Renewed Effort on Asbestos Bil (continued)
“This indicates that the long-awaited and necessary solution to the asbestos-litigation crisis is still within our grasp this year,” reads a statement from the Asbestos Alliance that is attributed to National Association of Manufacturers executive vice president Michael Baroody. The business group is the leading force behind the Alliance, which includes the few companies (or their successors) that actually made asbestos products.
Likewise, the Asbestos Study Group fired off a press release calling the modified bill “a critical step toward a solution.” The group is a coalition of some of the largest corporations in the country that collectively share a massive liability exposure to asbestos claims.
But some opponents of the bill also resurrected their comments from the debate on the earlier version.
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has not softened his stance against the bill, a spokesman said. “Senator Reid continues to oppose the bill,” the spokesman said. “[Reid] is also confident that it will not pass the Senate this year,” he added.
“The fundamental problem with the proposed asbestos trust fund remains that it creates a brand new multibillion-dollar government program and does nothing to fix the problem in the courts,” former House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas) said via e-mail through a spokesman for FreedomWorks, the conservative grassroots organization where Armey is chairman. “The new legislation does nothing to change the underlying problems of the original bill,” Armey said.
The Association of Trial Lawyers of America was more blunt.
“The legislation is nothing but another bailout for corporations that knowingly exposed millions of people to a deadly substance,” the group said in a statement. “Once again, this bill fails to treat victims fairly while making taxpayers, not the wrongdoers, foot the bill.”
Others that opposed the original bill, such as the AFL-CIO, said that they were still reviewing the changes.
Specter expects that the changes made to the bill will attract one or two more votes, he told the Bloomberg news service last week.
But the impact on the whip count is not immediately clear, and the most significant changes to the bill are based on language or concepts proffered by senators who voted to advance the bill in February, such as Sens. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) and Mary Landrieu (D-La.).
