ADAO FAQs: WHAT TO KNOW ABOUT EPA’s TSCA PART 2 LEGACY ASBESTOS EVALUATION
Posted on April 15, 2024
WHAT TO KNOW ABOUT EPA’s TSCA PART 2 LEGACY ASBESTOS EVALUATION
Why Is it Important to evaluate the risks of legacy asbestos under TSCA?
- The EPA Part 1 rule bans ongoing importation and use of one raw asbestos fiber – chrysotile – and six current uses of chrysotile-containing products. The rule therefore eliminates one important source of exposure to asbestos but does not address another urgent public health threat – legacy asbestos-containing products still in use. The Part 2 risk evaluation and risk management process will determine the risks of legacy asbestos and take action to reduce these risks. The evaluation is addressing not just chrysotile but all other asbestos fibers – the asbestiform varieties of crocidolite (riebeckite), amosite (cummingtonite-grunerite), anthophyllite, tremolite and actinolite — plus richterite-asbestos and winchite-asbestos fiber types.
- From 1900 to the present day, the US has consumed more than 31 million metric tons of asbestos. As a result of its widespread use in our economy for most of the twentieth century, asbestos remains a pervasive presence in schools, factories, homes, apartments and commercial and public buildings as well as pipes, cement, and many kinds of industrial and commercial equipment.
- Legacy asbestos is a major pathway of exposure for a significant segment of the US population and is a large contributor to the 40,000 deaths that asbestos is known to cause each year.
- There are many different ways in which exposure to legacy asbestos occurs. Examples are construction and demolition sites where embedded asbestos is released into the air, repair and maintenance of HVAC systems or insulation in homes, apartments and commercial buildings, and asbestos-containing equipment or ceiling fixtures which are leaking asbestos into school classrooms or other public spaces.
What are the goals and expected outcomes of the Part 2 evaluation? How will it help protect the public?
- The goal of the Part 2 evaluation is to examine the magnitude and duration of exposure to legacy asbestos from these and other pathways and then to determine the risks of lung cancer, mesothelioma and lung disease that they pose to the public.
- An important part of this analysis is drawing on the extensive scientific data on the well-documented health effects of asbestos and the evidence that it causes death and disease even at very low levels of exposure. In contrast to Part 1 which was limited to chrysotile, Part 2 must also address the other five recognized asbestos fibers because of the historical role of these fiber types in manufacturing asbestos-containing products.
- As in Part 1, the bottom line of Part 2 will be a determination whether exposure to legacy asbestos presents an unreasonable risk of injury to human health. If EPA makes this determination, TSCA requires it to conduct a risk management rulemaking to eliminate the unreasonable risk – just as EPA did in Part 1 following its finding of unreasonable risk for ongoing chrysotile imports and use.
- Since legacy asbestos can only be removed from building structures at considerable cost and increased risk, the focus of Part 2 risk management will be on strengthening practices for safely managing asbestos in place. This may include new requirements to protect workers, consumers and bystanders when legacy asbestos releases occur. In addition, an essential tool of risk management is providing accurate and current information about how to identify the presence of legacy asbestos and protect against unsafe exposure. The target audience for this information includes the general public, state and local governments, other federal agencies, emergency responders like firefighters, building maintenance and construction personnel, and unions and employers. These risk reduction strategies should be informed by the improved understanding of legacy asbestos risk and exposure provided by the Part 2 risk evaluation.
When was the last comprehensive EPA legacy asbestos risk evaluation of legacy asbestos?
- The last study of the prevalence of asbestos in building structures across the US was done by EPA in the 1980s but is now out-of-date. A comprehensive assessment of how many people are exposed to legacy asbestos and the health risk from this exposure has never been conducted even though public concerns about the dangers of legacy asbestos have always been substantial.
Don’t we already have laws and regulations that protect against unsafe exposures to legacy asbestos? Why do we need an EPA risk evaluation?
- An uneven patchwork of federal and state laws and regulations now applies to legacy asbestos. These laws and regulations were developed at different times and by different governmental and nonprofit entities. As a result, they are not fully consistent with each other, are not adequately protective in all instances and do not fully address all the many exposure scenarios that present risks.
- The failure of existing laws and regulations to prevent large numbers of legacy-related deaths and lung disease underscores the need for a comprehensive, scientifically robust evaluation of exposure and risk from legacy asbestos. As noted above, such an evaluation has never been conducted before.
- EPA’s Part 2 evaluation can fill the gaps in understanding but only if it is based on complete and reliable exposure data, draws on the most knowledgeable experts, and uses the best available science on the hazards of asbestos. ADAO will be closely reviewing the EPA draft to see whether it measures up to this standard.
Will there be independent peer review of the Part 2 evaluation by leading experts? DISCUSS
- A troubling sign is that the Agency is not seeking any independent scientific peer review of the draft Part 2 evaluation. This is in sharp contrast to Part 1 and the other nine initial EPA risk evaluations under TSCA, which were peer reviewed using a transparent and rigorous process conducted by EPA’s Science Advisory Committee on Chemicals (SACC).
- The Part 2 evaluation will present more complex scientific challenges than Part 1. The exposed worker and consumer populations are considerably larger and more diverse and pathways of exposure and release are more numerous, varied and complex.
- ADAO, other NGOs and the Environmental Protection Network have raised concerns about lack of adequate peer review for the Part 2 evaluation and others in the EPA pipeline. However, Agency leadership has not been responsive to these concerns
- Policymakers and public health experts will look to Part 2 for authoritative guidance on the ongoing health threats from legacy asbestos but the absence of independent peer review by the SACC may raise questions about the evaluation’s scientific rigor and quality.
Why wasn’t the Part 2 evaluation conducted sooner and what role did ADAO play in making sure it happened?
- The Trump EPA took the position that legacy asbestos exposure was outside the scope of TSCA risk evaluations and moved ahead with Part 1 in 2017 without including it. However, ADAO and other groups challenged EPA’s position in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. In November 2019, the Court held that EPA’s exclusion of legacy uses and associated disposals from its risk evaluation “contradicts TSCA’s plain language” and that it must consider the risks posed by the presence of asbestos in existing buildings, products, and waste when conducting its evaluations
- In its peer review of the draft Part 1 evaluation, the SACC criticized EPA for not developing a comprehensive assessment integrating all asbestos exposure pathways, including ongoing asbestos importation and use and legacy asbestos use and disposal. The SACC also raised concern about the omission of five of the six asbestos fibers from the Part 1 draft.
- When Part 1 was finalized in late 2020, EPA did not fix these problems. Instead, it promised to conduct a Part 2 evaluation addressing legacy asbestos and other elements missing from Part 1. Since EPA did not set a timetable for Part 2 or define its scope, ADAO and its partners filed two legal cases in 2021 challenging the limitations of the Part 1 evaluation and seeking a timetable for completing Part 2. EPA and ADAO then negotiated an enforceable consent decree in late 2021 directing the Agency to issue a final Part 2 evaluation by December 1, 2024.
What other agreements were reached about the Part 2 evaluation?
- The negotiations between EPA and ADAO also resulted in an October 12, 2021 settlement agreement in which EPA committed to address in Part 2 certain key risk elements missing from Part 1 in addition to legacy asbestos exposure.
- These included the health effects of all six asbestos fibers; asbestos contamination of products manufactured from talc; the full suite of toxic endpoints (cancer and non-cancer) linked to asbestos in the scientific literature; environmental releases of asbestos; dermal and ingestion routes of exposure to asbestos; risks of asbestos to potentially exposed and susceptible populations; and ongoing chrysotile conditions of use that were not addressed in Part 1 but may be documented in forthcoming submissions under the recent TSCA asbestos reporting rule.
- ADAO and its experts will be reviewing Part 2 to make sure it fully addresses these issues.