[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 52 (Wednesday, April 21, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4233-S4234]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       ASBESTOS LITIGATION REFORM

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, let me, first of all, say I tried to not be 
the last person speaking in the Senate, as people want to go home. We 
have lots of people here, including the Presiding Officer. I was asked 
early yesterday to give a statement today, and certain people are 
expecting me to do this. So I apologize to all the staff. I will try to 
be as quick as I can. I do believe that the statement is one that is 
important.
  Let me, first of all, comment on the statements made by Senators 
Hatch and Sessions--those statements I heard today dealing with the 
asbestos legislation. I acknowledge that it is important legislation.
  For example, I met in my office with Ken Bowa from Nevada, one of the 
vice presidents of the Pfizer Company. You would not think that a 
company that manufactures pharmaceuticals would have an asbestos 
problem, but they do. They bought a company 30 years ago,

[[Page S4234]]

or thereabouts, and that company at one time produced a material that 
had asbestos in it. Even though this is a multibillion-dollar company, 
that small purchase they made is causing them a lot of grief. So I know 
the problems from the business perspective. There are lots of problems. 
I understand that. I understand that my friend, Ken Bowa, had the 
interests of his client at heart, as do the other businesspeople, and 
their representatives come to see us.
  One of the issues we always have to understand with asbestos is that 
in addition to the companies having problems, people are killed as a 
result of messing around with asbestos, working with it, working around 
it. Women who washed their husbands' clothes now have very serious 
illnesses, such as asbestosis, mesothelioma. With mesothelioma, it is 
not a question of dying; it is only a question of how soon. The average 
life expectancy is 14 months.
  There is no question that as a result of some of the books written in 
the past year on Libby, MT, ``Fatal Deception,'' where companies knew 
the danger of this product and they covered it up, they hid it, as a 
result of that, people will get sick and will die.
  This is an issue about which we must be very cautious before we do 
something. The main thing we need to do is make sure there is enough 
money to take care of the people who are tragically ill as a result of 
this substance.
  My friend from Alabama, the distinguished junior Senator from 
Alabama, said: Why don't we take care of this bill; there has been a 
lot of work that has gone into it, speaking about the bill on which we 
are going to vote regarding cloture tomorrow.
  We reported out a bill--the way it should be done around here--we 
reported a bill out of committee on a bipartisan vote. That bill had a 
price tag of $154 billion. The bill we are being asked to deal with 
tomorrow has a price tag of $109 billion. That is a huge difference. We 
were not allowed to work on the committee-reported bill. We are now 
being asked to vote on this aberration of that bill.
  This is not about greedy lawyers. It is about sick people. It is 
about companies that are in dire straits as a result of asbestos.
  In spite of all this, we have not taken appropriate action to ban the 
importation of this toxic, poisonous, horrible substance, asbestos. I 
have joined with Patty Murray to deal with the importation of this 
substance into our country, as other countries have done. We have not 
done that. This will need a lot of work.

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