#Lead paint

[batboyblog]

Things the Biden-Harris Administration Did This Week #39

October 18-25 2024.

President Biden issued the first presidential apology on behalf of the federal government to America's Native American population for the Indian boarding school policy. For 150 years the federal government operated a system of schools which aimed to destroy Native culture through the forced assimilation of native children. At these schools students faced physical, emotional, and sexual abuse, and close to 1,000 died. The Biden-Harris Administration has been historic for Native and Tribal rights. From the appointment of the first ever Native American cabinet member, Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, to the investment of $46 billion dollars on tribal land, to 200 new co-stewardship agreements. The last 4 years have seen a historic investment in and expansion of tribal rights.

The Biden-Harris Administration proposed a new rule which would make contraceptive medication (the pill) free over the counter with most Insurance. The new rule would ban cost sharing for contraception products, including the pill, condoms, and emergency contraception. On top of over the counter medications, the new rule will also strength protections for prescribed contraception without cost sharing as well.

The EPA announced its finalized rule strengthening standards for lead paint dust in pre-1978 housing and child care facilities. There is no safe level of exposure to lead particularly for children who can suffer long term developmental consequences from lead exposure. The new standards set the lowest level of lead particle that can be identified by a lab as the standard for lead abatement. It's estimated 31 million homes built before the ban on lead paint in 1978 have lead paint and 3.8 million of those have one or more children under the age of 6. The new rule will mean 1.2 million fewer people, including over 300,000 children will not be exposed to lead particles every year. This comes after the Biden-Harris Administration announced its goal to remove and replace all lead pipes in America by the end of the decade.

The Department of Transportation announced a $50 million dollar fine against American Airlines for its treatment of disabled passengers and their wheelchairs. The fine stems from a number of incidences of humiliating and unfair treatment of passages between 2019 and 2023, as well as video documented evidence of mishandling wheelchairs and damaging them. Half the fine will go to replacing such damaged wheelchairs. The Biden administration has leveled a historic number of fines against the airlines ($225 million) for their failures. It also published a Airline Passengers with Disabilities Bill of Rights, passed a new rule accessible lavatories on aircraft, and is working on a rule to require airlines to replace lost or damaged wheelchairs with equal equipment at once.

The Department of Energy announced $430 million dollars to help boost domestic clean energy manufacturing in former coal communities. This invests in projects in 15 different communities, in places like Texas, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Michigan. The plan will bring about 1,900 new jobs in communities struggling with the loss of coal. Projects include making insulation out of recycled cardboard, low carbon cement production, and industrial fiber hemp processing.

The Department of Transportation announced $4.2 billion in new infrastructure investment. The money will go to 44 projects across the country. For example the MBTA will get $400 million to replace the 92 year old Draw 1 bridge and renovate North Station.

The Department of Transportation announced nearly $200 million to replace aging natural gas pipes. Leaking gas lines represent a serious public health risk and also cost costumers. Planned replacements in Georgia and North Carolina for example will save the average costumer there over $900 on their gas bill a year. Replacing leaking lines will also remove 1,000 metric tons of methane pollution, annually.

The Department of the Interior announced $244 million to address legacy pollution in Pennsylvania coal country. This comes on top of $400 million invested earlier this year. This investment will help close dangerous mine shafts, reclaim unstable slopes, improve water quality by treating acid mine drainage, and restore water supplies damaged by mining.

Data shows that President Biden's Inflation Reduction Act (passed with Vice-President Harris' tie breaking vote) has saved seniors $1 billion dollars on out-of-pocket drug costs. Seniors with certain high priced drugs saw their yearly out of pocket costs capped at $3,500 for 2024. In 2024 all seniors using Medicare Part D will see their out of pocket costs capped at $2,000 for the year. It's estimated if the $2,000 cap had been in effect this year 4.6 million seniors would have hit it by June and not have had to pay any more for medication for the rest of the year.

The Department of Education announced a new proposed rule to bring student debt relief for 8 million struggling borrowers. The Biden-Harris Administration has managed despite road blocks from Republicans in Congress, the courts and law suits from Republican states to bring student loan forgiveness to 5 million Americans so far through different programs. This latest rule would take into account many financial hardships faced by people to determine if they qualify to have their student loans forgiven. The final rule cannot be finalized before 2025 meaning its fate will be decided at the election.

The Department of Agriculture announced $1.5 billion in 92 partner-driven conservation projects. These projects aim at making farming more susceptible and environmental friendly, 16 projects are about water conservation in the West, 6 support use of innovative technologies to reduce enteric methane emissions in livestock. $100 million has been earmarked for Tribal-led projects.

[reality-detective]

[spookyfisher]

Mmm Lead Paint and K/S

This picture is old and I have not drinked from this cup ever since I found out it has lead paint, also sadly found out Zero Sugar Baja Blast is not as good as I thought it would be 💔

[clowniconography]

so honored to have finally run into one of these in the wild (at my job in a thrift store) (threw it away immediately after taking this)

[thelowcalcalzonezone]

an actual conversation from a group chat i'm in

made by @cammc1 hehe

[manybackflips]

The common person doesn’t know true happiness until they’ve spent at least twenty-five years guzzling down lead paint. I’m talking just slurping it. I want the neighbors to call the police with how I’m going to drink that paint. I’m going to sound like a long-distance relationship meeting for the first time in two years when I get to that leaden goodness. The Home Depot will have posters of me. Lowe’s will have posters of me. Do you know what they’ll say. Shoot on sight. They know my ways. They know what I’ll do. But you know what’ll happen? The bullets will all bounce off of me. Because I’ve incorporated that lead paint into my body. I’m functionally indestructible. Nothing can stop me. I’m too strong. Too strong for them. Too strong for everybody. You know what I’m not to strong for? Slurping down that paint. I’m safe to be around in public spaces.

[arthistoryiscooliguess]

Oh to be a baroque artist (going absolutely insane due to lead poisoning from the white paint)

[queeraroace]

covid will be the lead paint of our generation

I sit in the library

watching every unmasked kid

and every unmasked parent

breathe in unclean air

I know the statistics

I know the death rate

I know about the consequences of long covid,

and brain fog,

and this vascular illness

I assume they don't

Because if they do

it makes things

so

so

much worse

When these kids grow up,

twice as likely to get diabetes,

more likely to get sick more often,

with heart problems,

with gastrointestinal complications,

if they grow up at all,

will they look at their parents and say:

"Why didn't you protect me?"

And I have to guess they will say they didn't know

I don't know if we will have the records of every time they scrolled past an article informing them of the risks

whether it was because their own symptoms made it hard to concentrate on a block of text that long

to decipher abstract numbers and convert them to people they know

people they love

people they've already lost

Maybe the article was never written - because five years into a pandemic

statistics aren't as attention grabbing as they used to be

Maybe it never made it to that parent's feed

Because all their friends were busy posting pictures of concerts

eating out at restaurants

and getting things "back to normal"

Maybe, even if that parent saw that headline and understood it,

they didn't want to feel bad about themselves

They think "I am a good person,

so I can't be doing something wrong.

I wouldn't hurt my kids.

I wouldn't purposefully endanger my kid.

So,

this must be fine."

And I'm no better

Every Thursday, I meet the same group of teenagers

for a library program

And I don't tell them why I think it should be mask mandatory

I don't tell them the reason why all our employees are sick all the time

And in return,

they don't ask why I'm the last one masking

I stay quiet about the plague

because talking about such things is

"too political"

and could cost me my job

In ten years

twenty years

if I see those kids again

and the adult versions of them ask me

"Why didn't you do anything?"

Maybe I will have talked myself into an answer

that parents are convincing themselves of now.

[wordsoup420]

lead exposure in childhood leads to increased chance of criminal activity in adult hood, combine this with the fact that many houses in poor areas of the us (And areas with high POC pop) Still have stuff with lead paint, and the correlation of socioecinomic factors to crime rate, and the dispaportionat amount of poc criminals makes sense and the solutions to lower becomes rather clear.

[the-uncanny-dag]

What boy?!?!

Ah

[verdantconnie]

Yummy :-)

[sixminutestoriesblog]

oh no! vintage

[stone-cold-groove]

Use white lead paint for your home, you know, for happiness...

[lostestleo]

[bog-dwelling-butch]

Oh no, found the infamous lead paint McDonald's Garfield cups at my parents house 😱🚮