Dem senator pushes EPA on asbestos regulations

A California Democrat is pushing the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to make asbestos one of the first chemicals it regulates under a tough new chemical safety law. 

In a letter to the EPA on Friday, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) said the agency should make asbestos one of the 10 chemicals it will inspect and regulate first under the Toxic Substances Control Act, which became law the summer. That list of chemicals is due out by the end of the year. 

{mosads}The call comes after the EPA tried phasing out asbestos under a previous version of the law in 1989. That rule was shot down by federal courts at the time. 

“Now that the impediments in the original TSCA law are gone, completing the job started by EPA in 1989 would send a strong signal that the new law can be effective in addressing the most dangerous chemicals in commerce,” Boxer wrote in her letter to EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy.

Exposure to asbestos, a chemical used in building materials, has been tied to cancer and other health problems. Production of the chemical has ended in the United States and its use has declined, but the United States still goes through about 400 tons of the material annually, according to the U.S. Geological Service. 

The EPA banned the use of spray-on asbestos for fireproofing and other uses in the 1970s, according to the Mesothelioma Center. But its 1989 rule banning the chemical was overturned by the Fifth Circuit Court of appeals in 1991. 

Boxer, though, said the new TSCA law should lead to an asbestos rule now.

“The U.S. now has the ability to be a global leader and join the many other nations that have acted to address the harms posed by asbestos,” she wrote. “EPA should seize this opportunity by including asbestos in the first 10 chemicals that it acts on under the new law.”