Asbestos Bill on Its Way, U.S. Senate's Frist Says (Reuters)

(This should be called the Halliburton/Bush Family relief Act, see this link <http://www.mesothelioma-lawsuits-asbestos.com/halliburton_asbestos_claim.html>)

Asbestos Bill on Its Way, U.S. Senate's Frist Says

Tue Apr 5, 2005 01:57 PM ET

By Susan Cornwell

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said on Tuesday he was confident a bill setting up a national fund to pay a flood of asbestos claims would be on the Senate floor soon, despite insurers' calls to try to resolve the problem in the courts. "I am confident we will have a bill, a bipartisan bill, that centers on a trust fund, on the floor of the Senate in the not too distant future," Frist, a Tennessee Republican, told reporters in a briefing on the Senate floor. He said he was not discouraged that some insurance companies had written again to complain about Sen. Arlen Specter's draft bill. Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican, wants to take asbestos claims out of court and pay them from a $140 billion trust funded by business and insurers.

The insurance companies, some of them long-time critics of the trust fund plan, said they had serious doubts lawmakers could create a fund that is fair to everyone involved and affordable for companies paying into it, as well as providing a final solution to asbestos claims which keep coming in. "The remaining problems with this potential trust fund bill are likely to be unfixable," the dozen insurers, including American International Group Inc . declared. Instead, they said, lawmakers should try to remedy the "asbestos litigation nightmare" by establishing medical criteria for filing asbestos injury claims in court. Key Senate Republicans rejected the medical criteria approach two years ago as unlikely to attract enough Democratic support to pass. But they have been unable so far to get explicit Democratic backing for the trust fund idea, either.

Shares of U.S. companies fighting asbestos suits fell on Tuesday on news of the insurers' complaints. Building materials company Owens Corning was down 15 percent. Crystal Skinner, an analyst who follows asbestos issues with Susquehanna Financial Group, said the stock impact might soften when people remember several of the same insurers sent a similar letter to Specter earlier this year, saying they could not support his legislation.

However, Skinner sees no better than a 30 percent chance of the asbestos trust fund legislation passing in 2005. "A lot of people have it built into their expectations that it's difficult to get this done, and that there are a number of objections and a number of insurance companies have made these objections before," she said. Asbestos is linked to cancer and other diseases. Thousands of injury claims have forced many companies into bankruptcy. Continued ...

I can't wait

break to Halliburton and now they will get it.:grr:

great. Just great.