Be Heard. The Agency will accept responses in docket EPA-HQ-OPPT-2025-0036 until Aug. 24, 2026.
The Environmental Protection Agency’s Asbestos Part 2 Risk Management: Timeline
Posted on June 24, 2026
EPA Delays Part 2 Asbestos Rule Until 2027: Americans Cannot Afford to Wait
We support strong, science-based protections. But this delay is unacceptable, and it comes after nearly a decade of advocacy, litigation, and review.
When EPA named asbestos one of the first ten chemicals for evaluation under the Toxic Substances Control Act more than a decade ago, it looked only at chrysotile asbestos, the one fiber type still imported into the United States. We knew that narrow approach wasn’t sufficiently protective and wouldn’t hold up to scrutiny. In 2019, the Ninth Circuit ruled in Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families v. EPA that the agency had unlawfully left out legacy uses and their disposals, forcing them to move forward with the supplemental evaluation that will become Part 2.
For years afterward, ADAO pressured EPA — through comments, litigation, and direct engagement — to evaluate legacy asbestos, every regulated fiber type, Libby amphibole, and asbestos-containing talc. Our argument was simple: asbestos doesn’t stop being dangerous because a product has aged or because no one makes it anymore. The risk remains.
EPA finalized its Part 2 Risk Evaluation on December 3, 2024 and reached the conclusion patients and workers had lived with for decades — that disturbing legacy asbestos poses an unreasonable risk to human health. There is no safe level of exposure, and the danger is real every time these materials are disturbed during renovation, demolition, maintenance, disaster recovery, or disposal.
Under TSCA, that finding obligated EPA to move to risk management within a year. It didn’t. After the agency missed its statutory deadline and obligation, ADAO filed a 60-day notice of intent to sue in February 2026, then a citizen suit in federal court in April to compel action. We will oppose this delay as well.
Asbestos exposures happen daily, as workers, contractors, and homeowners run into asbestos still sitting in millions of buildings. Every year of delay is another year of preventable exposure to a known carcinogen. More than 40,000 Americans die annually from asbestos-related diseases, and mesothelioma, lung cancer, ovarian and laryngeal cancer, and asbestosis keep surfacing in families decades after the exposure that caused them.
Education and risk management can lower exposures, but it won’t remove the millions of tons of asbestos already in our homes, schools, and workplaces. It’s why we keep urging Congress to pass the Alan Reinstein Ban Asbestos Now (ARBAN) Act, which would ban asbestos imports and use outright. We know the only reliable way to manage the risk of asbestos is to stop using it once and for all.
ADAO will keep pushing for strong legacy-asbestos protections. The EPA has found that legacy asbestos is an unreasonable risk to human health. The facts are clear. The danger is known. Americans have waited long enough — EPA needs to finish the job.
Be heard. The Agency will accept responses in docket EPA-HQ-OPPT-2025-0036 until Aug. 24, 2026.
Linda Reinstein