R. P. Carter to Dr. Paul Kotin on Delaying OSHA's Asbestos Hearings and J-M's Smoking Petition (1977)

A one-page memo of August 12, 1977, from R. P. Carter to Dr. Paul Kotin. Moke Harris had called to say "it is in our best interests not to speed up the OSHA asbestos hearings" and that it "may be beneficial to delay the hearings for several years, assuming that is possible, to enable us to gather additional data, i.e. Stockton and Denison." Carter had met Dick Von Wald and Denny Markusson about the second draft of J-M's petition to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) for an emergency standard banning cigarette smoking by anyone exposed to asbestos fiber.

What it shows

Carter told the lawyers that filing the smoking petition would likely push OSHA to schedule its asbestos hearings sooner, which he thought was not in J-M's interest. They asked him to sound out OSHA, and he arranged lunch with Grover Wrenn on August 17. The memo shows J-M weighing its public smoking campaign (see the August 1977 President's Bulletin) against its interest in slowing a stricter federal asbestos standard.

In Johns-Manville's chronology

Johns-Manville's own chronology of what the company knew describes this document as follows:

R.P. Carter writes to P. Kotin, M.D. on 8/12/77. With regard to J-M's petition to OSHA for an emergency temporary standard prohibiting the smoking of cigarettes by any individual employed in any occupation in which there was exposure to asbestos fiber, Carter states that Moke Harris called to advise him that he believed it was in Manville's best interest not to speed up the OSHA asbestos hearings. Harris felt that it may be beneficial to delay the hearings for several years, assuming that is possible, to enable Manville to gather additional data regarding Stockton and Denison.