The Trump administration unlawfully excluded millions of tons of some of the most dangerous materials in public use from a safety review, a federal appeals court ruled [August].
A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency must consider dangers posed by asbestos, lead and other toxins regardless of whether they’re still being manufactured.
Millions of tons of those chemicals are in the marketplace, in products ranging from home insulation and fire retardant to house paint and plumbing pipes.
The safety review was mandated by Congress and is the first step toward enacting potential new regulations to protect the public.
Under President Barack Obama, the EPA said it would consider the risks of those older products since they result in some of the most common chemical exposures by people.
But spurred by the chemical industry, the EPA under President Donald Trump sought to limit the review to products still being manufactured.
EPA officials will review the court’s decision, agency spokesperson Corry Schiermeyer said.
For asbestos, the EPA proposal would have meant gauging the risks from just a few hundred tons of the material that are imported annually — while excluding almost all of the estimated 8.9 million tons (8.1 million metric tons) of asbestos-containing products that entered the marketplace between 1970 and 2016.