Trump Allows Asbestos to Return Under New EPA Policy - Rolling Stone

[Demovictory9]

Link to tweet

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-asbestos-707642/

More Asbestos! More Asbestos! More Asbestos!
President Trump’s long-time love affair with asbestos is making its way into federal policy

Some of President Trump’s most cartoonishly evil policy initiatives have come at the expense of the environment. In the past few months alone, his administration has lifted a ban importing big-game hunting trophies, sought to repeal California emissions standards and released a plan to gut the Endangered Species Act. It’s all done in the name of unmitigated capitalism, to which the president clearly feels the environment is beholden. So too, apparently, is the health of Americans, as the Environmental Protection Agency is now allowing asbestos to be legally used in construction.

On June 1st, the EPA enacted the Significant New Use Rule, which allows the government to evaluate asbestos use on a case-by-case basis. Around the same time, the EPA released a new framework for how it evaluates chemical risk. Not included in the evaluation process are the potential effects of exposure to chemicals in the air, ground or water. It’s as absurd as it sounds. “It is ridiculous,” Wendy Cleland-Hamnett, who recently retired after four decades at the EPA, told the New York Times. “You can’t determine if there is an unreasonable risk without doing a comprehensive risk evaluation.”

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The new evaluation framework is a nifty way for the EPA to circumvent an Obama-era law requiring the EPA to evaluate hundreds of potentially dangerous chemicals. Asbestos is among the first batch of 10 chemicals the EPA will examine, and also one of the most blatantly dangerous to public health. Its use is banned in over 60 countries, and though it is only heavily restricted in the United States, asbestos is no longer used in construction because of the health risks it poses. Direct or indirect exposure to the carcinogen can cause lung cancer and mesothelioma, and it has been found to kill 40,000 Americans annually. The World Health Organization wrote that “all types of asbestos cause lung cancer, mesothelioma, cancer of the larynx and ovary, and asbestosis.”

Asbestos was one of the first carcinogens regulated under the Clean Air Act in 1973 (Nixon was president) and then was largely banned in 1989 (George HW Bush was president). No amount of asbestos is safe. Yet, the Trump administration is #MAGA or making asbestos great again: https://t.co/J2JF5zjb1n

— Chelsea Clinton (@ChelseaClinton) August 7, 2018

As an amoral New York City real estate developer, Trump has long supported the use of asbestos. In his 1997 book The Art of the Comeback, the future president wrote that asbestos is “100 percent safe, once applied,” despite the overwhelming scientific evidence supporting the contrary. Here’s what else Trump had to say about the carcinogen:

“I believe that the movement against asbestos was led by the mob, because it was often mob-related companies that would do the asbestos removal. Great pressure was put on politicians, and as usual, the politicians relented. Millions of truckloads of this incredible fire-proofing material were taken to special ‘dump sites’ and asbestos was replaced by materials that were supposedly safe but couldn’t hold a candle to asbestos in limiting the ravages of fire.”

[progressoid]

1. MACA - Make America Cancerous Again

[underpants]

2. "... couldn't hold a candle to asbestos in limiting the ravages of fire."

[Eliot Rosewater]

3. Asbestos providers have paid him under the table.

Nothing matters anymore. Half the country hates us and wants us gone.

[bronxiteforever]

4. Kick and recommend for visibility.

He is turning the whole of the US into a toxic waste dump.

[BKDem]

5. Especially Russian asbestos with Trump's picture on the label.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2018/07/11/approved-by-donald-trump-asbestos-sold-by-russian-company-is-branded-with-the-presidents-face/

[malaise]

6. This is from last year

https://qz.com/1351489/trumps-asbestos-move-thrills-one-russian-company/

The US Environmental Protection Agency is moving to open new avenues to approve asbestos products, and at least one Russian asbestos producer seems thrilled about it. Earlier this summer, Uralasbest posted a photo on Facebook of pallets of its product wrapped in film stamped with an image of Donald Trump.

Russia is the sole source of asbestos to the US.

[abqtommy]

7. This'll make those tv lawyers even richer. They'll probably give tRUMP a kickback too.

[bdamomma]

8. tRump

bastard, wants to kill more Americans or is it Stephen Miller, they want a master race Fuck them.

[SWBTATTReg]

9. I suspect banks, other lending institutions won't stop caring about asbestos in homes, etc.,

after all of the asbestos lawsuits over the last 30 years or so. That is, they will continue to demand that products using these chemicals still won't be used (otherwise, get sued).