Washington, DC, April 22--Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter said Thursday he will hold a hearing Tuesday to try to answer lawmakers' questions about creating a fund to pay asbestos claims, as pressure mounts for more details on how it would be financed.
Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican, and Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the panel's ranking Democrat, introduced legislation creating the $140 billion fund this week and are seeking to build committee support before the panel votes on the bill next Thursday.
Illinois Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin, who has criticized several provisions of the bill, requested the hearing. But one of the bill's co-sponsors, California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein, said she needs more information too -- especially which companies would be paying into the fund and how much.
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 forced many companies into bankruptcy.
The proposed fund would be financed by companies facing asbestos lawsuits and their insurers; their reward would be having their liability capped. Victims would no longer be able to sue, but would go to the fund for payment.
Speaking at a business meeting of the Judiciary Committee, Feinstein said she hopes Specter will have details about the asbestos fund's financing by next Tuesday's hearing so that lawmakers do not later learn of "gross irregularities."
She stopped short of saying her continued support was conditional on getting the information, but said: "It is very difficult to pass a bill on $140 billion and not know where the $140 billion is coming from."
The legislation provides for publishing the funding information once the bill is law and the fund is operational.
Specter said Feinstein's point was "well taken" and agreed: "We need to know where the money is coming from."
But he said companies -- which have agreed to finance the fund -- have been reluctant to say before the bill is passed how much they would be contributing individually because it could make them the target of more asbestos injury claims.
In talks with lawmakers in the last Congress, asbestos defendant companies agreed they could provide about two-thirds of the funding, with insurers providing about one-third.
After the hearing, a Republican member of the panel whose support Specter has been courting backed Feinstein's request.
"We need more transparency so we know whether this thing will work. The problem is, we're asked to take too much on faith without being able to examine the facts, and I think that's not a good way to legislate," Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn told reporters.
Cornyn is one of five Republican senators on the panel who are pressing for changes in the bill before they will back it. The others are Jon Kyl of Arizona, Jeff Sessions of Alabama, Sam Brownback of Kansas and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma.
Specter is struggling to win enough over so that a majority of the committee's 10 Republicans support the bill. He is also trying not to alienate Democrats. Of the panel's eight Democrats, only Leahy and Feinstein have backed the bill.
