The Senate has apparently defeated the bill that would create a $140 billion trust fund to pay asbestos claims (Charles Hunt, “The Senate Defeats Asbestos Trust-fund Legislation” The Washington Times, Feb 15).
Whether this represents a final defeat of the measure is unclear, since there seem to be a number of procedural questions surrounding the bill. The Wall Street Journal ($) had an interesting editorial yesterday (2/14), which described the bill basically as deeply-flawed legislation to try to correct a deeply-flawed litigation situation.
You can see the vote count here, but, in a fairly unique outcome in these hyper-partisan times, both Democrats and Republicans were split on this one.
Update: Made a few changes to the links to try to better match Ted and Walter’s style
Ted has more on the bills prospects at Point of Law, as well as a whole archive of following the asbestos mess.
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