[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 23 (Wednesday, February 13, 2013)]
[Senate]
[Page S709]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. REED (for himself, Mr. Johanns, Mrs. Boxer, and Mr. 
        Franken):
  S. 290. A bill to reduce housing-related health hazards, and for 
other purposes; to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban 
Affairs.
  Mr. REED. Mr. President, today I am introducing two bipartisan bills 
pertaining to healthy housing, the Healthy Housing Council Act and the 
Title X Amendments Act. These bills seek to improve federal 
coordination of healthy housing efforts and better integrate healthy 
housing activities into the ongoing lead poisoning prevention work at 
the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
  The presence of housing-related health hazards is often overlooked or 
is unable to be addressed, and yet these hazards are sometimes the 
cause of a variety of preventable diseases and conditions like cancer, 
lead poisoning, and asthma. While I have been working to address these 
hazards throughout my tenure in Congress, I was pleased that the 
Administration last week released its Strategy for Action to Advance 
Healthy Housing, a multi-department and agency effort to develop 
consensus-based criteria to address housing hazards that impact the 
health and habitation of children and families.
  This new Strategy for Action calls on Federal agencies to address 
barriers and disincentives to the delivery of services to improve 
housing conditions, particularly among low-income families with young 
children; replicate successful local healthy housing programs on a 
larger scale; and conduct more research into cost-effective advances in 
healthy housing programming.
  The Title X Amendments Act, S. 290, which I am introducing with 
Senators Johanns, Franken, and Boxer, and has been in the drafting 
stages for many months, responds to these calls for action. It would 
provide HUD with the necessary authority to continue to carry out 
healthy housing activities while protecting important ongoing lead 
remediation efforts, allow grantees to improve the conditions in zero-
bedroom units, and streamline eligibility for assistance. These are 
simple, yet necessary reforms designed to improve and expand cost-
effective services, and I look forward to working with my colleagues to 
see them enacted.
  It is also vital that we continue the type of collaboration and 
coordination among Federal departments and agencies, like HUD, HHS, 
EPA, and CDC, that resulted in the Strategy for Action to Advance 
Healthy Homes. Indeed, there are many programs fragmented across 
multiple agencies that are responsible for addressing housing-related 
health hazards like lead and radon, and we should strive to improve the 
efficiency and efficacy of these efforts by ensuring that these 
agencies continue to work together.
  The Healthy Housing Council Act, S. 291, which Senator Johanns, 
Franken, and Boxer have also cosponsored, would establish an 
independent interagency Council on Healthy Housing in the executive 
branch in order to improve coordination, bring existing efforts out of 
their respective silos, and reduce duplication.
  The bill calls for the council to convene periodic meetings with 
experts in the public and private sectors to discuss ways to educate 
individuals and families on how to recognize housing-related health 
hazards and access the necessary services and preventive measures to 
combat these hazards. The council would also be required to hold 
biannual stakeholder meetings, maintain an updated website, and work to 
unify healthy housing data collection and maintenance.
  Our goal for these bills is to help reduce the more than 5.7 million 
households living in conditions with moderate or severe health hazards, 
23 million additional homes with lead-based paint hazards, 14,000 
unintentional injury and fire deaths every year that result from 
housing-related hazards, and 21,000 radon-associated lung cancer deaths 
every year. Indeed, these numbers contribute to increasing health care 
costs for individuals and families, as well as for federal, state, and 
local governments.
  Promoting low-cost measures to eliminate subpar housing can make a 
dramatic and meaningful difference in the lives of children and 
families and help reduce health care costs. I urge our colleagues to 
join in supporting these bipartisan bills.
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