District Court Judge Edward J. Chen’s decided the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) must require companies to report import and use of asbestos under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).
The Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization (ADAO) filed the petition to make sure the EPA collects information on asbestos use and exposure in order to evaluate the health risks asbestos poses to the public.
Judge Chen emphasized, “how little information EPA has about the quantities of asbestos-containing products in the U.S. chain of commerce and the overall consumer and occupational exposure for downstream uses of asbestos.”
He held that EPA’s “unwillingness to act stands in the face of its significant statutory authority to require that this information be reported via the CDR rule and runs contrary to its obligation to collect reasonably available information to inform and facilitate its regulatory obligations under TSCA.”
ADAO was joined by the American Public Health Association (APHA), Center for Environmental Health (CEH), Environmental Health Strategies Center (EHSC), Environmental Working Group (EWG), and Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families. Eleven Attorneys General from California, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, Oregon, Washington, and the District of Columbia were also co-petitioning with ADAO.
