When Was Asbestos Banned in the US?

If you’re searching for when asbestos was banned in the United States, the honest answer is that it never has been, not completely.

Despite decades of evidence linking asbestos to mesothelioma and lung cancer, the U.S. has only ever managed a patchwork of partial bans, exposure limits, and product-specific restrictions.

Many people believe asbestos was outlawed in 1989. It wasn’t, and understanding why matters for anyone trying to figure out their own risk today.

Is Asbestos Banned in the US?

Not completely, even now. What exists instead is a decades-long accumulation of federal regulations, product-specific prohibitions, and workplace exposure limits, layered on top of a legal system that has twice made it difficult for the EPA to enact a true, comprehensive ban.

The most significant recent step came in March 2024, when the EPA banned the remaining uses of chrysotile asbestos, the only type still imported into the country, but even that rule is currently tied up in litigation, doesn’t touch the five other regulated fiber types, and does nothing about the asbestos already sitting in millions of older buildings.

What Year Was Asbestos Banned?

There isn’t a clean single-year answer, because the closest the country ever came to a real ban didn’t survive. On July 12, 1989, the EPA issued a sweeping rule under the Toxic Substances Control Act meant to phase out most asbestos-containing products on a scheduled timeline.

For a brief moment, it looked like the U.S. would finally join the growing list of countries banning asbestos outright.

That didn’t last. In 1991, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit vacated most of the rule in Corrosion Proof Fittings v. EPA, ruling that the EPA hadn’t adequately proven the ban was the least burdensome way to address the risk, as the law required at the time.

After the ruling, only a small slice of the original ban survived, a prohibition on new uses not already in commerce as of 1989, plus bans on a handful of specific products like asbestos flooring felt and corrugated asbestos paper. Everything else the 1989 rule would have banned was allowed to continue.

This is the entire reason so many people mistakenly believe 1989 was the year asbestos became illegal. It was announced that year, and then gutted two years later.

When Did Asbestos Stop Being Used in the US?

It hasn’t fully stopped, though use has declined dramatically since its peak. The decline happened gradually, through a series of narrower regulatory actions rather than one decisive law:

• In 1973, the EPA banned spray-applied asbestos fireproofing and insulation in buildings, expanding that ban in 1978 to cover all spray-applied surfacing materials.

• OSHA steadily tightened permissible workplace exposure limits starting in 1971, from 12 fibers per cubic centimeter of air down to an emergency limit of 5, then to 0.2 by 1986, and finally to 0.1 fibers per cubic centimeter, where the standard remains today.

• The Consumer Product Safety Commission separately banned specific consumer products containing loose, “friable” asbestos, including certain patching compounds and artificial fireplace embers, after finding they posed an unreasonable risk in ordinary household use.

• In 1986, Congress passed the Asbestos Hazard Emergency Response Act, requiring schools nationwide to inspect for asbestos-containing materials and adopt a management plan, an approach based on managing material in place rather than mandating removal.

• The last active asbestos mine in the United States closed in 2002, ending domestic production, though companies continued importing chrysotile asbestos, primarily from Canada and Brazil, for specific industrial uses.

Even after domestic mining ended, chrysotile asbestos remained in active use for products like gaskets, brake linings, and diaphragms used in chlor-alkali plants that manufacture chlorine and sodium hydroxide for water treatment.

Meanwhile, the asbestos already installed in millions of buildings, schools, and homes simply stayed in place.

How Did the 2016 Chemical Safety Law Change Things?

A real turning point came on June 22, 2016, when the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act substantially amended the Toxic Substances Control Act.

This law replaced the cost-benefit test that had doomed the 1989 ban with a health-based safety standard, meaning the EPA could now regulate a chemical based on health risk alone, without proving the benefits outweighed industry’s costs.

It also strengthened the EPA’s authority to evaluate chemicals already in commerce, including asbestos, which was designated one of the first ten chemicals to undergo a new risk evaluation process under the law.

What Did the EPA’s Risk Evaluations Find?

Working under this new authority, the EPA split its asbestos review into two parts. In December 2020, the EPA completed Part 1, focused specifically on chrysotile asbestos, and concluded that its ongoing commercial uses posed an unreasonable risk to human health across categories including chlor-alkali diaphragms, sheet gaskets, oilfield brake blocks, and automotive friction products.

In November 2024, the EPA completed Part 2, this time examining legacy asbestos, meaning the asbestos already installed in buildings and products, along with its disposal.

That evaluation found legacy asbestos also presents an unreasonable risk, particularly to workers involved in renovation, demolition, and disposal, and to building occupants when asbestos-containing materials are disturbed or deteriorate.

The EPA has since entered the risk management phase for legacy asbestos, though no final rule addressing it has been adopted yet.

What Does the 2024 Chrysotile Ban Actually Cover?

The EPA’s March 2024 rule, the first ban finalized under the Lautenberg Act’s revised authority, prohibits the manufacture, import, processing, distribution, and commercial use of chrysotile asbestos in its remaining applications, including chlor-alkali diaphragms, sheet gaskets, oilfield brake blocks, and automotive friction products.

The rule was published March 28, 2024 and became effective May 28, 2024, with a phased compliance schedule: friction products and most gaskets faced roughly a six-month deadline, sheet gaskets a two-year window, and the chlor-alkali industry the longest runway of all given the scale of the transition involved.

It’s important to be clear about what this rule doesn’t do. It applies only to chrysotile, not the five other regulated asbestos fiber types, and it does nothing about legacy asbestos already present in buildings and products across the country.

Is the 2024 Ban Actually Going to Stick?

This is genuinely unresolved. Industry groups challenged the rule in the Fifth Circuit, the same court that struck down the 1989 ban, in a case now known as Texas Chemistry Council v. EPA.

In mid-2025, the EPA itself asked the court to pause the litigation so it could reconsider parts of the rule, a request public health advocates strongly opposed given what was at stake.

As of mid-2026, the picture has shifted again. The EPA withdrew its request to pause the rule and reaffirmed its intent to defend the ban, and the American Chemistry Council dropped part of its own challenge.

Oral arguments were held before the Fifth Circuit on June 1, 2026, and a ruling remains pending. In the meantime, the 2024 rule’s phase-out timelines remain legally in effect: most chlor-alkali plants using asbestos diaphragms now have until 2029 to transition to alternatives, and at least one federal facility, the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site, has been given until 2037.

Whether the ban ultimately survives, and in what form, likely won’t be clear until the Fifth Circuit rules.

Where Is Asbestos Still Found Today?

Legacy asbestos remains widespread in the American built environment, especially in states like New York with extensive pre-1980s housing and infrastructure.

Common locations include ceiling tiles, vinyl floor tiles and their backing, roofing shingles and felt, exterior siding, pipe and boiler insulation, plaster, joint compound, and fireproofing sprayed onto structural steel.

Recent events have shown that exposure risk isn’t limited to old buildings, either. In May 2026, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission recalled more than 121,000 children’s squeeze toys after testing found fibrous tremolite asbestos in the sand filling inside them, following a wave of similar recalls in the UK and Australia tied to contaminated craft sand (Consumer Product Safety Commission, reported by Newsweek).

Could the US Ever Fully Ban Asbestos?

There’s an active push in Congress to get there. The Alan Reinstein Ban Asbestos Now Act of 2025 was reintroduced in the Senate and House in September 2025, with bipartisan sponsors, and would prohibit the manufacture, processing, use, and distribution of all six recognized asbestos fiber types, closing the gaps left by the 2024 rule’s narrower focus on chrysotile alone.

As of mid-2026, the bill remains pending in Congress and has not been enacted, following the same pattern of earlier versions of this legislation introduced repeatedly since 2016 without passing.

How Does New York Regulate Asbestos Beyond Federal Rules?

New York layers its own, often stricter, requirements on top of federal law. The New York State Department of Health regulates training and certification for asbestos abatement workers, while the Department of Labor governs the actual removal, encapsulation, and handling of asbestos materials.

New York City’s Department of Environmental Protection runs its own Asbestos Control Program requiring surveys and notifications before most renovation or demolition projects citywide.

Property owners undertaking work on buildings constructed before the mid-1980s are generally required to have an asbestos survey conducted by a certified inspector before work begins.

Why Does This History Matter for a Legal Claim?

The fact that asbestos was never fully banned, and that the regulatory system has repeatedly failed to close every gap, matters directly for anyone diagnosed with an asbestos-related disease today.

It confirms what courts have long recognized: companies and property owners had decades of warning about these dangers, through OSHA exposure limits, EPA product bans, and mounting scientific evidence, and many continued exposing workers and residents anyway.

Violations of state and local asbestos regulations can serve as direct evidence of negligence in a personal injury or wrongful death claim.

What Are the Legal Deadlines for an Asbestos Claim in New York?

Because these diseases can take decades to appear, New York starts the filing clock from the date of diagnosis, not the date of exposure.

Summing It Up

Asbestos was never fully banned in the United States. The 1989 rule that many people remember was gutted by the courts just two years later, and more than three decades passed before the EPA managed to ban even one type of asbestos, chrysotile, in 2024, a rule that’s still fighting for its survival in court as of mid-2026. F

or New Yorkers, this incomplete regulatory history isn’t just a historical curiosity. It’s the reason legacy asbestos remains present in so many older buildings today, and it’s part of why companies and property owners who exposed people to it can be held accountable now.

Porter Law Group represents New York individuals and families dealing with an asbestos-related disease, whether the exposure happened at work, during military service, or in an older building.

The regulatory history matters to your case, since it often helps establish exactly what a responsible party knew and when. If you’ve been diagnosed with mesothelioma, lung cancer, or another asbestos-related disease, we can review your exposure history and explain what your legal options actually look like.

Frequently Asked Questions

Was asbestos ever completely banned in the United States?

No. The closest attempt was a 1989 EPA rule that was mostly overturned by a federal court in 1991. Since then, regulation has come through a series of narrower product bans, workplace exposure limits, and, most recently, a 2024 EPA rule banning ongoing uses of chrysotile asbestos, which is itself still tied up in litigation.

What year did the US actually ban asbestos-containing products?

There’s no single year. Various asbestos products and uses have been restricted at different times since the 1970s, including spray-applied fireproofing in 1973 and 1978, and remaining chrysotile uses starting in 2024. No single law has ever banned asbestos comprehensively.

When did companies stop using asbestos in the US?

Domestic asbestos mining ended when the last U.S. mine closed in 2002, but companies continued importing chrysotile asbestos for products like gaskets, brake linings, and chlor-alkali diaphragms well beyond that. Some of these uses remain legal today while the 2024 ban works through the courts.

Is asbestos illegal in new construction today?

Largely, yes, for most common building materials, but not entirely. The 2024 EPA rule addresses only chrysotile asbestos in a specific list of remaining industrial applications, and it doesn’t touch legacy asbestos already present in older buildings, which remains legal to leave in place if it’s intact and undisturbed.

If I was exposed to asbestos years ago, does the fact that it wasn’t fully banned yet affect my legal claim?

Not in the way you might expect. New York’s statute of limitations for these claims runs from the date of diagnosis, not the date of exposure or the state of the law at the time. In fact, the long history of known risk and incomplete regulation often strengthens a negligence claim, since it shows how long companies and property owners had notice of the danger.

Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.

Contact Porter Law Group Phone: 833-PORTER9 Email: info@porterlawteam.com