By MICHAEL PHILLIS and ALEXA ST. JOHN, Related Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration is dropping plans to permit continued use of the final sort of asbestos legally allowed in U.S. manufacturing after an outcry from asbestos opponents.
The Environmental Safety Company mentioned in a courtroom submitting Monday that it’ll now defend the Biden administration’s ban of chrysotile asbestos, which is utilized in merchandise like brake blocks and sheet gaskets.
The carcinogenic chemical has been principally phased out within the U.S., however final yr, the company underneath former President Joe Biden sought to complete the decadeslong struggle with a complete ban. The EPA in 2024 mentioned “publicity to asbestos is thought to trigger lung most cancers, mesothelioma, ovarian most cancers, and laryngeal most cancers, and it’s linked to greater than 40,000 deaths in the U.S. annually.”
The EPA had mentioned in a federal appeals court submitting final month that elements of the ban could have gone “past what is critical to remove the unreasonable threat” and that different choices similar to requiring office safety measures may remove that threat. The company mentioned it deliberate a roughly 30-month course of to put in writing new guidelines.
However business associations have already filed go well with towards the Biden administration’s ban. So has the Asbestos Illness Consciousness Group, which fights asbestos-related illnesses and believes the ban isn’t as hermetic because it must be. The nonprofit opposed pausing the case so the EPA might revisit the rule, arguing that any new proposal would doubtless be met by lawsuits, too.
All of the work that’s gone into the present litigation shouldn’t be wasted, the nonprofit mentioned. And a pause would additionally imply a delay within the rule’s implementation.
Lynn Ann Dekleva, the company’s deputy assistant administrator of the Workplace of Chemical Security and Air pollution Prevention, mentioned in a Monday submitting that the EPA gained’t undergo a course of to rewrite the rule.
The EPA now says the Biden administration “did not adequately shield chemical business staff from well being dangers posed by chrysotile asbestos.”
“To treatment the earlier Administration’s method, we notified the courtroom that we intend to rethink the applicability of interim office safety necessities throughout the substitute of asbestos gaskets for all staff,” EPA Press Secretary Brigit Hirsch mentioned in an announcement.
Linda Reinstein, president and CEO of the Asbestos Illness Consciousness Group, mentioned she was elated the EPA isn’t going to rethink the Biden administration’s ban. She speculated that the EPA didn’t like public response to its place. However she mentioned the EPA’s new assertion doesn’t make sense – the EPA needs to be speaking a few ban, not office protections, and it needs to be defending all staff, not simply these concerned with gaskets.
The New York Occasions was first to report the event.
Chrysotile asbestos is present in merchandise similar to brake blocks, asbestos diaphragms and sheet gaskets and was banned underneath the Poisonous Substances Management Act, which was broadened in 2016. The Biden administration mentioned it moved ahead with a ban after many years of insufficient protections and delays in setting higher requirements.
The EPA’s earlier transfer to rethink the ban had been amongst dozens of deregulatory actions within the first months of the Trump administration.
“That is just the start of the general public backlash towards the Trump administration’s plans to roll again 31 requirements that shield the air we breathe and the water we drink,” mentioned Michelle Roos, government director of the Environmental Safety Community. “Public well being will not be up for negotiation.”
The American Chemistry Council commerce group declined to remark.
St. John reported from Detroit.
The Related Press receives help from the Walton Household Basis for protection of water and environmental coverage. The AP is solely accountable for all content material. For all of AP’s environmental protection, go to https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment
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