Comment submitted by Brad Opacich, North Coast Home Improvements, Inc.

I realize that containing lead should be something that we need to explore, but to rush into laws without thinking about the consequences can have a detrimental impact that would be hard to go back on. The added cost that will be passed on to homeowners will be burdensome in these recessionary times. I read an article that said the cost would be $35? That's absurd. We as companies are being charged $300-$550 + to register plus more to get cetified and take the course, and we have no say in this. This is another cost that will have to get factored in on each job from now on. The extra work testing, prepping, cleaning up and testing again will cost way more than $35. For a whole house window replacement job each room would have to be prepped and cleaned. We came up with an approx. cost of $100 per room to do this. In our State (Ohio) we don't even have to be liscensed and there are tons of small co's out there that do work with no permits, they don't even know about these new laws. How do we expect people to pay $1000 more if they can find someone to do the job without the testing, ect. Who is going to police this? Our local building dept's won't even go after contractors who don't have permits unless it's a very large job. I doubt that this letter will have any effect on these laws, but for once could we please look at all the consequences involved before we rush to get laws passed.