Washington, DC, October 4, 2005--Leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee have asked senators to prepare amendments in case legislation to create a $140 billion asbestos compensation fund is brought up for a vote this month.
Sen. Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican, and Sen. Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, sent letters to senators last week asking them to notify the bill's sponsors as soon as possible of any amendments they intended to offer.
"We write to alert you on the possibility, perhaps likelihood, that we could secure floor time in October for the asbestos reform bill," Specter and Leahy said in a letter dated Sept. 30 and shown to Reuters by Senate aides on Monday.
"We have been advised to be ready in the event limited floor time becomes available," Specter and Leahy said.
Asbestos fibers have been used in building materials, auto parts and other products for decades, but are linked to cancer and other diseases. Hundreds of thousands of injury claims have pushed many companies into bankruptcy.
Specter and Leahy are co-authors of the bill to take asbestos injury claims out of the courts and pay them from a fund financed by asbestos defendant companies and insurers.
Specter insisted on Monday that it was realistic to hope the asbestos legislation could be brought up for a vote in October. "I'm not saying it's going to happen, but it's realistic," he told reporters.
He said he had "plenty of time" to deal with the complex legislation, even though his committee would be handling President Bush's nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court.
The asbestos fund legislation was voted out of judiciary committee in May, but amid doubts about the bill in both parties, it has not been brought to the Senate floor.
Before official Washington was inundated by business related to Hurricane Katrina and two Supreme Court nominations, the Senate's Majority Leader Bill Frist, a Tennessee Republican, had pledged to bring the asbestos bill up for a vote in the autumn.
Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn, who has raised questions about the proposed asbestos fund's solvency and fairness to companies that would be paying into the fund, said on Monday that the legislation was clearly getting squeezed by the Senate's crowded agenda in the aftermath of Katrina.
Meanwhile, "proponents have yet to come up with answers to the questions" about the bill, Cornyn said through a spokesman.
Patrick Hanlon, an attorney for the National Association of Manufacturers, which has generally advocated an asbestos compensation fund, said he thought the bill would be voted on in the Senate either this year or early next year. The House of Representatives is waiting for the Senate to act first.
"Katrina doesn't make this asbestos bill less important," Hanlon said, because "you are still talking about some 80 bankruptcies" of companies that have faced asbestos claims.
