Release The Funds!

Withheld Lead Pipe Removal Funds Could Have a Huge Impact Our Kids' Future

Photo by Andre Taissin on Unsplash

I know, I know. Everyone is talking about releasing the Epstein files, but I need to turn your attention to something just as pressing. We need to release the funds. That’s the federal funding that Washington is sitting on to fix lead pipes in this country.

THREE. BILLION. DOLLARS.

Right now, the current administration is sitting on $3 billion. Money that Congress already set aside to help replace lead pipes. That money is supposed to keep families safe.

Almost 70 percent of young children get exposed to lead from their home tap water, according to research.

It’s no mystery what lead does to human bodies, especially young ones. The CDC will tell you—any doctor will tell you—there is no safe level of lead exposure. None. Zero. We’re talking about permanent brain damage. Learning disabilities that last a lifetime. Kids who’ll never reach their full potential because they drank water that we knew was poisoned.

We have the money to fix it. It’s already been appropriated. Congress did its job. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act set aside $15 billion specifically for this—to rip out these toxic pipes and replace them with safe ones. But that $3 billion for FY25 funds through the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund (DWSRF)? The money communities are counting on? It hasn’t shown up.

Take Chicago. They’ve got 400,000 lead service lines. That’s not a typo. Four hundred thousand. More than any other city in this country. They need to replace 20,000 of these pipes every single year just to meet the EPA’s own deadline, and each replacement costs around $35,000. You do that math. That’s $12 billion for Chicago alone, maybe $14 billion statewide.

The city has managed to replace about 14,000 pipes so far, spending more than $400 million in five years. That’s with their hands tied behind their backs, stretching every dollar until it screams. And their efforts have been lagging. It’s why the federal money was promised in the first place.

And it’s not just the big cities. Head down to Peoria, where 10,500 lead service lines that need replacing. They’ve been at this for more than a decade, chipping away at the problem, but the costs are crushing them. These communities are drowning, and the federal government is holding the life preserver just out of reach.

Now, here’s where I get really angry. Reports are coming out that the current Administration is playing politics with this money. Holding it back from Democrat-led states. From blue cities. Using kids’ health—children’s brains—as some kind of bargaining chip.

Let me tell you something. Federal resources are not partisan tools. They’re not supposed to be weapons. They’re lifelines. They’re supposed to serve all Americans, whether they voted red, blue, or didn’t vote at all. When you use public health funding as political leverage, that’s not governance. That’s abuse of power. And it’s putting lives at risk.

You know who pays the price for these delays? Not the politicians. Not the bureaucrats shuffling papers in D.C. It’s the families in low-income neighborhoods who are drinking lead-contaminated water. It’s the kids whose parents can’t afford to move. It’s the communities that have the least power to demand action and the most to lose when action doesn’t come.

The EPA set a deadline: all lead pipes out by 2037. Most communities get until then; a few get a bit longer. But here’s the thing about deadlines—they only work if you give people the resources to meet them. You can’t tell someone to climb a mountain and then take away their climbing shoes.

Every single year we delay, we condemn another generation of children to irreversible harm. Every month that money sits in some account instead of going to replace these pipes, more kids in harm’s way. Nearly 500,000 children under five in this country already have elevated lead levels in their blood. How many more before someone in Washington decides this isn’t a political game?

Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi and six other members of Illinois’s delegation have written a letter to EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin demanding action. They’re not asking for new money or requesting special treatment. They’re demanding that the EPA release the funds that have already been appropriated. The funds that are supposed to be distributed. The funds that communities are desperately waiting for so they can do the work that needs doing.

“Communities across the nation are already rapidly falling behind their obligations to meet the EPA’s Lead and Copper Rule Improvements, and further delays put children and families at risk of easily preventable lead poisoning,” the members wrote.

The EPA says they’re “actively working on it.” Well, work faster.

“Every year of delay in replacing these lead pipes condemns another generation of children to the lifelong consequences of lead exposure,” the Illinois delegates wrote. “The EPA has set realistic deadlines to protect public health; now it must provide the resources to meet them.”

This isn’t complicated. We know what the problem is. We know how to fix it. We have the money allocated to do it. It’s time to stop playing games and start protecting people.

Release. The. Funds. All of them. Every dollar of that $3 billion for FY25. Cut through the red tape.

And while you’re at it, figure out how to reduce the administrative bottlenecks so this doesn’t happen again next year or the year after. Because this pattern, promising help and then withholding it, is not just inefficient. It’s cruel.

I’ve seen what happens when powerful interests put profits over people, when bureaucracy values procedure over protection, and when the system fails the most vulnerable.

Does our government actually work for the people it’s supposed to serve? That’s what we need to know.

Our kids and communities deserve clean water. Illinois deserves the federal support it was promised, and every American deserves a government that puts health and safety above politics.

It’s really that simple.

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How’s it going where you live? Have lead pipes been replaced or is your community lagging?