[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 85 (Wednesday, June 29, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: June 29, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                   CLOTURE VOTE ON PRODUCT LIABILITY

  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. For the record, Mr. President, I would like to 
provide some detail on my vote today on the second motion for cloture 
on S. 687, the Product Liability Fairness Act.
  Last night, after the Senate first voted to deny cloture on S. 687, 
the bill's managers, along with Senators Dorgan, Moseley-Braun, 
Mikulski, Riegle and I struck what I considered the best compromise, to 
strike altogether provisions of S. 687 which offered a defense against 
punitive damages for drug and medical manufacturers dubbed the ``FDA 
defense'', and save the bill for a constructive floor debate including 
amendments on the other substantive issues. I also submitted an 
amendment that would have imposed criminal penalties on corporations 
that concealed serious dangers in their products from regulatory 
agencies. The goal of the compromise was to show willingness to improve 
the bill and gain enough support to permit the Senate to continue 
working on product liability. Opponents left no alternative but to vote 
for cloture to attain a chance to work on the bill.
  Because the opposition was adamant about preventing any vote on 
amendments prior to a cloture vote, I joined several of my colleagues 
and voted for cloture in an effort to move forward so that amendments 
could be considered and approved. I hoped by invoking cloture we could 
ultimately strike some unfortunate provisions of the bill.
  Trial lawyers and consumer advocates have raised legitimate concerns 
that some of the most high-profile product liability cases have been 
those involving drugs and medical devices, such as DES, Dalkon Shield 
IUDs and silicone gel breast implants, and that the FDA defense in S. 
687 worked to the disadvantage of women. I believed that the best way 
to address that issue was to clarify the FDA defense in the ways that 
the Feinstein/Lieberman amendment proposed to do or to, preferably, 
strike the provisions from the bill altogether, if there were enough 
votes to do so.
  Business leaders from throughout my State of California, however, 
impressed upon me that a level litigation playing field is important to 
their competitiveness and could be accomplished, in part, by uniformity 
and predictability in some aspects of the product liability system 
nationwide.
  As I said yesterday on the Senate floor, this bill had provisions 
which were both fair and reasonable, notwithstanding the FDA defense. 
The 2-year statute of limitations, for example, would have allowed an 
injured person to bring a lawsuit 2-years after they discovered both 
the harm such as cancer, and its cause, such as asbestos. S. 687 would 
have preserved a persons' claim for a year more than currently provided 
in my own State of California, and would have been a big improvement 
over several States' statutes of limitations begin to run before a 
party even knows that they have been injured.
  It was my fundamental belief that the competing positions on this 
bill could have been reconciled to create good public policy. No 
compromise could be reached, however, in a hostile environment where 
sides have staked out their position, decided to filibuster, and 
refused to allow a vote on every constructive amendment. Cloture under 
those circumstances appeared to be the only way to allow the business 
of the Senate to continue.

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