(Reuters circulated the following article by Susan Cornwell on November 7.)
WASHINGTON — U.S. companies are debating whether to propose a revamp of legislation to end asbestos lawsuits or to support an existing $140 billion settlement-fund proposal, industry representatives said Friday.
With Republican gains in Tuesday’s congressional elections improving the odds of passage, companies facing asbestos suits are trying to develop a unified strategy for lobbying lawmakers on the issue, said Stanton Anderson, chief legal officer at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Institute for Legal Reform.
Anderson said members of the Asbestos Study Group, which represents many large corporations such as Honeywell International Inc. and General Electric Co., were gathered Friday in one of what was expected to be a series of meetings.
“Do we say to labor [unions], here is the offer, take it or leave it?” he said of the $140 billion settlement amount developed this year by Senate Republican Leader Bill Frist and Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle.
Many executives thought $140 billion was too high, especially considering recent settlements announced by some asbestos defendant companies that should reduce the overall number of plaintiffs suing, Anderson said.
“There are a lot of [business] people with their calculators out to decide whether that [$140 billion] number should remain or not… . Some are saying we ought to back out of that number and start again,” Anderson said in a telephone interview.
The proposed trust fund, which never was brought to the Senate floor, would have compensated asbestos victims, often members of unions, while ending their right to file lawsuits.
The trust would be funded by asbestos defendant companies and their insurers.
But labor representatives such as the AFL-CIO never embraced the $140 billion amount, saying at least $149 billion was needed to pay claims stretching into the future.
And Daschle and Frist were never able to agree on important details such as how many existing asbestos-injury claims would be allowed to stay in court once the fund was set up.
The bill effectively stalled when Congress went home last month to campaign for the Nov. 2 elections.
Companies in the Asbestos Alliance, which includes members of the National Association of Manufacturers, are also “taking stock” of the issue, said Mike Baroody, executive vice president at the association.
But Baroody said he thought the real key to action on asbestos-legislation changes was what Frist decides to do with the issue in the new Congress, which meets next year.
“I’ll trust his lead,” he said.
Asbestos was widely used for fireproofing and insulation until the 1970s. Scientists say inhaled fibers are linked to cancer and other diseases.
U.S. companies have paid out tens of billions of dollars on hundreds of thousands of asbestos-injury claims. Dozens of affected companies, such as chemical producer W.R. Grace & Co. and car-parts company Federal-Mogul Corp., have filed for bankruptcy protection.