After having recently provoked outrage in the trucking industry over a controversial plan to regulate diesel cars, "environmentally friendly" Gov. Shintaro Ishihara has just submitted a budget proposal to the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly that has one less allocation for green initiatives: that for asbestos monitoring.

The metropolitan government has set aside funds every year since 1990 for measuring the atmospheric levels of the cancer-causing mineral around firms that manufacture products that contain the carcinogen. While the figure had been gradually shrinking, some 1.2 million yen was used to monitor 10 firms last year.

The amount is only a tiny fraction of the capital's 6 trillion yen budget, but it has been the only administrative expenditure earmarked for keeping an eye on the potential health hazards it poses.

Nevertheless, metropolitan government officials say the budget allocation will be discontinued in the fiscal year that begins April 1 because of tight budget constraints resulting from an unprecedented financial crisis.

Funds for monitoring asbestos levels were canceled because other pressing environmental concerns had higher priority, the officials said.

"Asbestos levels have been very low compared with government standards and can be forecast using current data because there has been little change in the level for years," an official of the Bureau of Environmental Protection said.

Funding for the atmospheric asbestos monitoring program at the Tokyo Metropolitan Research Institute for Environmental Protection will continue, the officials added. The budget, submitted to the assembly Feb. 23, is expected to pass March 30.

Ishihara himself has repeatedly voiced concerns about asbestos.

"Deadly asbestos is used in buildings in Tsukiji Market," he said, not for the first time, when questioned at the current assembly session on the city's plans to move the market.

Environmental groups suspect that the governor may not be aware of the missing item in the proposed budget. They warn that the city's move may give the wrong impression to the public that asbestos is a problem of the past, even though health risks related to it remain serious.

Asbestos is added to a variety of products, such as building materials, to add strength, insulating qualities and fire resistance. Numerous studies have linked the substance to lung cancer and other diseases.

Over the past four years, some 2,200 people have died nationwide from mesothelioma, a rare cancer of the surface linings of the lung or abdominal tissue caused by asbestos exposure, according to statistics from the Health and Welfare Ministry.

"This (budget cutback) shows how the metropolitan government is making light of asbestos," says Fuyushi Nagakura of Japan Citizen's Network for Wiping Out Asbestos, or ASNET. "Yet asbestos is known to be far more carcinogenic than endocrine disrupters and diesel exhaust."