Yesterday, the Environmental Protection Agency announced a new national air quality standard for lead which will lead to cleaner air and healthier children. EPA tightened the standard to 0.15 μg/m3 from the current level of 1.5 μg/m3. The standard has not been revised since it was first set in 1978. The new standard is consistent with the advice of EPA staff and its scientific advisors who had called for a standard between 0.10 μg/m3 and 0.20 μg/m3. Removing lead from gasoline went a long way in improving public health, but lead still poses a threat. It persists in the environment like the dickens. Lead can be especially dangerous for kids. According to EPA, lead exposure can affect brain development and "can lead to IQ loss, poor academic achievement, permanent learning disabilities, and delinquent behavior." Many environmentalists and children's health advocates are hailing EPA's decision. For now, it looks as though EPA set the standard absent from any undue political influence. (The White House, perhaps acting on behalf of industry lobbyists, meddled with EPA's recently revised ozone standard.) Industry lobbyists were asking EPA to leave the lead standard alone or choose a much weaker option, but EPA resisted. However, we cannot totally discount the prospects of White House or industry interference. One shortcoming of the rule concerns how compliance is determined. Currently, EPA looks at the concentration of lead in air everyday and averages those figures over a three-month period. If an area's average is more than the standard, the area is out of compliance. If the average is under the standard, everything is hunky dory. EPA's science advisors want the agency to change this formula to calculate the average over a one-month period. This would better account for big spikes in emissions. In the current compliance system, two months of low emissions could attenuate emissions spikes in the third month. Subsequently, polluters may have an incentive to release lead emissions in bursts. EPA's advisors say switching to a one-month averaging time would be more protective of those most sensitive to lead's effects (like children) who can be hurt by higher, albeit shorter, exposures. Irrespective of the level of the standard, shortening the averaging time effectively makes for a stricter regulation. But EPA chose to continue averaging airborne lead concentrations over a three-month period. In a meeting with the battery recycling lobby, whose clients will face compliance with the stricter standards, a product defense firm gave White House officials a slide-show attacking the science EPA used as the basis for the new lead regulation. In the document, the firm attempts to undermine the scientific evidence that short-term exposures can be harmful. The firm even goes so far as to say, "A 1 month exposure will increase blood lead, but blood lead will decrease after the exposure ceases." Was the product defense firm specifically lobbying the White House against a one-month averaging time? Did White House officials pressure EPA to adopt that view? We may never know. But we do know that continuing the three-month averaging time is not consistent with the advice of EPA's science advisors and is not as protective of public health as it could be. Reg•Watch Update: "Did OMB Weaken EPA Efforts to Monitor Airborne Lead?"