5 ms·

>EPA is now allowing asbestos back into manufacturing Wow, misleading headline of the decade. Asbestos was never completely banned from manufacturing in the Un

by swebs 8y ago

>EPA is now allowing asbestos back into manufacturing Wow, misleading headline of the decade. Asbestos was never completely banned from manufacturing in the United States, only for certain items. https://www.epa.gov/asbestos/us-federal-bans-asbestos https://www.epa.gov/asbestos/us-federal-bans-asbestos https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asbestos_and_the_law_(United_States)#Federal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asbestos_and_the_law_(United_S...

HillaryBriss 8y ago
yes. that's right. it was the proliferation of costly lawsuits in recent decades which diminished the use of asbestos in the US. companies are still trying to resolve all of these lawsuits. what kind of incentives would need to be in place for a company to willingly put that lawsuit target on its own back?
- dbatten 8y ago
  I've heard people argue that a much more effective way to do environmental regulation would be to basically not regulate and instead increase liability standards for environmental/health damage. Right now, in many cases, if a factory is dumping toxic sludge into a river and they're within EPA limits, there's nothing anybody can do to stop it. If you allowed farmers downstream to come after them for damaging crops (or whatever), or allowed class action suits against coal-burning power companies for cancer and such, imagine what that might do to incentive structures. I'm not sure I buy it, but the asbestos case makes me wonder.
  - spiralx 8y ago
    How would you prove which power plant produced the particular molecules that gave you cancer? What if the company that owns a power plant has gone bust? How does this help you deal with cancer? What if you die before you make it through the years and years such a court case would drag on?
makomk 8y ago
Very much so. The entire proposed rule, so far as I can tell, is solely about taking most of the asbestos products which are still legal to manufacture and use in the US, declaring them a substantial new use on the basis that they're no longer being made, and erecting regulatory barriers to ever manufacturing or importing them again. It doesn't unban anything, not even genuinely novel uses for asbestos (which there's a long-running blanket ban on).

by swebs 8y ago

HillaryBriss 8y ago

yes. that's right. it was the proliferation of costly lawsuits in recent decades which diminished the use of asbestos in the US. companies are still trying to resolve all of these lawsuits. what kind of incentives would need to be in place for a company to willingly put that lawsuit target on its own back?

dbatten 8y ago
I've heard people argue that a much more effective way to do environmental regulation would be to basically not regulate and instead increase liability standards for environmental/health damage. Right now, in many cases, if a factory is dumping toxic sludge into a river and they're within EPA limits, there's nothing anybody can do to stop it. If you allowed farmers downstream to come after them for damaging crops (or whatever), or allowed class action suits against coal-burning power companies for cancer and such, imagine what that might do to incentive structures. I'm not sure I buy it, but the asbestos case makes me wonder.
- spiralx 8y ago
  How would you prove which power plant produced the particular molecules that gave you cancer? What if the company that owns a power plant has gone bust? How does this help you deal with cancer? What if you die before you make it through the years and years such a court case would drag on?

makomk 8y ago

Very much so. The entire proposed rule, so far as I can tell, is solely about taking most of the asbestos products which are still legal to manufacture and use in the US, declaring them a substantial new use on the basis that they're no longer being made, and erecting regulatory barriers to ever manufacturing or importing them again. It doesn't unban anything, not even genuinely novel uses for asbestos (which there's a long-running blanket ban on).