We won. ABO yesterday received the NAHB Executive Officers Council Association Excellence Award for Best Electronic Publication: ABO News Update. Dan Margulies accepted the award at the NAHB Association Leadership Institute in New Orleans. Are you reading this? Please click here to send us an email to let us know. Comments are welcome, but not necessary.
Less happily, the EPA is so far refusing to revisit its Lead Renovation Repair and Painting rule despite a finding by its own Inspector General that the cost benefit analysis it relied on was wrong. The Inspector General found that the low estimated cost of cleaning and containment work under the rule was based on only nine responses from contractors, and that they weren’t even a good sample of the contractors queried but just the first nine received. Further, an EPA science advisory committee reported that limitations in the Agency’s data for estimating intelligence quotient changes in children exposed to lead dust during renovations would not adequately support a rigorous cost benefit analysis. The results were “not statistically valid or nationally representative,” the science committee found. EPA responded that it did not believe it was cost effective to review the cost benefit study.
Locally, the City Council finalized zoning changes in Woodhaven and Richmond Hill that will limit multifamily construction except on a few major corridors. Further proof that our elected officials don’t really want more housing if it disturbs existing constituents.