EPA's Asbestos Ban Under The Trump Administration
With a new administration extolling the virtues of reversing many regulatory efforts, questions remain about the fate of America’s most potent carcinogens.
Trump 2.0 is a time of extreme uncertainty for many. There has been a great deal of speculation, and while much is unclear, many other concerns are well-founded.
Donald Trump makes no apologies for his pro-business and anti-environmental stances. His pick to helm the Environmental Protection Agency, former U.S. Representative Lee Zeldin (R-Long Island) took a much softer tone during his January 2025 confirmation hearing. Predictably, when Democrats pressed him, Zeldin offered few specifics. However, he seemed to claim the middle ground. “We must ensure we are protecting the environment while also protecting our economy,” he remarked.
The new FDA head, Dr. Martin Makary, similarly drew mixed reviews. A prominent California physician called Dr. Makary a “serious, successful biomedical scientist and physician” who would ably helm the agency. Others criticized his opposition to COVID pandemic-era public health mandates, such as masking requirements for children and vaccine boosters for everyone.
Talc-Asbestos Testing
Despite Rep. Zeldin’s reassuring words and Dr. Makary’s professionalism, two major asbestos regulations may be on the chopping block for the Trump administration. One of them is the recently proposed talc-asbestos testing rule.
The number of lawsuits concerning asbestos-talc cross-contamination in consumer products, such as talcum powder, may one day exceed the number of industrial asbestos poisoning lawsuits.
Looking for asbestos in talc is almost literally like looking for a needle in a haystack. An expensive device, like a sensitive metal detector, could pinpoint the needle in a heartbeat. But many companies dig around the haystack, and when they don’t find the needle, they claim the haystack is needle-free.
A needle in a haystack is not dangerous. But an asbestos fiber in a consumer product can be extremely dangerous, especially if the consumer uses that product every day. More on that below.
Companies often refuse to look for the needle in a haystack. Even more troubling, many companies deny that there’s a needle in the haystack. Johnson & Johnson executives knew about the asbestos poisoning issue for over fifty years. They not only did nothing about this problem. They continued aggressively marketing talcum powder to unsuspecting women, especially women of color.
An asbestos exposure lawyer cannot turn back the clock and reverse the events of the past. But an asbestos exposure lawyer can hold companies responsible when they fail to adequately test consumer products for dangerous substances.
Asbestos Ban
Although it’s now a permanent EPA rule, the March 2024 asbestos ban is not safe under the Trump administration.
For many years, the 47th President has been unabashedly pro-asbestos. In 2005, while referring to 9/11 during a Senate subcommittee hearing, he agreed with those who claimed that “if the World Trade Center had asbestos it wouldn’t have burned down.” He expressed the same thought in a 2012 Tweet. “If we didn’t remove [the] incredibly powerful fire retardant asbestos & replace it with junk that doesn’t work, the World Trade Center would never have burned down.”
We should note that, on 9/11, the Twin Towers contained more than 400 tons of asbestos, mostly on the lower floors, which were built in the early 1970s. The anti-fire effect of additional asbestos is mere speculation. The health effects of the asbestos-laced cloud that hovered over New York City are a sad fact.
The 2024 ban applied to chrysotile (white) asbestos, the most common kind of industrial asbestos. Before 1980, builders liberally used this substance in:
Roof tiles,
Drywall,
Attic insulation,
Floor tiles,
Pipe insulation,
Concrete, and
Electrical insulation.
Asbestos was also used in many consumer products, such as brake pads, and Naval vessels. Asbestos-laced brake pads have worn out and asbestos-laced Navy ships are no longer in service. But over 70 percent of the homes in the United States were built before 1980. A significant number of these homes contain asbestos in one or more of the aforementioned areas.
Rep. Zeldin cannot retract the ban. But the Trump administration could refuse to enforce it and/or instruct the Department of Justice not to defend it against legal challenges. Such moves have basically the same effect as cancelling the ban.
Just before Trump 2.0 took office, the Supreme Court undercut a major rule giving deference to government agencies in this area. That decision couldn’t have come at a worse time.
Asbestos Exposure Illnesses
Trump’s statements about the effectiveness of asbestos are accurate. This mineral is far superior to vermiculite or any other asbestos alternative. But in the spirit of protecting public health while protecting the economy, we should carefully examine the dark side of asbestos use. Exposure to this mineral causes diseases like:
Mesothelioma: A rare and aggressive form of cancer, mesothelioma is almost exclusively caused by direct or indirect asbestos exposure. Direct asbestos exposure occurred when industrial or other workers handled asbestos-laced products. Talc-asbestos cross-contamination and 9/11 are examples of indirect asbestos poisoning.
Digestive Tract Cancer: Inhaled asbestos fibers often cause mesothelioma, and swallowed fibers often cause digestive tract cancer. Much like exposure, the cancer link can also be indirect. Toxic asbestos fibers stimulate the production of free-radical particles, which are associated with a higher cancer risk.
Asbestosis: Toxic asbestos fibers don’t just cause tumors. They also burn lung airways, leaving scar tissue behind. Since many of these airways are no wider than the tip of a pencil, the scar tissue eventually blocks these airways. At that point, a complete lung transplant is the only effective asbestosis treatment. Many asbestos poisoning victims are in such poor shape that they aren’t good candidates for such a radical procedure.
Asbestos also poisons the environment. It could seep into groundwater, much like mercury and other toxic industrial heavy metals. For all these reasons, asbestos regulations are serious business, which the Trump administration should take seriously.