Time to Stuff This Bad Bill Back in it's Bottle -- No on SB 852!

December 2, 2005

Dear Friend:

In January the Senate will vote on the "Asbestos Bailout Bill" (SB 852). The bill was written by industry for industry. It tramples on the rights of Americans innocently exposed to asbestos who now have mesothelioma and other asbestos diseases. Several recent independent studies show that the "trust fund" would go broke within a few years. The bill would create a giant federal bureaucracy that will be underfunded, wrapped in red tape, anti-claimant, pro-industry, apathetic, slow, unfathomably complicated, and callously indifferent to the special medical and financial hardships faced by mesothelioma patients and their families.

Again, its time to speak up. Insurance and industry lobbyists are spending millions of dollars to convince the U.S. Senate that bad companies who have done really bad things for a very long time should be let off the hook precisely because what they did was so bad that now they're having to pay dearly for their crimes. We call that "accountability." They use catch words like "docket clog," "litigation crisis," "runaway juries," and "bankruptcy epidemic" as a smokescreen to hide their responsibility and to blame us for fighting back for what's right.

To help stop this dangerous legislation, please take a moment (I know you hate this, and I don't like to always have to ask) to fight back.

First, please write or call your U.S. Senator to oppose this bill. You can reach the congressional switchboard at (202) 224-3121. You can send an email by going to http://action.peopleoverprofits.org/action/index.asp?step=2&item=28760.

Second, if you or a loved one are a Veteran, please sign an online petition created by the veterans group, For Those Who Served: Justice for Veterans. You can sign the petition, by going to http://www.demaction.org/dia/organizations/paf/petition.jsp?petition_KEY=173

We can shut down this Un-American, unfair, and unconstitutional corporate bail out. The facts are on our side. The U.S. Constitution is on our side. They may have the money, but we have the will, the strength, and the passion to stop this abomination. Doesn't our Government have enough legitimate problems to deal with? Shouldn't they be working on resolving the war in Iraq, providing Hurricane Katrina relief, fixing Medicare, strengthening social security, paying off our national debt, expanding economic opportunity, protecting our environment, improving education, and restoring decency and honesty in the halls of power? Don't let them waste our time or take away our rights.

Honor. Strength. Courage.

Respectfully,

Roger G. Worthington

For more information on the bill, sample protest letters, and how to contact your Senator or Congresswo/man, please click here,

Asbestos Bill Raises Impossible Hurdles The Specter-Leahy bill asks asbestos victims to bear the risk of an inadequately funded, unfairly structured and untested new compensation program that is not even a "no fault" system. In fact, victims must surpass huge new hurdles to prove their asbestos exposure and that it is the cause of their illness. Based on the current version of the bill, it will be impossible for them to do so.

Worst 10 Hurdles Are:

1. Victims who have already been through the legal system and have pending claims would have their settlements thrown out under this bill. They would be forced to get back in line to wait for a new bureaucracy to be set up before they could get any compensation or help with medical bills.

2. Mesothelioma patients, who face a 9 to 12 month median survival curve, would have their cases thrown out of court and be forced to wait nine months. Too many may not survive long enough to resolve their claims.

3. Because even victims with pending settlements would be forced into the fund, the asbestos fund will start with a 500,000 case backlog that cannot be timely processed.

4. Victims must prove at least five years of "substantial occupational exposure" and document the extent, duration, and intensity of the exposure in order to be compensated. This will be impossible for most victims because the records simply don't exist. Employers were not required to monitor exposures before the mid-70s and many employers failed to do so even after OSHA required such monitoring. Employees have no right under the bill to access exposure information from their former employers, some of which no longer exist.

5. The experience of past government-run compensation programs indicates this one is doomed to fail victims too. A new study of the Black Lung Program, the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act and the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act shows all funds dramatically underestimated potential claims, leading to delays in compensation and the need for taxpayer dollars.

6. There is special compensation in the bill for victims in Libby, Montana, but other victims of community asbestos exposure, such as families in hundreds of communities all over the country that received asbestos shipments from Libby, are shut out completely and would be ineligible for compensation.

7. Many people who were exposed to asbestos in the World Trade Center collapse on 9/11would be ineligible for compensation.

8. Victims poisoned by non-occupational exposure would be ineligible for compensation-despite strong scientific evidence that non-occupational exposure causes asbestos related disease.

9. Victims who can prove a claim will have to wait months or years for the fund to start paying compensation. The bill gives the fund administrator three to four years to pay a claim after it has been approved, with exceptions for some mesothelioma cases.

10. If the fund is about to run out of money, there is no automatic sunset provision that would allow asbestos victims to return to the legal system. Instead the administrator can simply change the medical criteria or reduce benefits for victims in essence changing the rules in the middle of the game rather than allow victims to return to court.

The proposed legislation is simply a bail-out for companies that ignored the hazards posed by their products for decades and the insurance companies that knowingly ignored the known risks and, instead, did nothing other than collect premiums in the misguided hope that the truth about asbestos would never be known.

*** POSTED DECEMBER 2, 2005 ***