Thousands of Americans die each year from asbestos-related diseases, including mesothelioma—a toll that prompted the Biden administration to ban the carcinogenic substance, long used in roofing materials and auto parts. Now, President Donald Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency is moving to reconsider that ban, despite years of advocacy aimed at preventing such deaths.
In the five months that Trump has been in office, ”his administration’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been on a deregulation spree,” Fast Company reports. “So far, the agency’s leaders have expressed interest in rolling back regulations around ‘forever chemicals,’ or PFAS; reversing a cornerstone finding that greenhouse gases are dangerous for public health; and weakening enforcement of coal ash regulations.”
“This latest move by Administrator Lee Zeldin and EPA is yet another alarming signal that this administration is operating without limits as they dole out favors to polluter lobbyists without regard for the health and well-being of people living in the US,” Michelle Roos, executive director of the nonprofit organization Environmental Protection Network, told the Associated Press
The EPA’s proposed 30-month delay to examine the ban would “move the nation backward, once again putting lives at risk,” Linda Reinstein, president and co-founder of the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization, told The New York Times.
The majority of asbestos imported into the U.S. comes from Brazil, but about a quarter comes directly from Russia, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Russia is the top global producer of asbestos.
Asbestos, originally from Russia, also enters the U.S. indirectly through other sources.
“Trump’s support for asbestos'” Ars Technica adds, “has been welcomed in Russia, a primary asbestos supplier to the US. In 2018, a Russian asbestos company began marketing asbestos with Trump’s face and a seal reading ‘Approved by Donald Trump, 45th President of the United States.'”
In 2019, The New York Times pointed to this photo on a Facebook page showing pallets of asbestos stamped with a seal that featured President Trump’s face and the alleged endorsement—a “public relations stunt.”
“Strangely enough,” Fast Company also reported, “Trump himself wrote in his 1997 book Art of the Comeback that he believed asbestos bans were a conspiracy ‘led by the mob, because it was often mob-related companies that would do the asbestos removal.'”
Critics are blasting the decision to reconsider the asbestos ban.
“The Trump administration isn’t just going after ‘regulations,’ they’re going after your health. Who benefits from bringing back cancer-causing asbestos? Russia,” noted U.S. Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández (D-NM).
“It’s another pro-Putin policy from Trump. Russia is a major asbestos producer,” wrote Courier Newsroom correspondent Allan Piper.
“What is this—Make Asbestos Great Again?” snarked former U.S. Secretary of State and Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.
The Atlantic’s Dr. Norman Ornstein wrote simply, “Pro-death.”
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