Tell the EPA to ban a significant source of lead now

21,289

Supporters spoke up in this action

Delivery to Environmental Protection Agency

Action ended on May 3, 2024

What Happens Next

Thank you to all who took action! We’re grateful for your support.

What Was At Stake

Regulators are ignoring a significant source of lead exposure that threatens public health and harms our environment. 

Lead wheel weights —the unassuming metal bars added to your wheels by your local mechanic when rebalancing your tires—are a big source of lead in our communities. These weights fall off wheels and are worn down into dust, which introduces lead into our urban landscapes and waterways.

 Join Earthjustice clients who are urgently challenging the Environmental Protection Agency’s prolonged inaction on banning lead wheel weights. Tell the EPA to ban this source of lead pollution now.  

Research links exposure to lead, especially among children who are most susceptible, to devastating health consequences. Even in small amounts, lead can cause irreversible neurodevelopmental harm in children, and in adults, low-level lead exposure is linked to an increased risk of cardiovascular disease and mortality from all sources.  

Federal action to regulate lead wheel weights is necessary to uphold this Administration’s stated commitment to protect children from lead. Nine states have led the way by regulating the sale, use, and installation of lead wheel weights within their borders. But a state-by-state approach cannot address the national market for lead wheel weights. 

Alternatives to lead wheel weights exist and are readily available. There is no excuse for allowing lead wheel weights to continue polluting our communities and our environment. It’s time to hold the EPA accountable for protecting our health and the health of our environment. Demand that the EPA fulfills its duty and protects public health by banning lead wheel weights now and secure a lead-free future for everyone living in the U.S. 

A youth scientist who asked the U.S. EPA to ban lead wheel weights holds up a fragmented part of a lead wheel weight found a block from the U.S. EPA building along Constitution Ave., in Washington D.C.
A youth scientist who spoke to the U.S. EPA to ask the agency to ban lead wheel weights holds up a fragmented part of a lead wheel weight found a block from the U.S. EPA building along Constitution Ave., in Washington D.C. (Matt Roth for Earthjustice)

Your Actions Matter

Your messages make a difference, even if we have leaders who don't want to listen. Here's why.

You level the playing field.

Elected officials pay attention when they see that we are paying attention. Read more.

They may be hearing from industry lobbyists left and right, but hearing the stories of their constituents — that’s your power.

Our legislators serve at the pleasure of the people who gave them their job — you.

Make sure your elected officials know whose community and whose values they represent. When you contact your elected official, you’re putting a face and a name on an issue.

Whether or not you voted for them, they work for you, for the duration of their term.

Make sure your elected officials know whose community and whose values they represent. (Find your local, state, and federal elected officials.)

Your action is with us in court.

If a federal agency finalizes a harmful action, the record of public comments provides a basis for bringing them into court. Read more.

Throughout each of the public comment periods we alert you to, Earthjustice’s attorneys are researching and writing in-depth, technical comments to submit — detailing how the regulation could and should be stronger to protect the environment, our communities, and our planet.

We need you to join us — your specific experiences, knowledge, and voice are crucial to add to the Administrative Record through the comment periods.

Lawsuits we file that challenge weak or harmful federal regulations rely on what was submitted during the comment period. The court can only look at documents that are in the Administrative Record — including the public comments — to decide if the agency did something improper.

Your actions aid our litigation. Taking action and submitting comments during a comment period is substantively important.

It’s the law.

Federal agencies must pause what they’re doing and ask for — and consider — your comment. Read more.

Many of us may have never heard of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), but laws like these require our government to ask the public to weigh in before agencies adopt or change regulations.

Regulations essentially describe how federal agencies will carry out laws — including decisions that could undermine science, or weaken safeguards on public health.

Public comments are collected at various points throughout the federal government’s rulemaking process, including when a regulation is proposed and finalized. (Learn about the rulemaking process.) These comments become part of the official, legal public record — the “Administrative Record.”

When the public responds with a huge outpouring of support for environmental protections, these individual messages collectively undercut politicians' attempts to claim otherwise.

What this means is each of us can take a role in shaping the rules our government creates — and ensuring those rules are fair and effective.