Support Efforts to Ban Asbestos
in the U.S.

According to the Asbestos Strategies Report for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), 26 countries have banned asbestos, and five more countries will follow in 2005. Surprisingly, however, the United States has not banned the use of asbestos in this country. While efforts are currently underway to finally ban asbestos in the U.S., Congress has yet to enact the necessary legislation.

Why has the U.S. failed to ban asbestos? To answer this question, one needs to trace the history of the U.S. government’s regulation of hazardous substances and the asbestos industry’s influence on such regulation.

In 1976, Congress passed the Toxic Substances Control Act to give the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) the ability to track 75,000 industrial chemicals currently produced or imported into the U.S. Under the Toxic Substances Control Act, the EPA screens these chemicals and can require reporting or testing of those that may pose a hazard to the environment or human health. The EPA can ban the manufacture and import of those chemicals that pose an unreasonable risk.

In 1989, the EPA took steps to ban asbestos under the Asbestos Ban & Phase Out Rule. However, the asbestos industry sued the agency and, consequently, most of the ban never took effect. New uses of asbestos were banned, but existing uses of asbestos were not. For example, many asbestos-containing building materials that were used in the construction of schools prior to the attempted ban can still be found in new construction materials.

According to the U.S. government, approximately 30 million pounds of asbestos fibers are imported into the U.S. each year. The U.S. Geological Survey, which tracks the import and export of minerals, says an additional "untold millions" of pounds of asbestos material crosses U.S. borders unlabeled and mixed with other products.

The Ban Asbestos in America Bill

During the 107th Congress in 2003, Senator Patty Murray, D-WA, introduced a bill that would amend the Toxic Substances Control Act to ban six currently-allowed uses of asbestos. It would also authorize additional studies to determine which commercial products today still contain asbestos, increase funding for asbestos-related diseases, and create a national mesothelioma registry to help public health professionals track this deadly disease. Unfortunately, Congress has not yet passed this important legislation.

Co-sponsors of The Ban Asbestos in America Act included Senator Max Baucas, D-MT, Senator Barbara Boxer, D-CA, Senator Maria Cantwell, D-WA, Senator Thomas Daschle, D-SD, Senator Mark Dayton, D-MN, Senator Richard Durbin, D-IL, Senator Russell Feingold, D-WI, Senator Dianne Feinstein, D-CA, Senator Ernest Hollings, D-SC, Senator James Jeffords, I-VT, Senator Frank Lautenberg, D-NJ, Senator Patrick Leahy, D-VT, Senator Harry Reid, D-NV, and Senator Debbie Stabenow, D-MI.

It is more important than ever for Congress to enact this legislation. An analysis of federal mortality records by the Environmental Working Group Action Fund found that at least 10,000 Americans die from asbestos-related diseases each year, and the number is rising. Each year, another 100,000 are disabled. All told, it is estimated that over the next 20 years more than 200,000 Americans will die from asbestos-related diseases, and two million will be disabled.

Take Action

The first step to ending this epidemic is to ban asbestos now. Contact your legislators to urge passage of The Ban Asbestos in America Act. You can e-mail your U.S. senators through www.senate.gov.