During a hearing before the House Environment and Hazardous Materials Subcommittee last week, lawmakers debated the house bill to ban asbestos, H.R. 3339. The House bill would completely ban the use or import of asbestos in the United States. The Senate bill would not ban products containing one percent or less asbestos, and House Democrats argue that the Senate version doesn’t go far enough because, as the subcommittee’s chairman Al Wynn said, “There is no safe threshold for asbestos.” The significance of one percent asbestos content was related to the detection limits of microscopic analysis available 30 years ago, which the standard was first used; it does not represent a safety threshold. The ranking Republican member of the Subcommittee, John Shadegg, expressed concern that an absolute ban is too strict and potentially too costly to manufacturers.
Many people wrongly believe that asbestos was banned in the United States years ago. In fact, although the EPA did ban its use in 1989, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit overturned the ban in 1991.
