In the US, lead pipes in new construction were banned almost 40 years ago. This is not a matter of the pipes not being regulated, it's an issue of replacing older pipes.
I also think it’s one of those , “if we just wait long enough the problem fixes itself” type of things. That said, the question becomes, how long does a lead pipe work without failing? I suspect that amount of time is longer than anyone wants to admit. Apparently we’d rather give the externalized cost to prisons instead of plumbers.
