{"id":4121,"date":"2018-08-08T18:42:16","date_gmt":"2018-08-08T23:42:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fundclas.org\/en\/?p=4121"},"modified":"2018-08-08T22:44:58","modified_gmt":"2018-08-09T03:44:58","slug":"more-asbestos-more-asbestos-more-asbestos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fundclas.org\/en\/more-asbestos-more-asbestos-more-asbestos\/","title":{"rendered":"More Asbestos! More Asbestos! More Asbestos!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Publish by Rolling Stones<\/a><\/p>\n

President Trump\u2019s long-time love affair with asbestos is making its way into federal policy<\/strong><\/p>\n

Author:<\/em>\u00a0RYAN BORT <\/a><\/p>\n

Some of President Trump\u2019s most cartoonishly evil policy initiatives have come at the expense of the environment. In the past few months alone, his administration has\u00a0lifted a ban importing big-game hunting trophies<\/a>, sought to\u00a0repeal California emissions standards<\/a>\u00a0and released\u00a0a plan to gut the Endangered Species Act<\/a>. It\u2019s all done in the name of unmitigated capitalism, to which the president clearly feels the environment is beholden. So too, apparently, is the health of Americans, as the Environmental Protection Agency is now allowing asbestos to be legally used in construction.<\/p>\n

On June 1st, the EPA enacted the\u00a0Significant New Use Rule, which allows the government to evaluate asbestos use on a case-by-case basis. Around the same time, the EPA released a new framework for how it evaluates chemical risk. Not included in the evaluation process are the potential effects of exposure to chemicals in the air, ground or water. It\u2019s as absurd as it sounds.\u00a0\u201cIt is ridiculous,\u201d Wendy Cleland-Hamnett, who recently retired after four decades at the EPA,\u00a0told theNew York Times<\/em><\/a>. \u201cYou can\u2019t determine if there is an unreasonable risk without doing a comprehensive risk evaluation.\u201d<\/p>\n

The new evaluation framework is a nifty way for the EPA to circumvent an Obama-era law requiring the EPA to evaluate hundreds of potentially dangerous chemicals. Asbestos is among the first batch of 10 chemicals the EPA will examine, and also one of the most blatantly dangerous to public health. Its use is banned in over 60 countries, and though it is only heavily restricted in the United States, asbestos is no longer used in construction because of the health risks it poses. Direct or indirect exposure to the carcinogen can cause lung cancer and mesothelioma, and it\u00a0has been found to kill 40,000 Americans annually<\/a>. The World Health Organization\u00a0wrote<\/a>\u00a0that\u00a0\u201call types of asbestos cause lung cancer, mesothelioma, cancer of the larynx and ovary, and asbestosis.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>As an amoral New York City real estate developer, Trump has long supported the use of asbestos. In his 1997 book\u00a0The Art of the Comeback,\u00a0<\/em>the future president wrote that asbestos is \u201c100 percent safe, once applied,\u201d despite the overwhelming scientific evidence supporting the contrary. Here\u2019s what else Trump had to say about the carcinogen:<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe that the movement against asbestos was led by the mob, because it was often mob-related companies that would do the asbestos removal. Great pressure was put on politicians, and as usual, the politicians relented. Millions of truckloads of this incredible fire-proofing material were taken to special \u2018dump sites\u2019 and asbestos was replaced by materials that were supposedly safe but couldn\u2019t hold a candle to asbestos in limiting the ravages of fire.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Trump has also on multiple occasions blamed the collapse of the two World Trade Center towers on the absence of asbestos. In June,\u00a0All in With Chris Hayes<\/em>\u00a0aired a clip<\/a>\u00a0of Trump defending the material before Congress in 2005. \u201cA lot of people say that if the World Trade Center had asbestos is wouldn\u2019t have burned down, it\u2019s wouldn\u2019t have melted. OK?,\u201d he said. \u201cA lot of people in my industry think asbestos is the greatest fireproofing material ever made.\u201d Trump went on to compare asbestos to a \u201cheavyweight champion\u201d compared to other building material, which he likened to a \u201clight-weight from high school.\u201d<\/p>\n

He reiterated his claim that a misplaced fear of asbestos was responsible for World Trade Center\u2019s collapse on Twitter in 2012.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

As Hayes notes, Trump\u2019s penchant for asbestos is almost certainly due to the cost of having it removed, which was undoubtedly a nuisance to a man known for stiffing contractors and cutting every regulatory corner imaginable. In the late-\u201990s, right around the time he was praising asbestos for how well it prevented fires, Trump\u00a0did all he could<\/a>\u00a0to fight a bill proposed by then-mayor Rudy Giluiani that would have required all residential buildings to be retrofitted with sprinkler systems. The\u00a0New York Times<\/em>\u00a0noted at the time<\/a>\u00a0that Trump placed calls to multiple city officials\u00a0expressing \u201cconcern about the high cost of installation and other problems that he had with sprinklers.\u201d The version of the bill that ultimately passed applied mostly to new buildings, meaning Trump Tower was exempt. The issue was brought back into focus this April, when a blaze in Trump Tower killed one man. The 50th-floor apartment that caught fire did not have any working smoke detectors, nor did it have a sprinkler system, thanks in part to Trump\u2019s lobbying efforts 20 years ago.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s ironic, then, that Trump\u2019s praise of asbestos has centered around its fireproofing capabilities. Irony died when Trump was elected, though, and now that he is president he no longer has to work the phones to get environmental- or health-related regulations slashed; he can just tell the lackeys he installed at the EPA to go ahead and do it, which they have.<\/p>\n

As with many of his more insidious actions as president, there\u2019s a Russia connection.\u00a0As theWashington Post<\/em>\u00a0points out<\/a>, until recently, 95 percent of asbestos used in the United States came from Brazil, while the rest came from Russia. But the South American nation recently banned the mining and sale of the toxic substance, opening the door for Russia to fill the gap, which will be even larger if the U.S. resumes using the carcinogen in building materials. Russian asbestos manufacturers are thrilled. In July, the Russian company\u00a0Uralasbest posted an image of its asbestos packaging, which features a smirking President Trump.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cApproved by Donald Trump, 45th President of the United States,\u201d the packaging reads. And because\u00a0The Simpsons<\/em>\u00a0has already predicted many things in the Trump universe, here\u2019s this:<\/p>\n