Asbestos Prevention and Accountability: Why Federal Action Still Matters This November
November is Lung Cancer Awareness Month, a good time to talk about asbestos.
When the government bans a dangerous substance, most people assume the problem is handled. With asbestos, it isn’t. A ban on future use does nothing about insulation that went into a building forty years ago, and it can’t reach back and undo a worker’s exposure. Someone exposed decades ago may have a disease developing right now that won’t show up for years.
The Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization (ADAO) is working on this gap from three directions: stronger federal rules, access to government records, and new legislation.
The Chrysotile Rule
EPA’s March 2024 rule on chrysotile asbestos was a step toward ending its ongoing uses. But ADAO and its public health partners think parts of it fall short. They are defending the rule’s science while challenging provisions that believe leave people exposed too long or without enough safeguards. The Fifth Circuit heard oral arguments in June and according to ADAO’s October update, a decision is still pending.
Legacy Asbestos
Legacy asbestos is the material still sitting in older buildings: pipe insulation, floor tiles, ceiling materials. It can stay put through a change of owners, a factory closure, or a school renovation. Being there doesn’t mean it’s releasing fibers. What matters is its condition and what gets done to it, and EPA’s own evaluation identified disturbing and handling it as sources of unreasonable risk. That puts renovation, demolition, maintenance, and disposal at the center of the problem. Work meant to renovate a building can create the very hazard people were trying to avoid.
The EPA plans to propose a legacy asbestos rule by June 3, 2027; however, it needs more information about exposure conditions first. ADAO has gone to court to force the agency to act sooner. The information needed is important, but buildings keep aging, repairs keep coming due, and demolitions keep happening causing many to be exposed to asbestos while the process plays out.
The East Wing Records
ADAO is also seeking records on the October 2025 demolition of the White House East Wing, including asbestos assessment, abatement, air monitoring, worker protection, and disposal. Its October update described a new court filing asking for more complete disclosures.
This dispute doesn’t show that anyone was exposed. What it shows is why paperwork matters. An assessment tells you what was found before the work began. Air monitoring shows what conditions were like during it. Disposal records show where the material went. Without them, “we took precautions” is just a statement nobody can check.
The Ban Bill
Congress introduced the bipartisan Alan Reinstein Ban Asbestos Now Act of 2026 in August. It would prohibit commercial asbestos entirely, and ADAO continues to push for support through education and advocacy. Even if it passes, the legacy problem remains, so the two efforts must move together.
Lung Cancer and Mesothelioma
Asbestos causes both lung cancer and mesothelioma. They’re separate diseases. Lung cancer starts in the lungs, while mesothelioma develops in the lining around certain organs, most often the lungs. Either can appear many years after exposure. A history of smoking doesn’t make asbestos exposure irrelevant; together, the two raise lung cancer risk substantially. And people who have never smoked can still develop asbestos-related lung cancer.
If you’ve just been diagnosed, a proposed rule in 2027 probably feels very far away. You’re thinking about treatment, your family, your finances, and how something that happened years ago led here.
At Goldberg, Persky & White, our attorneys have represented thousands of people with mesothelioma, lung cancer, and other asbestos-related diseases. Much of that work means going back through employment histories, products, and job sites to figure out where the exposure happened. If you or someone you love has been diagnosed with an asbestos-related disease, contact us to talk through your exposure history and your legal options.