technique requirements, health-based standards and monitoring, and reporting requirements. EPA investigates compliance with drinking water requirements related to lead and takes enforcement action where necessary.
In 2024, EPA issued the Lead and Copper Rule Improvements, which required drinking water systems across the country to complete an initial service line materials inventory by October 16, 2024, to identify lead pipes for replacement. This rule also requires more rigorous testing of drinking water and a lower threshold requiring communities to take action to protect people from lead exposure in water. Public water systems will be required to come into compliance with these new LCR provisions by November 1, 2027. More information is available on EPA’s Lead and Copper Rule Improvements webpage.
EPA Assures Syracuse, New York Compliance with Drinking Water Lead Requirements - In April 2025, EPA Region 2, in coordination with the New York State Department of Health and the county health department, conducted an on-site inspection at the city of Syracuse to evaluate compliance with the LCR after a lead action level exceedance during the January to June 2024 monitoring period. In September 2025, an inspection report was issued citing violations of the monitoring, reporting and public education requirements of the LCR. EPA Region 2 also issued an administrative order requiring monitoring plans, continued monitoring, and lead public education. (Read the EPA Partners with New York State to Help Syracuse Lower Risk from Lead in its Drinking Water press release.)
Lead in Air
Control of lead air emissions from stationary and mobile sources is authorized under the Clean Air Act. The Clean Air Act requires major stationary sources, such as manufacturers, processors, refiners, and utilities, to obtain operating permits and install pollution control equipment and to meet specific emissions limitations. The major sources of lead emissions into the air are ore and metals processing and leaded aviation gasoline. Other stationary sources are waste incinerators, utilities, and lead-acid battery manufacturers.
Among other tools, EPA utilizes XACT 625i, an ambient continuous multi-metals monitor, to assist state, local, and Tribal government enforcement programs in targeting facilities that emit lead into the air. In addition, the monitoring data is used for source characterization, targeting and case development for sources with lead air emissions.
EPA Reaches Settlement with Leaded Brass Foundry - EPA Region 5 found that the St. Paul Brass Foundry Company, a leaded brass foundry that operates immediately adjacent to a public park, failed to properly operate baghouses controlling emissions from lead emitting processes. A settlement reached in September 2025 required the company to install high efficiency particulate air filters and limit the maximum lead content of castings. (Read the EPA Announces Settlement with St. Paul Brass for Alleged Violations of the Clean Air Act in Minnesota press release.)
Addressing Lead in Plumbing Products
In 2025, EPA updated the Manufacturers and Importers May Be Liable for Plumbing Products not Certified as “Lead Free” compliance advisory to include additional information to help the public identify whether their plumbing products comply with SDWA section 1417 and EPA’s lead free rule.
EPA first issued the compliance advisory in 2024 to the regulated community notifying them of the certification requirements and prohibitions under SDWA for the sale and use of plumbing products that do not meet the statute’s lead-free definition. The advisory aims to keep lead containing plumbing products off commercial shelves to better protect children, who are most vulnerable to the adverse health effects from lead exposure, and their families.
Criminal Enforcement
EPA’s criminal enforcement program focuses on criminal conduct that threatens people's health and the environment. The program enforces the nations laws by investigating cases, collecting evidence, conducting forensic analyses, and providing legal guidance to assist with prosecutions. The work helps to ensure every American has access to clean air, land and water.
Willfully Failing to Provide Lead-based Paint Disclosures Results in Nation’s First TSCA Endangerment Prosecution Sentence – Following up on information from the Housing and Urban Development’s Office of Inspector General, EPA’s Criminal Investigation Division investigated an incident involving potential lead exposure within the Department of Housing and Urban development’s Veteran Affairs Supportive Housing units (“Freedom’s Path”) in Fort Harrison, Montana. In 2021, EPA learned that an 18-month-old child living in one of the housing units was confirmed, through laboratory testing, to have elevated blood lead levels and subsequently underwent medical treatment for lead poisoning. EPA’s investigation discovered violations of lead disclosure and certification regulations.
In April 2025, the property management company owner was sentenced to three years of probation and ordered to pay a $150,000 fine. The subcontracting company who knowingly performed lead abatement activities without proper certification was ordered to serve two years of probation, pay a $50,000 fine, and full restitution in the amount of $349,000 for making false claims. (Read the Helene Real Estate criminal conviction for lead-based paint disclosure violations in military housing press release.)
Minnesota Real Estate Company Sentenced for Failing to Disclose Lead Paint in Residential Home – Following up on a complaint from a homeowner, whose young children (ages 1 and 2) were diagnosed with lead poisoning, EPA’s CID, working with the North Dakota Department of Environmental Quality, began an investigation. The North Dakota Department of Environmental Quality tested the residence for lead utilizing X-Ray Fluorescens and took dust wipe samples. The state’s testing results identified several areas throughout the house contained elevated levels of lead. Additionally, EPA discovered that the defendant failed to provide the home purchaser with lead-based paint disclosures as required under TSCA.
The real estate company was sentenced to pay $4,274 in restitution to the victims, a $10,000 criminal fine, serve a one-year term of probation, and perform 50 hours of community service. The defendant also agreed to include a notice on its website about the harmful effects of lead-based paint exposure and its required obligations to home buyers pertaining to lead-based paint disclosures. (Read the VPP Criminal Sentencing for Lead-Based Paint Disclosure Violations press release.)
2025 National Lead Poisoning Prevention Week Enforcement and Compliance Activities
During the annual National Lead Poisoning Prevention Week (October 19 – 25 2025), EPA takes a whole of agency approach to highlight the agency’s work to safeguard children and adults from the dangers of lead poisoning. The 2025 EPA theme is “Lead in the Home.” EPA’s enforcement and compliance office works year-round to ensure compliance with our nation’s laws and regulations and to raise awareness about protecting families from exposures to lead in their homes and beyond.
What you can do if you suspect a problem or violation
Call the Lead Hotline at 800-424-LEAD (5323) or contact the EPA using our Report a Violation online form.
Public tips or complaints help EPA’s enforcement and compliance assurance program protect people from lead risks. The reports are referred to EPA’s enforcement staff or to the appropriate government agency that can best address concerns. Provide as much information as possible, including copies of documents, like a lease or contract and photographs, but you may also report violations anonymously.