SPECTER ASBESTOS PROPOSAL
MORE PROTECTION FOR CORPORATE AMERICA
April 18, 2005

Sen. Specter's asbestos trust fund proposal favors corporations and their insurers over the workers they knowingly poisoned.

It's another example of Congress’ efforts to prevent workers, consumers and affected communities from holding corporations accountable for their harmful actions.

The class action and bankruptcy bills have already set consumer rights back for decades to come. The Specter asbestos trust fund bill will do the same for innocent workers, their families and communities who were knowingly exposed to a dangerous product.

• The bill would close the courthouse door to all current and future asbestos victims, leaving the trust fund — with inadequate funding, less compensation to workers than they currently get in the courts, and no help for many workers with asbestos-related illnesses — as the only remedy.
  
• The bill sets up roadblocks for victims but smoothes the way for asbestos defendants and their insurers to have their liability capped.
  • For example, workers with pending claims will lose their right to a jury trial right away, even though the new asbestos trust fund may not be up and running for years, as with past compensation funds.
  • Even victims with Mesothelioma, whose life expectancy is rarely more than 18 months after diagnosis, will have to wait at least nine months before their claims are processed. Sadly, many of them will die during that period without knowing if their families will be cared for.
  • The proposal ignores the medical consensus that individuals with heavy asbestos exposure are at substantially increased risk for lung and other cancers even if they do not also have asbestosis or pleural disease. The Specter plan would give them no compensation.
    
• A report by Professor Peter Barth of the University of Connecticut reviewed three federal compensation programs and found that proponents of these programs dramatically underestimated the number of claims the program would be required to process, resulting in delays in compensation for victims and higher costs than expected, which taxpayers covered.
  • The study warns that Congress needs to take the time to better understand, fund and administer the asbestos trust fund if it does not want to mirror the problems raised by the earlier trust funds.
    
• Victims of community asbestos exposure — like those living near asbestos processing plants in Hamilton, N.J. and Sacramento, Calif. — would receive nothing under this proposal, and the courts will be closed to them and everyone else in the future.
  
• People exposed to asbestos after the collapse of the World Trade Center will also have no recourse.

Call or e-mail your Senator NOW. Tell them not to support the asbestos trust fund proposal. It is unfair to workers and their families and limits the liability of corporate defendants and their insurers who knowingly exposed them to asbestos in the first place.