A Senate bill to create a multibillion-dollar trust fund for people suffering from asbestos-related diseases failed in a test vote Thursday, but Senate leaders hope that discussions with a mediator could revive the legislation later this year.
Republicans were not able to muster enough support in the Senate to force Democrats to consider a plan to give businesses immunity from asbestos lawsuits in exchange for a $124 billion trust fund to speed money to sick people.
Sixty votes were needed to force a debate, but the vote was 50-47. Senators left open the possibility of reviving the legislation, however. “It certainly doesn’t mean this legislation is dead for all time,” said Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del.
“At least everybody is going to know where everybody stands,” said Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah. “Does this mean we’re going to quit negotiating? No.”
Mediator meeting next week
The Senate’s Majority Leader, Bill Frist, R-Tenn., and Minority Leader, Tom Daschle, D-S.D., will meet next week with a mediator in hopes of coming to some kind of agreement.
While the mediation with Federal Appeals Judge Edward Becker — who has been working with Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., since 2003 trying to come up with compromise legislation — won’t be binding, Daschle said if Republicans and Democrats sit down at the same table a solution might be reached.
“As you know, I firmly believe that an inclusive approach holds the best promise for moving toward a consensus solution of this very contentious and consequential issue,” he said in a letter to Frist. “I am gratified that Judge Becker seconded that view, and I am pleased that you have now agreed to this approach.”
Democrats have been complaining that Republicans are trying to rush a bill through to satisfy the business and insurance lobbies, which have made ending asbestos lawsuits one of their top priorities.
Debate of who funds how much
Under the bill promoted by Frist and Hatch, the Judiciary Committee chairman, the government would set up a trust fund that could climb to as much as $124 billion. The fund, financed by businesses and insurance companies, would speed money to people with asbestos-related diseases.
Democrats argue that businesses wouldn’t be putting enough into the fund in exchange for permanent immunity from lawsuits.
“The bill before us does not reflect what is necessary to compensate the enormous number of workers who suffer from asbestos-induced disease, it reflects only what the companies who made them sick are willing to pay,” said Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass.
Republicans say Democrats won’t let any bill pass because trial lawyers don’t want to lose the money they make off of asbestos legislation. “They are simply trying to stop this good bill at all costs,” Hatch said.
The Congressional Budget Office has said the bill could increase the federal deficit by $13 billion over the next decade, an estimate that could affect the vote of some of the Senate’s fiscal conservatives.
It would take 60 votes to force a debate in the Senate, which has 51 Republicans, 48 Democrats and one independent senator, Jim Jeffords of Vermont.
