Senate Focus on Veto Question Delays Asbestos Bill
Washington, DC, May 20—-The bill to establish a $140 billion asbestos compensation fund has been slowed by a Senate fight over approving judges but supporters are pressing ahead and even one critic of the legislation said on Thursday he expected it to clear the Senate Judiciary Committee.
A fourth session of the committee to consider amendments was forced to stop work at midday on Thursday because of the Senate floor brawl over judicial nominees.
Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter said he would try to resume work on the bill next Tuesday and hoped events would allow a longer session. The Pennsylvania Republican said he thought he had a "fighting chance" of getting the bill approved by the panel next week despite dozens of pending amendments and the fireworks over judges.
But one senator who has so far withheld his support because of concerns about the proposed fund's solvency, Arizona Republican Sen. Jon Kyl, said he figured the bill's backers had the votes to get it out of committee. "I'm assuming that they do," Kyl told reporters.
His own vote, Kyl said, might not matter at this point, but he still would try to improve the bill and planned to meet sponsors on Monday to discuss possible changes.
Asbestos fibers have been used in building materials, auto parts and other products for decades but are linked to cancer and other diseases.
The bill would take asbestos injury claims out of the courts and pay them from the fund, to be financed by asbestos defendant companies and their insurers. The measure is sponsored by Specter and the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont.
On Thursday, the Judiciary Committee voted 12-5 against a study of whether there is a link between asbestos exposure and lung cancer in people who had lengthy exposure to asbestos but lacked the markers the mineral typically leaves in the lungs.
Massachusetts Democrat Sen. Edward Kennedy had called for the study, saying the bill as written would leave thousands who had worked with asbestos, and then contracted lung cancer, unable to go to court or to the fund to get compensation.
"There will never be support in the Senate for an asbestos bill that leaves these men and women with nothing," warned Kennedy. The study was "the least we can do for them," he said.
Specter countered that there were worries the bill would be turned into a compensation fund for cancer caused by smoking, instead of asbestos. Leahy warned the amendment would undo carefully crafted compromises that had gone into the bill.
Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn, a Republican, was more explicit. "It (Kennedy's amendment) kills the bill,' he said.
"The bill is in trouble anyway in terms of the money that's going to be drawn out of it," Coburn said. He said there were 172,000 cases of lung cancer in the United States every year and they could not all collect from the fund.
The panel did approve a package of amendments including one linking the fund's start-up to publication of names of companies that would pay into it. Another, offered by Kyl, would guarantee the federal government will not be liable for any borrowing by the fund from the Federal Financing Bank.
