The U.S. Senate last week passed a resolution, introduced by Montana’s Sens. Jon Tester and Steve Daines, designating the first week of April 2023 as “National Asbestos Awareness Week.” The vote was unanimous.
That’s nice.
Don’t get us wrong -- we are heartily in favor of more asbestos awareness. We should all be aware of the deadly fiber that kills 40,000 Americans every year, its victims dying horrible deaths of cancer and suffocation.
For instance, in and around tiny Libby, Montana, hundreds of asbestos victims have died, are slowly dying, and due to the disease’s latency period, often 40 years or more, are still being diagnosed regularly despite 20 years of heroic cleanup efforts by the Environmental Protection Agency.
In past years, we have praised earlier versions of this resolution and expressed the hope that they would lead, at long last, to a ban on importation, manufacture and use of asbestos-containing items.
But all of the asbestos awareness resolutions -- and this is the 18th year of them -- have not spurred Congress to take action and ban asbestos.
Also last week, yet another bill to ban the fiber was introduced by primary sponsor Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon. Nearly 70 other countries have already banned asbestos -- in the name of humanity.
Will Congress rustle up the gumption to take action on the Alan Reinstein Ban Asbestos Now bill?
We’ll see. But based on Congress’ ineffectual past performance, if Las Vegas were making book, the ARBAN bill would be a huge underdog.
As this is happening, the EPA is ponderously working toward an administrative rulemaking ban that is really not much of a ban at all. It would only apply to one kind of the fiber -- chrysotile -- not to the considerably more deadly tremolite, Libby’s proven killer, or to other varieties -- and to only a handful of uses.
Many in Congress -- including Daines -- have cited the EPA process as a reason to decline to sign on to a bill banning asbestos, thus avoiding risking the wrath of the chlor-alkali industry, which, in only a handful of its oldest factories, still uses asbestos to make diaphragms that filter water.
The industry has pleaded for more time to adjust to a ban, even though its modernized factories no longer use asbestos, and even though the industry has known of the deadly nature of asbestos for a century or more.
Sens. Daines and Tester should honor the memory and suffering of their constituents by cosponsoring this bill. If that comes to pass, Sen. Daines will become the first Republican ever to sign on to true asbestos-banning legislation. And he will be a hero to many for that act of political courage.
This ban is decades late, but it still could begin to reduce asbestos’ grievous and preventable toll.
Eighteen years of feel-good resolutions amount to nothing -- almost an entire generation with no concrete steps taken to stop the exposure that all too often leads to a slow-motion death sentence.
Thoughts and prayers won’t get it done. Hard-nosed, effective, loophole-free legislation such as ARBAN will.
If only Congress can find the gumption.
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