Fifth Circuit Asked to Vacate, Strengthen EPA’s Asbestos Ban

Three diverse types of petitioners have told a federal court that the EPA’s rule to ban chrysotile asbestos violates the nation’s primary commercial chemicals law so it should be vacated or returned to the agency with an order to strengthen workplace and other protections.

Chemical manufacturers, doctors, firefighters, and chemical industry workers are among the petitioners that are challenging the Environmental Protection Agency’s rule before the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, the same court that in 1991’s Corrosion Proof Fittings v. EPA overturned the agency’s previous effort to ban most uses of asbestos.

That 1991 opinion—which ...