An Environmental Victory: Recent EPA Rule and Infrastructure Funding Promise Safer Drinking Water Over the Next Decade
January 12, 2025 by Olivia Sullivan

Drinking water from a kitchen faucet. Lead exposure from drinking tap water creates serious and sometimes irreversible health problems.
A Biden-Harris Administration EPA rule recently went into effect that will help to remove lead from drinking water. The Lead and Copper Rule Improvements require water systems to replace lead pipes across the country, and this huge public works project is backed by over $2.6 billion in infrastructure funding.
Last year, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a final rule that went into effect on December 30, 2024, requiring all public water systems to eliminate lead pipes within the next ten years.[1] The Lead and Copper Rule Improvements (LCRI) require all water systems to identify and replace service lines, the pipes that connect buildings to a water supply and carry drinking water, that contain lead.[2] The LCRI also require more rigorous sampling and testing of tap water, and they lower the lead action level in drinking water from 0.015 mg/L to 0.010 mg/L.[3] Finally, the LCRI facilitate improved communication with communities about the risks of lead in drinking water.[4]
EPA has authority to enact the LCRI consistent with provisions set forth under the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA).[5] The SDWA authorizes EPA to “promulgate a national primary drinking water regulation that requires the use of a treatment technique in lieu of establishing a maximum contaminant level, if the Administrator makes a finding that it is not economically or technologically feasible to ascertain the level of the contaminant.”[6] While generally the SDWA requires EPA to set a maximum contaminant level (MCL), which is the amount of a contaminant such as lead that is permissible in drinking water, EPA is permitted to bypass that step and instead set a treatment technique if it is not economically or technologically feasible to determine the level of a contaminant in a water system.[7] EPA opted for this course of action with the LCRI. It is not “feasible” to set an MCL for lead due to varying lead levels in different parts of any given water system, making it “particularly difficult” to measure the amount of lead in public water systems.[8] As such, EPA determined the treatment technique of replacing all lead pipes to be more suitable.[9]
Despite the upcoming administration change, the LCRI may be cemented due to an anti-backsliding provision in the SDWA, requiring that “each revision” of a drinking water regulation “maintain, or provide for greater, protection of the health of persons.”[10] While the LCRI were promulgated by EPA under the Biden-Harris administration,[11] the anti-backsliding provision infers that if the incoming Trump administration were to revise the drinking water regulations, those regulations could only be more protective of public health than prior rules.
Further bolstering the LCRI, EPA also announced $2.6 billion in funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law that will support water infrastructure improvements and an additional $35 million in grant funding for reducing lead in drinking water.[12] While all communities are eligible to apply for the grant funding, at least 49% of the funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law must be allocated to disadvantaged communities and does not have to be repaid.[13]
Together, the LCRI and newly available drinking water infrastructure funding will benefit the health of communities across the United States as service lines containing lead are the most common source of lead in drinking water.[14] There is no safe level of exposure to lead.[15] While lead exposure is known to cause many health problems in adults, such as heart disease, kidney damage, and cancer, it is particularly problematic for children.[16] Children exposed to lead can experience impaired mental and physical development, irreversible brain damage, and even death.[17] Today, approximately nine million homes across America receive tap water through service lines that contain lead pipes.[18] Replacing these lead pipes eliminates a major exposure risk for many communities and is one step toward achieving lead-free drinking water.
[1] National Primary Drinking Water Regulations for Lead and Copper: Improvements (LCRI), 40 C.F.R. §§ 141.80-141.93 (2024); National Primary Drinking Water Regulations for Lead and Copper: Improvements (LCRI), 89 Fed. Reg. 86418 (Oct. 30, 2024).
[2] National Primary Drinking Water Regulations for Lead and Copper: Improvements, 89 Fed. Reg. at 86419.
[3] Id. at 86420.
[4] Biden-Harris Administration Issues Final Rule Requiring Replacement of Lead Pipes Within 10 Years, Announces Funding to Provide Clean Water to Schools and Homes, U.S. Env’t Prot. Agency (Oct. 8, 2024), https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/biden-harris-administration-issues-final-rule-requiring-replacement-lead-pipes-within.
[5] National Primary Drinking Water Regulations for Lead and Copper: Improvements, 89 Fed. Reg. at 86430.
[6] Safe Water Drinking Act (SDWA), 42 U.S.C. 300g-1(b)(7)(A); id. at 86433.
[7] American Water Works Ass’n. v. EPA, 40 F.3d 1266, 1269 (D.C. Cir. 1994).
[8] Id.
[9] National Primary Drinking Water Regulations for Lead and Copper: Improvements, 89 Fed. Reg. at 86418.
[10] Id. at 86436; see also Safe Water Drinking Act (SDWA), 42 U.S.C. 300g-1(b)(7)(A).
[11] Biden-Harris Administration Issues Final Rule Requiring Replacement of Lead Pipes Within 10 Years, Announces Funding to Provide Clean Water to Schools and Homes, U.S. Env’t Prot. Agency (Oct. 8, 2024), https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/biden-harris-administration-issues-final-rule-requiring-replacement-lead-pipes-within.
[12] Id.
[13] Id.
[14] National Primary Drinking Water Regulations for Lead and Copper: Improvements, 89 Fed. Reg. at 86419.
[15] Id. at 86420; About Lead in Drinking Water Homes, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Apr. 10, 2024), https://www.cdc.gov/lead-prevention/prevention/drinking-water.html.
[16] Lead Poisoning, World Health Organization (Sept. 27, 2024), https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/lead-poisoning-and-health#:~:text=Lead%20causes%20long%2Dterm%20harm,fetal%20growth%20and%20preterm%20birth.
[17] Id.
[18] Biden-Harris Administration Issues Final Rule Requiring Replacement of Lead Pipes Within 10 Years, Announces Funding to Provide Clean Water to Schools and Homes, U.S. Env’t Prot. Agency (Oct. 8, 2024), https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/biden-harris-administration-issues-final-rule-requiring-replacement-lead-pipes-within.