EPA pressures states to spend unused lead prevention funds

FIRST ON FOX: The Trump administration is stepping up its response to childhood lead exposure, launching new EPA public-education tools while pressing states to use previously awarded lead-mitigation funds that had gone unused, Fox News Digital learned. 

“There’s no safe level of lead exposure, and it’s well documented that children are more susceptible to the risks of lead. We’ve made a lot of progress over the decades in reducing childhood exposure to lead, but there’s still more work to do,” Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Deputy Administrator David Fotouhi told Fox News Digital in a Zoom interview. 

The EPA is revamping its website and launching a new story map tool aimed at making critical information on the risks of lead exposure easier for the public to access. The move comes as the agency shifts funding toward higher-impact efforts and steps up pressure on states to address contamination risks.

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Lead can be commonly found in paint, household dust, drinking water, air, and soil. The new tools will provide information to the public on current regulations for prevention.

“We’re also enforcing our rules when it comes to the lead renovation and painting rule. This comes up when you’ve got older homes, 1978 and older. Those are the ones that are more likely to have lead in the home, in the paint,” said Fotouhi. “When those homes are being renovated, it’s critical that folks are following our standards for ensuring the safety of any children that are occupying that home during that renovation.”

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The agency announced $3 billion in new funding for states to reduce lead in drinking water while also reallocating $1.1 billion in unused funding. Fotouhi explained to Fox News Digital that previous federal dollars to protect against lead poisoning and replace service lines sat unused in a handful of states. 

“We’ve really focused on is making sure that states that received lead funding in the past are putting that money to good use,” said Fotouhi. “We encountered a number of situations where states had received funding from EPA to replace lead service lines but had not taken and spent those funds to do that work.”

There are 4 million lead service lines carrying drinking water to homes, according to a 2025 EPA report.

The EPA’s broader push to prevent lead poisoning also included $26 million for states and territories last year to address lead in drinking water at schools and child-care facilities, underscoring the administration’s focus on children’s exposure risks.

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A committee of senior leaders was reestablished in 2025 across the agency’s program offices and 10 regions as part of EPA’s agency-wide effort to reduce children’s exposure to lead.

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“This is federal, this is precious federal grant funding. Designed specifically to reduce human health risk from lead exposure, and the states need to be doing their job here and putting that funding to good use,” said Fotouhi.

The administration has cast children’s health as a cross-agency priority, with HHS helping drive that push through the White House’s Make America Healthy Again initiative, which has focused in part on childhood chronic disease and environmental toxins.