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EPA’s Efforts to Reduce Lead

National health-based air quality standards

EPA set identical health-protection (primary) and welfare-protection (secondary) national air quality standards for lead in 1978. Across the nation, there are monitoring stations that measure the levels of lead and other pollutants in the air. These measurements are compared to the national standards. Areas that have lead levels that are too high must develop and implement a plan to reduce the levels.

Getting the lead out

  • Twenty years ago, cars and trucks were the major contributors of lead emissions to the air. In the early 1970s, EPA set national regulations to gradually reduce the lead content in gasoline. In 1975, unleaded gasoline was introduced for motor vehicles equipped with catalytic converters. EPA banned the use of leaded gasoline in highway vehicles in December 1995.
  • As a result of EPA's regulatory efforts to remove lead from gasoline, emissions of lead from the transportation sector have dramatically declined (95 percent between 1980 and 1999), and levels of lead in the air have decreased by 94 percent between 1980 and 1999. Transportation sources, primarily airplanes, now contribute only 13 percent of lead emissions. A recent National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey reported a 78 percent decrease in the levels of lead in people's blood between 1976 and 1991. This dramatic decline can be attributed to the move from leaded to unleaded gasoline (as well as the removal of lead from soldered cans).

Focusing on industrial sources

The large reductions in lead emissions from motor vehicles have changed the nature of the air quality lead problem in the United States. Industrial processes, particularly primary and secondary lead smelters and battery manufacturers, are now responsible for most of lead emissions and all violations of the lead air quality standards. Emissions from industrial processes have decreased by only 6 percent since 1988. EPA's lead air quality monitoring strategy now focuses on areas surrounding these industrial sources.