by Rich Sabatini

Created on: December 27, 2008

Eco-radicalism strikes again...how the EPA escaped the blame for Sept. 11 In the early 1970's, concerns about air pollution from leaded gasoline gave birth to the Environmental Protection Agency, whose original intent was defined by its name. But perhaps no other government agency has ever done more to live up to the "Law of Unintended Consequences", as illustrated by the debacle in lower Manhattan Island, New York City, on Sept 11, 2001.

Initial groundbreaking for the World Trade Center began in 1966. And 35 years later, on September 18, 2001, the New York Times wrote about the irony of how the building plans were fatefully altered..."Anticipating an EPA ban on using asbestos in commercial construction in New York City, the builders stopped using the material by the time they reached the 38th floor of the North Tower" (the first one to go up); and..."More than half of the original, asbestos-containing material was later replaced after the construction of the World Trade Center began".

In its design, the WTC's architects called for asbestos coating on the steel support beams. The coating's purpose was to delay heating of the beams in case of a fire, which would provide an estimated four hours for orderly evacuation and fire fighting, before the beams weakened to the point of structural collapse.

But after the EPA outlawed asbestos while the Center was under construction, the substitute that was used proved to be tragically inadequate. Engineers and architects alike were surprised when the towers collapsed so soon after terrorists had crashed the hijacked planes into both structures.

Were it not for the ban, the four hour window of an asbestos coating on the beams could have limited casualties to only those on the floors where the planes impacted. This is doubly unfortunate because it is a consequence of an illogical fear that proved to be calamitous.

This fear-mongering is characteristic of the EPA:, which since its inception over the years, has evolved into a bully pulpit of regulations backed by environmentalists and trial lawyers, who often ignore research data, and show no sense of proportion in trading one risk against another.

Ever since the initial EPA ban on asbestos, U.S. regulators have thrown scientific data out the window and banned all forms of the mineral, even though asbestos in the U.S. has not strongly been linked to health problems. But the chilling possibility will always endure that the Sept. 11, 2001 WTC building collapses may have been preventable

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