|
A week ago the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans
struck down the Environmental Protection Agency's ban on the manufacture
and use of asbestos, which takes full effect in several years.
The court ruled that the EPA had failed to prove its case that
the health benefits of such a ban would match the costs. It's
about time somebody blew the whistle on this scam.
The decision came just three weeks after a congressionally mandated
study on asbestos concluded that the EPA asbestos cleanup, which
has cost taxpayers and the economy billions, has been largely
unnecessary. The air inside most buildings, the study found is
no higher in airborne concentrations of asbestos than the natural
air outdoors.
This will come as no surprise to Detroit News readers. In
1985 a series of articles by a special correspondent Michael Bennett
showed that the EPA's assault on airborne asbestos was unsupported
by scientific studies.
And just two months after the EPA announced its ban in 1985,
a symposium at Harvard University was presented with evidence
that the lifetime risk of airborne asbestos in buildings was 200-400
times less than the risk from incidental tobacco smoke. Meanwhile,
articles in such scholarly journals as Nature and Science have
concluded that only very high occupational exposure to long fiber
asbestos (comprising only 5 percent of the total and used mainly
as boiler insulation) posed a serious health threat.
All this forced EPA Administrator William Reilly, whose agency
has long insisted that asbestos is causing a fantastic 40,000
deaths a year, to admit in June 1990 that "the mere presence
of asbestos poses no risk to human health". Efforts to
remove asbestos fibers from schools and other buildings "may
actually pose a greater health risk than simply leaving them alone".
Why has the hysteria about asbestos persisted for so long? Michael
Bennett, author of the 1985 series in The News, has written a
soon-to-be-published book about his investigations called The
Asbestos Racket (From Enterprise Press). He concludes "The
cleanup is being driven..by an organized asbestos removal industry
with a collective self interest in removal costs of $150 billion
to $200 billion by the year 2000".
There never was an epidemic of asbestos poisoning, adds Mr.
Bennett in his book. "The real epidemic was fear, spread
by scientific ignorance, bureaucratic bungling, political posturing,
greedy lawyers, sensation-mongering reporters and contractors
chasing the almighty buck".
Despite the second thoughts of the scientists, however, the bureaucracy
keeps plowing ahead. The EPA recently proposed banning the use
of asbestos in rebuilt clutches and brake linings. It even wants
to ban the removal of asbestos from old parts. One effect would
be to close down some 780 small companies around the United States
employing an estimated 31,000 workers. Meanwhile, either huge
numbers of older cars will have to be scraped - or driven with
unsafe worn-out brakes.
The Appeals Court ruling on asbestos should be a wake-up call
that something has gone seriously haywire on the environmental
front. The nation's regulatory apparatus is legislating standards
without any regard for scientific evidence. Congress should begin
asking the basic question that the Appeals Court asked: Are
the benefits of some of our environmental programs really worth
the costs?
|
