An asbestos tragedy in a Montana town could complicate efforts by U.S. lawmakers to curb the explosion of asbestos injury lawsuits.
When work resumes May 12 on legislation to establish a $140 billion fund to pay asbestos victims, senators will be wrestling with dozens of amendments, including one extending special treatment for residents of Libby, Mont., to a Chicago site that received asbestos-contaminated material from the same mine.
Some say extending those benefits could exhaust the fund and hurt the chances of reaching agreement on the legislation.
“Such further special provisions would complicate what is already a very complex piece of legislation, and make it more difficult to get consensus” warns Mike Baroody, executive vice president of the National Association of Manufacturers.
Asbestos fibers have been used in building materials, auto parts and other products for decades, but are linked to cancer and other diseases. Hundreds of thousands of injury claims have clogged U.S. courts and forced many companies into bankruptcy.
Manufacturers facing asbestos suits and their insurers would pay into the fund under legislation co-authored by the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Penn., and the panel’s top Democrat, Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont.
Illinois senator wants extension
Under the bill, asbestos victims would be awarded $25,000 to $1.1 million from the fund depending on the severity of illnesses ranging from lung scarring to cancer.
But residents of Libby, where bankrupt chemical company W.R. Grace & Co. was recently charged in an indictment with conspiring to endanger the community, would get paid at least $400,000 each if they are sickened by asbestos.
Grace operated a vermiculite mine in Libby from 1963 to 1990. The vermiculite, with uses ranging from insulation to an additive in potting soil, was contaminated with asbestos.
Unlike other claimants, Libby residents would not have to prove exposure to asbestos. Simply living in Libby, where mine waste was even used to build sports fields, is enough.
Illinois Democratic Sen. Richard Durbin has proposed an amendment to the asbestos bill extending the Libby special provisions to people who lived or worked within one mile of a facility formerly owned by W.R. Grace in West Chicago.
“Senator Durbin was concerned that any potential hazard in our own state be addressed in this bill, because this may be the only bill that would address asbestos as a health concern,” said his spokesman, Joe Shoemaker.
Fair given 40 'hot spots'?
Forty “hot spots” across the country, from California to New Jersey, received 10,000 tons or more each of asbestos-laced vermiculite from Libby, according to the Environmental Working Group, an environmental research firm based in Washington.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat, is questioning whether it is constitutionally sound to give better benefits to a single geographical area such as Libby.
One Grace plant in Santa Ana, Calif., processed more than 400,000 tons of Libby vermiculite.
Feinstein has proposed applying the Libby provision to any area affected by a corporation that has been the subject of a criminal indictment for knowingly endangering residents.
“Though the intent is laudable, the danger of expanding the Libby provisions as Sen. Feinstein has suggested, is that the potential exists for the costs of the trust fund to increase, literally, by billions of dollars,” one Senate Republican aide said on condition of anonymity.
In 2000, lawmakers dropped legislation to rein in asbestos claims after sick residents of Libby complained.
The sponsors of this year’s bill thought they had solved the Libby issue with special treatment, but every time senators writing the bill think they have solved one problem, another two seem to spring up.
Montana’s Democratic Sen. Max Baucus, a co-sponsor of the bill although not on the Judiciary Committee, is “adamant” about keeping the Libby language, according to his spokesman Barrett Kaiser. “He will encourage Sen. Feinstein to withdraw her amendment,” Kaiser said.
