Washington, DC, April 21—-Sponsors of the Senate asbestos bill have voiced confidence that the bill will attract enough support to advance to the Senate floor and beyond, despite opposition in both parties.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Arlen Specter said he thought he could meet concerns of conservatives in his Republican party, and hoped "a solid phalanx" of Republicans would help vote the bill out of committee on April 28.
Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy, the ranking Democrat on the committee, said several Democrats already had told him privately they would support the bill.
"I believe we'll get it passed out of committee, I believe we'll get it passed in the Senate, and we'll do it with a very comfortable margin," Leahy said at a press conference with Specter and other co-sponsors.
Separately, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, a Texas Republican, told reporters that if the Senate passed a bill tackling the asbestos problem, the House would look at it. "It's a very important piece of legislation," he said.
Fibers of asbestos, used in building materials, auto parts and other products for decades, have been linked to cancer and other diseases. Injury claims have forced many companies into bankruptcy.
The proposed fund would be financed by companies facing asbestos lawsuits and their insurers. Victims would no longer be able to sue, but would have to go to the fund for payment.
The bill was introduced on Tuesday even though Specter was still uncertain how much support it would have on his committee, which has ten Republicans and eight Democrats.
Five Republican senators on the panel are pressing for changes in the bill before they will back it -- John Cornyn of Texas, Jon Kyl of Arizona, Jeff Sessions of Alabama, Sam Brownback of Kansas, and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma.
These five senators are in turn being pressured to oppose the bill by activists for Freedom Works, a free-market advocacy group founded by former House Majority Leader Dick Armey.
Armey, who has written opinion pieces and letters to newspapers criticizing the proposed $140 billion fund, says it is tantamount to levying new taxes on the asbestos defendant companies and insurers who would pay into it.
His group has been blizzarding the five senators' offices with e-mails and phone calls, and says it is launching radio and newspaper ads against the bill in their home states.
But Specter poured scorn on the campaign, saying "he (Armey) hasn't had one fact straight yet" about the bill.
Leahy noted there were attacks "on both the left and the right." "Maybe we're in a good spot in the middle," he said.
California Democrat Sen. Dianne Feinstein, another co-sponsor, said that before voting for the bill out of committee, she would like to see a list of the companies that would be expected to pay into the fund.
"I could not see myself voting for a bill where I did not know what companies are giving what, so we could make an evaluation, that there is a fair distribution of revenues across the communities involved," she said.
After the news conference, Specter said he was trying to meet her request.
"The companies have been very reluctant to say who is putting in how much money ... but we're trying to get as much transparency as we can," he said.
