The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has informed that they would be setting a new standard on lead emissions, cutting the amount of the toxic metal allowed in the air by 90 percent.

The much stricter standard is aimed at better protecting Americans from toxic emissions, especially children, whose learning and memory skills could be impaired due to to airborne lead exposure.

Moreover, adults can suffer from cardiovascular, blood pressure and kidney problems if they ingest the metal released by mines and waste incinerators, which afterwards settles on various surfaces, putting people at rather high risks.

The new limit represents the first change the EPA has made since 1978, when the government decided to remove lead from gasoline. Ten times lower than the old one, the recently established standard is 0.15 micrograms per cubic meter.

EPA officials have announced that state and local governments would have to seek for ways to reduce lead emissions, since they have estimated that approximately 18 counties in a dozen states would fail to comply with the standard. Drawing on air quality data collected over a period of two years (from 2005 to 2007), the EPA has found that 18 counties in Alabama, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Texas would not be able to meet the 0.15 micrograms per cubic meter limit.

The Agency has also revealed that the costs to reduce emissions would range from $150 million to $2.8 billion, adding that the economic benefits the standard would entail for the United States were to fall between $3.7 billion to $6.9 billion.