LogFAQs > #906401559

The problem, according to critics, is twofold. The first, more generally, is that the EPA could have used the currently unfolding overhaul of the TSCA which began at the end of the Obama administration and has continued along a very different path under Trump to ban any new uses of asbestos, something that had been the case at the end of the last administration. Instead, they are explicitly allowing new uses, but with the caveat that the EPA first evaluate possible potential new uses based on risk evaluation, select studies, and use the best available science.

The second problem, more specifically, concerns the way in which the EPA has proposed to evaluate that risk. In May 2018, the EPA published a document known as the Problem Formulation of the Risk Evaluation for Asbestos, which establishes the scientific approach the EPA will take in evaluating these new uses. Significantly, their approach will not include information from existing, or legacy uses of asbestos, despite the significant body of work around health risks stemming from those uses: