Asbestos Advocacy Alert! No to Corporate Bail Outs. No to SB 852

Texas Governor Rick Perry Opposes Federal Asbestos Trust Fund, see letter to Pres. George Bush, May 20, 2005 (6/8/05)

The Texas Medical Criteria Bill Solution (6/8/05)

Collegium Ramazzini: Call for an International Ban on Asbestos (6/6/05)

Federal Asbestos Legislation: The Winners Are.. Public Citizen, Public Citizen's Congress Watch. (6/1/05)

Leading Medical Experts Fault Arbitrary, Outdated Medical Criteria in Asbestos Bill. Public Citizen, Public Citizen's Congress Watch. (6/1/05)

The Asbestos Bail Out Bill is Under-funded, Unworkable, Unconstitutional and Unfair. May 29, 2005. (RGW)

Committee Approves Asbestos Bill With Strings Attached (5/26/05)

Senate Embraces Need to Fund Research for Detection, Prevention, Treatment and Cure of Mesothelioma (5/26/05)

"Arlen Specter on Asbestos Legislation." Op Ed to the New York Times (5/25/05)

Senate Judiciary Committee Considers Asbestos Legislation that Will Give Corporations a Windfall Worth Billions & Deny Compensation to Hundreds of Thousands Legitimate Victims (5/16/5)

Medical Criteria: Senate Bill 852 - To Sen. Arlen Specter from L. Christine Oliver, MD, MPH, MS, FACPM and Michael R. Harbut, MD, MPH, FCCP (5/11/05)

An Open Letter from Jim Grogan of the Asbestos Workers Union Regarding S. 852 the "Fairness in Asbestos Injury Resolution Act of 2005 (FAIR Act)" (5/11/05)

Major Lobbying Campaign Nets Small Group of Companies Tens of Billions of Dollars from Senate's Asbestos Bill, Report Finds (5/10/05)

Asbestos Medical Criteria Bill proposed by Representative Chris Cannon (R-UT); allows impaired asbestos claimants to pursue their civil claims in court, puts non-impaired claimants on a waiting list. See http://www.atla.org/private/asbestos/hr1957cannon.pdf (5/4/05)

Letter Opposing S. 852 from American Public Health Association to U.S. Senate. (5/2/05)

Asbestos Bill Bogged Down RGW (4/29/05)

Statement by AFL-CIO President John Sweeney On Asbestos Trust Fund Legislation (S.852) (4/25/05)

Asbestos Bankruptcy Debtor Settlement Trusts Oppose FAIR, Call it "Unconstitutional Taking of Property and threaten to bring suit." (4/21/05). As arch conservative Ted Olsen writes: "At least as important as the constitutional infirmities of the bill are the profoundly harmful public policies that these provision would enact: confiscating private property, upsetting final court decrees, disturbing settled expectations, undoing years of conscientious work by courts and litigants, and doing damage and causing emotional distress to sick and deserving claimants."

Ted Olsen is the former Solicitor General under President George W. Bush. Olsen, a religious conservative who founded the anti-big government Federalist Society and represented George Bush in Bush v. Gore (2000) before the US Supreme Court, agrees that the fund will be insolvent in a few years: "Moreover, experts have estimated that the national fund will be exhausted long before resolution of all the claims that will be asserted against it--perhaps as early as within the first ten to twelve years of its existence. In fact, the sunset provisions of the Act, which permit a return to the tort system, contemplate the possibility that the national fund could be exhausted within a mere five years of enactment."

On April 22, 2005, the AFL-CIO announced their opposition to S.852, the so-called "FAIR Act." Please read the letter: http://www.atla.org/private/asbestos/afl-cio-statement.pdf. (4/22/05)