Washington, DC, Jun. 11--Senate leaders said Thursday that there was no deal on legislation that would overhaul the asbestos litigation system.
There have been rumors circulating on Wall Street that a deal had been reached.
"Contrary to market rumors, there has been no deal reached on the issue of asbestos," Senate Minority Leader Thomas Daschle, D-S.D., said in a statement. Amy Call, a spokeswoman for Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., also said that no deal had been reached and there weren't even any discussions on the matter this week. Congress has essentially been shut down this week over the death of former president Ronald Reagan.
Earlier this year Senate lawmakers failed to gather enough votes to proceed to a bill that would have created an asbestos litigation trust fund and moved all state claims into a special federal court.
Daschle and Frist then agreed to a couple of weeks of negotiations on the bill that were led by a federal judge. Those talks broke down last month. Discussions on asbestos at the staff level between Daschle and Frist will continue but it's unlikely a final deal will be reached this year given the relatively few legislative days remaining before Congress adjourns ahead of the November elections.
Business groups and organized labor continue to disagree on elements of the bill, with organized labor saying that the size of the roughly $124 billion fund needs to be larger.
