Despite its ambitiousness The Trump administration revealed in court documents on Monday that it was support for the ban on carcinogenic asbestos.
Last year, under the Biden administration, the Environmental Protection Agency took a long-awaited step to ban the last type of asbestos, Chrysotile asbestos, which is still in use in the United States. While asbestos use is declining, dangerous minerals have hovered in various gaskets, brake blocks, aftermarket car brakes and linings, other vehicle friction products, and some diaphragms used to make sodium hydroxide and chlorine.
Through the ban, the United States has joined more than 50 other countries around the world, banning its use due to health risks. Generally, asbestos is known to cause lung cancer, mesothelioma, ovarian cancer and laryngeal cancer. The EPA pointed out at the time that asbestos exposure was related to more than 40,000 deaths in the United States each year.
“Science is clear – Asbestos is a known carcinogen that has had a serious impact on public health. President Biden knows this [is a] Focusing on generations and affecting the lives of countless people. That’s why the EPA is so proud to finalize a long-term ban on the continued use of asbestos.
“100% safe”
Although the move has been in decades for health supporters, it has allowed companies to generously use asbestos, in some cases up to 12 years. This did not stop the industry from taking legal action against the regulation shortly after the EPA announcement. Since then, lawsuits filed by many companies and trading groups, including the American Chemical Commission, have been underway.
On Monday, the EPA, now under the Trump administration, filed court documents, saying it “now intends to reconsider” the injunction and “expects that the process, including any regulatory changes, will take about 30 months.” The EPA also asked the court to suspend the court case. The document includes a declaration to support the reconsideration of the new EPA deputy deputy chief executive.
As ARS reported last year, there is always concern that another Trump administration will work to overturn the ban. Trump supports the use of asbestos. In his 1997 book The art of making a comebackTrump wrote that asbestos is “100% safe, once applied” and accused the mob of its cancer-causing reputation, writing: “I believe the campaign against asbestos is led by the mob because it is often the companies associated with the mob to remove asbestos.”
Trump’s support for asbestos is popular in Russia, a major asbestos supplier in the United States. In 2018, a Russian asbestos company began marketing asbestos with Trump’s face and read “The 45th President of the United States, Donald Trump.”
This story originally appeared in ARS Technica.
