[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 6]
[Senate]
[Pages 6982-6986]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




FAIRNESS IN ASBESTOS INJURY RESOLUTION ACT OF 2004--MOTION TO PROCEED--
                               Continued

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The pending business is the motion to proceed 
to the consideration of S. 2290.
  The Senator from Utah.
  Mr. HATCH. Did the distinguished Senator from Delaware have a desire 
to speak?
  Mr. CARPER. Just for 5 minutes.
  Mr. HATCH. I ask I be given the privilege of speaking thereafter.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. REID. What was the unanimous consent request?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The unanimous consent is that Senator Carper 
be given 5 minutes, after which Senator Hatch will be given 5 minutes.
  The Senator from Delaware.
  Mr. CARPER. Before Senator Specter leaves the Chamber, I express my 
thanks to him and certainly to Judge Becker for the willingness to 
enter into what many people describe as one of the most complex issues 
we will face this year or any year in the U.S. Congress to try to see 
if there is a way to ensure that people who are sick and dying from 
asbestos exposure get the help they need; folks who are not sick, who 
become sick, get the help they need, and that the companies which have 
a fair amount of exposure, whether they be manufacturers or insurance 
companies, get some certainty with respect to their financial 
obligations.
  I am more encouraged at this moment than I have been for some time 
that we may have the beginning of a negotiating process. I realize 
these negotiations are going under the sponsorship of Senator Specter 
and the leadership of Judge Becker. If we are fortunate enough to get 
the buy-in from both leaders, Senator Frist and Senator Daschle, these 
negotiations, led by Judge Becker, should be the vehicle.
  We do not have to go out and invent a new negotiation process. This 
is one that works. Judge Becker is smart as a whip. He got the 
involvement of the leadership staff on both sides. Senator Hatch's 
staff, Senator Leahy's staff, Senator Dodd, myself, and others have 
been actively involved in these negotiations through Judge Becker.
  This is a good process. We ought to build on this process. I have 
encouraged our leader to take ownership of the process--not to take 
away from Judge Becker but to ask him to continue to work. Judge 
Becker, for reasons that are beyond my pay grade, enjoys the confidence 
of labor. He enjoys the confidence of the insurers. He enjoys the 
confidence of the manufacturers, the defendants in these cases, and I 
think the respect of the trial bar. What we need to do is take him up 
on the offer, on his willingness to stay here and work with us.
  My hope is we will end up with a negotiation that will lead not to 
further negotiation but a bill, another bill in the Senate, building on 
what has come to the Senate already.
  I had a chance to talk with Senator Hatch a few minutes ago off the 
floor. He expressed a willingness to wait for as much as a month before 
we actually take up the bill. That gives this negotiating process 
another 4 weeks to bear fruit, further fruit--it has already borne a 
lot--and for us to take up at a date certain--I suggest maybe the week 
before the Memorial Day recess--to take up the bill, to negotiate, to 
debate, to amend it, and to pass it.
  I am, again, more encouraged than I have been in some time. I express 
my thanks, again, to the Senator from Pennsylvania for his leadership.
  I thank Senator Hatch. I know this is near and dear to his heart, and 
Senator Leahy and both of our leaders. We can get this done, and we 
have to.
  I thank the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I thank my colleague. However, I am not as 
sure we are going to get this done as he is. I have to say, we have 
been working on this for 15 months. We have met innumerable times with 
our friends on the other side. We have met with every party involved 
here. I have tried to do everything I possibly can to bring everybody 
together. This is mired in politics. There is no question about it.
  We are talking about a motion to proceed. How often in the Senate 
have we had a filibuster against a motion to proceed to a bill, when 
you can filibuster the bill, too? So you would have two filibusters on 
this bill, assuming we were to invoke cloture on a motion to proceed. 
It shows the lengths to which some will go in an election year to play 
partisan politics.
  Look, we have done everything in our power to accommodate Democrats. 
We have made so many changes to accommodate the Democrats on this that 
I have gotten excoriated by the Wall Street Journal and others who I do 
not think have looked at these negotiations or understand what is going 
on.
  Keep in mind, there are 8,400 companies that would like to resolve 
this problem, many of which are going to go into bankruptcy. Seventy 
have already gone into bankruptcy. Those jobs are lost. Those pensions 
are lost. The money we could have here to help settle this is lost. 
Those were the main companies that handled asbestos. The remaining 
companies are those that have some peripheral experience with asbestos 
but really did not do the wrongs. But under this system, which is out 
of whack according to the Supreme Court of the United States of 
America, and any reasonable person who looks at it, we have unjust 
litigation going on all over this country for people who are not even 
sick. A high percentage of the cases brought are for people who have 
never had a sick day in their lives--certainly not from asbestos. It is 
another scam, in many respects. Not all of them; some of these cases 
are valid. That is why we want to come up with $114 billion, that we 
have had to force the companies to come up with, to try to solve these 
problems.
  This has not been easy, and it has not been fun for me or anybody 
else in this process. The fact of the matter is, there is a high 
percentage of these lawsuits that are unjustified that are costing us 
an arm and a leg. Let's be honest about it, 60 percent of all the money 
we are talking about here--assuming we cannot get this bill passed--
will go for attorneys' fees and transaction costs, not to the people 
who need help. Mesothelioma victims are getting 5 cents on the dollar, 
if that, about $17,000 for an absolute cancer that has destroyed their 
lives and has caused them death.
  I do have some comments to make about the comments my good friend, 
the distinguished minority leader, made this morning. I would like to 
make some comments with regard to Senator Daschle's statements this 
morning. He stated a lung cancer victim with 15 years of exposure would 
receive only $25,000 in compensation. That is painting a very 
incomplete picture, which I would like to finish. If we are going to 
paint the picture, let's paint the whole picture.
  First, that picture is the bottom range of compensation. Under the 
claims values in the FAIR Act we have come up with, claimants who were 
exposed to asbestos and still smoking will receive between $25,000 to 
$75,000 in compensation. And for the record, Senators Leahy and Kennedy 
have stated

[[Page 6983]]

they want $50,000 for claimants falling into this category. But it is 
between $25,000 and $75,000.
  Mr. President, I have come here to discuss the FAIR Act. We have a 
chance to help those who have suffered from asbestos-related injuries 
for far too long. Many people have spent months getting us to this 
point. I want to assure we have a complete picture of the bill for the 
record. We owe at least that much to the victims.
  By the way, these are people who do not have any markers, do not have 
any evidence through X-rays or any other reason to show asbestos has 
caused their cancer. Yet we are willing to give $25,000 to $75,000 to 
them. If they get mesothelioma, they have a right to go and get the 
million dollars under the schedule we have agreed to in the Judiciary 
Committee. It does not stop them from getting fair compensation. But it 
certainly is a misrepresentation to say they are only getting $25,000. 
These are heavy-duty smokers. Almost everybody knows their cancers come 
from smoking, but we bent over backwards to give consideration that 
possibly there may be some connection to asbestos, even though there is 
no evidence.
  Senator Sarbanes, the distinguished Senator from Maryland, stated we, 
and I quote, ``sprung'' the bill on the Democratic Senators and their 
staff. Come on. Senator Daschle called attention to the total fund 
value. I want to state for the record Senator Daschle's staff was 
informed of the new numbers last October. That was 6 months ago. Since 
October, there have been repeated and continuing discussions of these 
numbers over the ensuing months, and we had many months of discussion 
prior to that. We have been on this for 15 solid months on a daily 
basis, and we have worked with Democrats on the other side. We have 
worked with everybody involved, including the personal injury lawyers 
who do not want to lose this bird in the cage.
  Now we repeatedly asked the Democrats for a response to the numbers. 
Repeatedly we have asked. We have received none. We repeatedly asked 
the Democrats for a legislative proposal they would like to make, a 
concept of a structure, something, anything. We have received nothing. 
As Senator Daschle knows, this so-called new bill we allegedly 
``sprung'' on him includes the very numbers we released months ago, the 
changes demanded by the Democrats and the changes demanded by the 
unions. We have all kinds of changes we have made for these parties in 
this matter. This is not some little sprung deal. The Democrats have 
had every right to participate in these processes, and some have. Some 
have been kept from these processes by their own party members.
  I would like to respond to a few of the statements made by my 
colleague from South Dakota, Senator Daschle, earlier this morning 
regarding S. 2290, the Fairness in Asbestos Injury Resolution Act of 
2004. If I recall it correctly--and I was watching as Senator Daschle 
stated there was no reversion to the tort system should the moneys not 
be there--and the moneys are there. Virtually everybody who has 
effectively studied this says this amount of money we have in this bill 
will take care of the problem. In fact, though, there is a reversion to 
the tort system should it not. Should the fund become insolvent, then 
claimants with asbestos injuries who have not received compensation 
under the fund may pursue their claims in the courts at that time. So 
that statement there is no reversion is simply wrong. Again, we have 
worked closely with our colleagues on the other side. That was their 
idea, and we accepted it.
  Naturally one of the problems in this matter is some of these 
personal injury lawyers, who really know better, have been forum 
shopping to special jurisdictions that are out of whack that literally 
do not care what the law says and literally do not care about justice 
or doing what is right. Some say--I hope this is not true--but some say 
they are bought and paid for by the personal injury lawyers in their 
respective jurisdictions.
  There are at least four or five jurisdictions in this country where 
you can go in and get whopping verdicts for no injuries, like one 
verdict in one of these counties in one of these preferred 
jurisdictions by, I think, dishonest personal injury lawyers, or at 
least those who are exploiting the system, where there was $150 million 
granted for five plaintiffs, not one of whom had been sick a day from 
asbestos. That money is not going to those who really are sick, which 
this bill does. Even the Supreme Court has said this system is broken.
  I am not against further negotiations. We are happy to do it. That is 
one reason why this bill is on the floor right now, because we are 
going to have a vote on this. It might be a cloture vote on a motion to 
proceed, of all things, but at least we are going to have a vote so 
people know where some of these folks stand. Some people have used this 
bill to raise money for their campaigns, saying they are going to be 
for it, and yet when push comes to shove, they are never for it, it is 
never good enough, there is never enough money. Yet, as I have said, we 
have not had a proposal, we have not had a dollar figure, except 
outrageous figures nobody can meet, off the top of the head.
  We can talk about 15 months of very heavy-duty slogging here. Now 
they want more time?
  I would like to take a couple minutes to talk briefly about some of 
the improvements in the Fairness in Asbestos Injury Resolution Act. We 
worked our guts out to get a bill out of committee. It was a very tough 
thing. I remember staying into the, I think it was the wee hours of the 
morning or at least pretty close to midnight that night debating this 
bill. There were some amendments added that I have to admit I didn't 
like and that would have made it impossible for this bill to pass on 
the floor. But we have worked very hard. Since then, we have had 
countless meetings with unions, with personal injury lawyers, with 
victims, with companies, with insurance companies, trying to bring 
everybody together.
  This bill was reported by the Senate Judiciary Committee after a 
lengthy committee markup spanning four separate meetings. S. 1125, the 
bill reported out of committee, included, among other unprecedented 
achievements, a major bipartisan solution with respect to medical 
criteria where all of the committee members--and this committee is 
ideologically divided, very tough--agreed on eligibility requirements 
for determining asbestos-related injuries compensable under the act and 
over 50 other consensus-building provisions. It and other bipartisan 
agreements remain in S. 2290, the bill we are discussing today.
  S. 2290, as many have noted, makes additional significant 
improvements over the committee bill from a lot of hard work. I praise 
Senator Leahy, Senator Specter, the majority leader, and others who 
have worked so hard. Of course, their staffs have worked so hard on a 
day-in-day-out basis to try to solve these problems. These improvements 
reflect agreements reached in continuing negotiation among 
representatives of organized labor and industry that were mediated by 
our colleague from Pennsylvania, Senator Specter. I praise our mutual 
friend, chief judge emeritus of the Federal Third Circuit Court of 
Appeals, Judge Edward Becker, who has played a pivotal significant role 
here.
  First, let me briefly highlight some of the key provisions of this 
important legislation. S. 2290 ends the broken asbestos litigation 
system and replaces it with a privately funded asbestos victims 
compensation program for the payment of asbestos claims.
  The key elements of the asbestos victims compensation program include 
an office of asbestos disease compensation headed by an administrator 
for processing and paying claims; a no-fault system based on sound and 
fair eligibility requirements. That no-fault system will not require 
attorneys in most instances and will save the attorney's fees. Sixty 
percent of the moneys here go to the people who are really sick. That 
no-fault system is a very important step. It includes a nonadversarial, 
streamlined, and less burdensome claims process with only two levels of 
review. In most cases, the claimant probably will not need an attorney 
or if

[[Page 6984]]

the claimant has an attorney, we provide for attorney's fees under the 
bill, but on a scaled down basis.
  There is still $2.5 billion in this bill for attorneys, even under 
this system. It provides for over $100 billion in funding assured over 
a period of 27 years, actually $114 billion with a $10 billion 
contingent fund added on. So you could look at it as $124 billion that 
we are forcing these companies, including the insurance companies, 
which have limited liability by the way, we are forcing them to pay 
into this fund upwards of $124 billion, if it is needed. But $114 
billion will be made available, and it does have that $10 billion in 
contingent funding for defendants.
  S. 2290 bans future asbestos use to eliminate the dangers caused by 
asbestos exposure. It provides grants for mesothelioma research and 
treatment centers, hopefully to find a way to resolve some of the 
problems.
  This represents a good-faith effort to improve this fine legislation. 
That is just some of the changes. No piece of legislation is perfect, 
but I am certain that with these changes a very good piece of 
legislation got better.
  Let's go to the improvements over S. 1125. We had to get a bill out 
of committee. It was a hard-fought battle. It took us four markups and 
a major all-day session. Let me list some of the improvements.
  This is less adversarial. It provides for a less adversarial, more 
streamlined administrative process, including less levels of review 
than the original bill. This bill has a more user-friendly application 
process and expanded claimant assistance program, where you might not 
even need lawyers to eat up the funds, although you could have a lawyer 
if you want one.
  This provides interim authority, interim regulations, upfront 
funding, and increases borrowing to facilitate the prompt startup of 
paying these folks who have suffered--the real claimants, not these 
people who haven't suffered who are getting moneys from these false 
jurisdictions.
  This bill increases claims values. Mesothelioma victims are now 
getting, in many cases, 5 cents on the dollar. This bill resolves that 
problem, just to mention one thing.
  This has more secure funding because it guarantees mandatory funding 
from funding participants. It gives audit authority and civil penalties 
for false statements and fraud. It has stronger enforcement authority, 
and it has additional safeguards to ensure priority of payments to the 
fund.
  It also increases liquidity and provides more flexibility to address 
short-term funding problems. It has a more orderly wind-up of the fund 
and transition back to the tort system in the event of a sunset, with 
payment in full for all resolved claims. It also provides grants for 
mesothelioma research and treatment centers that are also required to 
participate in a mesothelioma disease registry. All of these would be 
wonderful.
  This new bill increases compensation going to victims over what they 
are getting today. The attorneys do real well, but the victims aren't 
doing quite as well. It revises the funding provisions to help 
guarantee funding and to protect the solvency of the fund, while 
ensuring that any risk or shortfall rests on defendants and insurers, 
not on claimants. It establishes a more streamlined, less adversarial 
and less burdensome administrative system than provided in our original 
bill, S. 1125, that will be up and running more quickly. It provides 
grants for mesothelioma research and treatment to help find a cure for 
this deadly disease.
  I emphasize that S. 2290 puts even more money in the hands of victims 
than provided in S. 1125 as reported by the committee, which was 
already estimated to put over one and one and a half times more money 
into the pockets of victims than they would have received under the 
current tort system where more than half of the resources now go into 
the pockets of the plaintiffs' and defendants' lawyers.
  I am pleased to say, with the leadership of our majority leader, 
Senator Frist, S. 2290 raises award values in certain categories, 
focusing those diseases that are most clearly caused by exposure to 
asbestos.
  I might add that as a thoracic surgeon Senator Frist brings a unique 
perspective on this legislation. I think it is fair to say that he is 
the only Member of this body who has performed surgery on mesothelioma 
patients. The values from the negotiations conducted by Senator Frist 
led to an increase of $100,000 for severe and disabling asbestosis, 
among other increases.
  Values for smokers and ex-smokers with lung cancer under levels 8 and 
9 were also notably increased, although most likely their cancers came 
from their heavy-duty smoking. That involves a lot of union members who 
probably would get nothing if it weren't for this bill. For the life of 
me, I don't understand why the union leaders have not been totally for 
this. I have heard them privately say this is a good bill. I commend 
Senator Frist for his insight and efforts in this process.
  Although some Democrats and some affected parties assert that values 
in S. 2290 are not enough, they generally only focus on the values for 
exposure-only lung cancers. Most experts believe these claimants have 
no clearly established link that the lung cancer was caused by asbestos 
exposure, such as underlying asbestosis, and may have been heavy 
smokers all their lives. There is no evidence in these cases that their 
cancer or lung problems have come from asbestos exposure, but we give 
them the benefit of the doubt in this bill. Some conservatives think 
that goes way too far. Even though these people have been heavy smokers 
all their lives and we know that leads to cancer, we have been willing 
to go this far in the bill. Some of these experts provided testimony to 
the Judiciary Committee that an exposure-only lung cancer disease 
category runs an extremely high risk that lung cancer falling within 
this category are, in fact, not conclusively attributable to asbestos 
exposure. That is putting it mildly. Providing increased compensation 
for these smoking-related claimants could frustrate the purpose of the 
fund and put the fund at risk. In fact, lung cancer claimants with no 
markers or impairment from asbestos currently receive nothing from 
today's bankruptcy trusts--zero. This bill gives them the benefit of 
the doubt. These claims with no markers and no impairment--meaning no 
indications at all that asbestos was involved--almost always result in 
defense verdicts in today's tort system.
  Here we provide the benefit of the doubt to them in the bill. Some 
have criticized that, but that is how far we have gone to try to get 
the other side to do something and debate this bill. If they don't like 
provisions of it, file amendments and bring them up. We are willing to 
debate them. They may win on some of these amendments. I can live with 
that. But to just continue to filibuster everything that can help this 
country immeasurably at this time seems to me to be hitting below the 
belt.
  Upon close consultation with organized labor, S. 2290 contains 
additional changes to ensure that more money is put into the hands of 
victims more quickly. Specifically, this entailed locating the program 
at the Department of Labor. The Wall Street Journal doesn't like that 
idea and neither do some of my fellow Republicans. But that is how far 
we have gone to accommodate them and try to bring this to closure. This 
is a major change from the bill as reported by the committee--which 
assigned the claims processing function to the Court of Claims. I have 
to admit, I don't particularly like that provision. I thought the Court 
of Claims would do a better job. I think any court would probably do a 
better job. On the other hand, these people are expert in some of these 
things. The Government is not making these payments. Payments have to 
come from the companies. So it is not something like black lung that 
goes off the charts year after year. It is no secret that the 
administration has serious reservations about this change. In fact, I 
have questions about these provisions myself, but in the spirit of good 
faith and compromise, we decided to include this new administrative 
mechanism in order to attempt to put more funds

[[Page 6985]]

into the hands of the families suffering from asbestos-related illness. 
We did this in an attempt to accommodate our friends on the other 
side--attempt after attempt after attempt--and here we are with a 
filibuster on the motion to proceed. We have acted in good faith. I 
think a filibuster is in bad faith.
  Reimbursement of costs for physical examinations are now provided as 
part of the medical monitoring program, and structured payments are now 
required to be made in a 40/30/30 split over a 3-year period, unless a 
stretch out to 4 years is required to protect the solvency of the fund.
  The Hatch-Frist-Miller FAIR Act also improves the committee bill by 
providing more secure funding and additional protections in the fund's 
solvency, while maintaining that the risk of insolvency falls onto the 
various industries involved. Most of them should not be here. Most of 
them are companies that hardly ever did anything with asbestos, but 
because they have either acquired a smaller company, or had some 
contact with asbestos, although not significant, they are hauled into 
all these cases, and they are going to have to come up with moneys they 
should never have had to come up with. The mandatory funding for 
defendants is guaranteed, and moneys from insurers are infused into the 
fund in the early years where the most claims are anticipated. The 
increased enforcement authority of the Attorney General to compel 
payment and other additional safeguards, such as requiring a priority 
for payment obligations to the fund in State insurance receivership 
proceedings, further bolsters the fund's solvency. Also, increased 
borrowing authority provides more liquidity and will help with the 
short-term funding problems.
  Let me talk about some of the safeguards: We have over $100 billion 
in guaranteed mandatory funding; $114 billion plus $10 billion 
contingency; a strong enforcement measure for underpayment and 
nonpayment; borrowing authority of 7 years future revenue ensures 
liquidity; regular program reviews, including claims and funding 
analysis with recommendations for improvements; annual reports to 
Congress on the status of the fund, with recommendations for 
improvements--Congress can make changes if it has to; and $10 billion 
in contingent funding; a risk of insolvency placed on companies with a 
sunset provision.
  Those are all safeguards we put into the bill, much to the credit of 
our friends on the other side, who now appear to be filibustering this 
bill--even the motion to proceed. Of course, they are now asking for 
even more time for discussion.
  Look, I have been told by people who know--or at least think they 
know--some who have speculated that we are never going to get a bill 
this year because it is an election year, and there is a lot of money 
involved from the personal injury lawyers. By the way, like the 
bankruptcy bill, a lot of money is involved by the companies who tend 
to pour it into people objecting to the bill, hoping they will somehow 
or other do what is right and support the bill. I hope that is not the 
case, but the more this drags out and the more we have filibusters on 
motions to proceed; and on this bill, after all the concessions we have 
made and the negotiations we have had, the more I come to the 
conclusion maybe these rumors are true. In fact, I know a lot of people 
who believe they are true.
  Because of these new financial safeguards I have discussed, the 
Hatch-Frist-Miller bill was able to modify the amendment proposed by 
Senator Biden and adopted in committee, which allowed for a reversion 
to the tort system in the event the fund becomes insolvent. Many 
members of the committee--and I thought Senator Biden himself--
recognized that the provisions in his amendment, voted on late with 
little discussion with the committee, needed further review. We are 
pleased our new language satisfies the problem the Biden amendment 
addressed in the first place, but do so in a more flexible and 
deliberative fashion.
  Simply stated, the Hatch-Frist-Miller bill replaces these provisions 
with an alternative program review that will give the administrator 
more time and more flexibility to address any unanticipated short-term 
funding problems. Under the new bill, full payment of all resolved 
claims is required. To create a smoother transition and to avoid 
recreating the current manifest shortcomings in a handful of State 
courts, the fund will revert to the Federal court system. We must not 
lose sight of the fact that it is the aberrational result in the courts 
of a few States--especially Mississippi, Illinois, and West Virginia--
that has triggered this national crisis.
  Let me emphasize that under the new language, any risk that the 
funding is insufficient would still fall on defendants with claimants 
able to get their day in court.
  Members and other interested parties need not worry that any risk of 
insolvency will fall on the claimants.
  I can give you cases that are 20 years long without any resolution to 
the people who have been injured. This solves those problems almost 
instantly.
  Another significant change I would like to discuss further is the new 
administrative structure and claims handling procedures provided in the 
Hatch-Frist-Miller bill. While the committee bill created a more 
accessible and simpler claims processing system for claimants than 
found in the tort system, organized labor continued to express concerns 
that the administrative structure under S. 1125 was too adversarial and 
cumbersome.
  The agreement mediated by Senator Specter and Judge Becker to move 
claims processing from the Court of Federal Claims to an executive 
office situated in the Department of Labor included numerous 
refinements made in consultation with labor union representatives. They 
were brought in in every way, and they are the ones who demanded this. 
Senator Specter and Judge Becker have negotiated it.
  In addition to placing the office within the Department of Labor--
against the preference of the Department of Labor, I might add--or an 
independent executive agency, as requested by industry who lost on this 
issue, the new language also includes simplifying the claims 
application process, expanding the claimant assistance program, and 
requiring the creation of exposure presumptions to reduce the burden of 
proof for claimants in high-risk employments.
  We made further refinements addressing concerns raised by Senator 
Feinstein and others that there may be an undue delay in starting up a 
new claims system, forcing mesothelioma victims and victims whose 
claims have been sitting in court for years to wait even longer to 
receive compensation. Senator Feinstein's amendment could have 
unintentionally threatened the fund itself by diverting resources away 
from the fund and to unimpaired claimants.
  Instead, the Hatch-Frist-Miller bill provides interim regulations for 
the processing of claims, including exigent claims, interim authority, 
upfront funding, and increased borrowing authority, which all go toward 
ensuring the system is up and running as soon as possible after the 
date of enactment. Good public policy demands expedited termination of 
the broken tort system and preservation of funds so that payments can 
go to the most worthy claimants, as defined by the consensus medical 
criteria.
  As a final note, proposals for research moneys for mesothelioma were 
circulated in committee. Mesothelioma victims generally live only a 
year or so after diagnosis of this horrible disease. More research is 
needed on mesothelioma to find better treatments and even a cure, and I 
am pleased this bill addresses this problem.
  Our bill now provides up to $50 million--and I am willing to consider 
increasing that amount--in grants to mesothelioma research and 
treatment centers. In addition, these centers must be associated with 
the Department of Veterans Affairs medical centers to provide research 
benefits and care to veterans who have suffered excessively from 
mesothelioma. These, along with the asbestos ban, are important and 
vital pieces of legislation that must not be overlooked.

[[Page 6986]]

  Again, I tried to highlight here some of the major changes from S. 
1125 as reported, many of which were made to address the concerns 
raised by various members in committee, especially on the Democratic 
side. These revisions are aimed at ensuring that the program 
established under the FAIR Act is fair to victims.
  In short, the Hatch-Frist-Miller bill represents a reasonable and 
fair solution to the asbestos litigation crisis and may be the only 
solution to it. Members from both sides of the aisle recognize that an 
equitable compensation program is necessary.
  I believe S. 2290, the Hatch-Frist-Miller bill, meets the test. I 
urge all of my colleagues to support this bill and at least support 
debate on this bill and bring up amendments so we can see what further 
changes the Senate, in working its will, will require. We should 
certainly see that this bill is fully considered by the Senate.
  Having said all of that, I am very concerned that this bill is being 
treated only politically; that there are those who are afraid to vote 
on this matter; that there are those who do not want to be involved in 
this matter right now; that there are those who want to stop this 
matter because of political pressure by special interest groups.
  We now have 8,400 companies that are being sued, and it may go as 
high as 15,000. I might add that we have about 16 major insurance 
companies that are being sued, some of which should not have the 
liabilities we are imposing upon them. Nevertheless, the more companies 
that go into bankruptcy, the more jobs are lost, the more pensions are 
lost, the more this economy will suffer, and the more all of us will be 
worse off.
  I might also add that the courts have not proven to be effective here 
and that the tort system has failed. Even the Supreme Court of the 
United States says this requires a legislative solution. This is the 
only legislative solution that is available, and if we want to get 
something done, we are going to have to work on this bill.
  Personally, rather than have a filibuster on the motion to proceed, I 
think we should go to the bill. I personally would be willing to grant 
more time if we would have a definite date. I cannot speak for the 
majority leader, naturally, but I would personally be willing to grant 
more time, as Senator Specter was, to have further negotiations outside 
the context of debate on the bill where usually those negotiations help 
bring about a bill. But I would be willing to go another 2 weeks to a 
month in intensive 9 to 6 negotiations every day, which we have been 
doing now for 8 months, if we had a definite time to bring up 
amendments and a definite time for final passage of the bill or a final 
vote on the bill. Maybe we will vote it down in the end. I doubt it. In 
fact, I am sure we will not.
  The fact is, in other words, if we do not have to face another 
filibuster and if everybody in good faith works to try to bring this 
about and we have a debate on the floor and people have amendments they 
want to bring up, they can do it. I cannot speak for the majority 
leader, but I certainly would be willing to recommend that, again 
bending over backwards to try to accommodate our colleagues on the 
other side.
  If that is not acceptable, then I have to conclude that the 
statements made by some of the folks outside of the Senate who are 
knowledgeable about this that politics is more important than solving 
this problem, that money is more important than solving this problem, 
that the personal injury lawyers are more important than solving this 
problem happens to be true. I hope that is not true. I hope we can get 
our colleagues to work together. I would like to work with them, as we 
have. We have not rejected or failed to consider any idea that has come 
up, and we will continue to do so. But if not, then let's go to cloture 
on this bill and let's let everybody know who wants to stop even a 
reasonable debate, even a reasonable time to file amendments, even the 
reasonable position the Senate ought to always take, and that is the 
Senate should work its will and we should vote on the amendments one 
way or the other, vote on this bill one way or the other, and let the 
chips fall where they may.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, will the Senator withhold?
  Mr. HATCH. I will be happy to.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, is the parliamentary situation that we are 
going to recess for the party caucuses at 12:30 p.m.?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct, until the hour of 2:15 
p.m.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be 
recognized at 2:15 p.m. to speak on the asbestos legislation.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. LEAHY. I thank the Chair.

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