Washington, DC, July 16--An asbestos compensation bill could reach the Senate floor before September, the chamber's majority leader said Tuesday, but other senators and aides were skeptical it could be scheduled that soon.
Senate Republican Leader Bill Frist said it would be another week before the version of the bill approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee last Thursday, with a number of amendments, was put in final written form.
The proposal to take asbestos lawsuits out of the courts and create a fund of up to $153 billion to pay victims narrowly passed the Republican-run committee after three final days of lengthy and sometimes rancorous debate.
But neither Democrats nor Republicans are entirely happy with the measure and both want to make changes to the bill when it comes to the floor.
Insurers think they are bearing too big a burden and organized labor says the payouts are not generous enough. Both groups oppose the current measure, which may not have the 60 votes needed to overcome procedural hurdles in the Senate.
"Nobody has seen the language yet," Frist, a Tennessee Republican, said of the committee-passed measure.
"Until we see that, sit down and talk about it, it won't be formally scheduled (for floor action). It could come up before (the August recess), or it could come up afterwards."
But another senior Republican senator who abstained from the committee vote, Jon Kyl of Arizona, said September would be the earliest the bill could reach the Senate floor.
"We won't get it up in July. There's too much work to do on it," said Kyl, the chairman of the Senate Republican Policy Committee.
One Senate Republican leadership aide said it would be "extremely difficult, if not impossible," for the bill to be scheduled for Senate action this summer, because the chamber needed to work on appropriations measures and an energy bill.
The Senate's last scheduled day before the summer break is Aug. 1 and the chamber returns to work on Sept. 2.
Asbestos was widely used for fireproofing and insulation until the 1970s, when scientists concluded that inhaled fibers could be linked to cancer and other diseases. Lawsuits over the mineral have driven 67 companies into bankruptcy.
