What's at stake as the GOP moves to slash regulations? For starters, clean air

Amid the Republican backlash against federal scientists who write rules governing everything from movie theater popcorn to offshore oil drilling, stories abound of overburdened businesses, heavy-handed civil servants and crushing paperwork. But another story, one involving a deadly household material, offers a lesson in what can go wrong when government experts are shackled, as currently envisioned under a sweeping regulatory reform bill gliding toward President Trump's desk. The GOP-backed legislation revives many of the rule-making hurdles that for years crippled the government's ability to respond to the asbestos-exposure epidemic, which has been blamed for tens of thousands of American deaths. "I don't think lawmakers are focusing on how extreme this legislation is," said Paul Billings, lobbyist for the American Lung Assn., which has joined several major public health groups imploring congressional leaders to apply the brakes. "It has been viewed as this abstraction that creates improvements in the regulatory process. This would undermine bedrock public health laws."