NAMIC Commends Senate for Blocking Further Consideration of Specter-Leahy Asbestos Trust Fund Legislation

Tuesday evening, S 852, the Specter-Leahy Asbestos Trust Fund Legislation, failed to overcome a budget point-of-order filed by Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., effectively preventing the bill from moving forward.

The vote was 58 to 41, with 60 votes needed to waive the budget act.

If the vote holds up, it's a significant victory for NAMIC as we strongly opposed the legislation because of its numerous flaws, including leakage to the tort system and a lack of certainty and finality.

"NAMIC commends the Senate action Tuesday night to stop this legislation (at least for now) as we believe it is critically important that Congress immediately take up true asbestos legislation reform, and not create another government-managed trust fund," said NAMIC's Senior Vice President of Federal Affairs David Winston.

Winston added, "We fully supported congressional efforts on a medical criteria bill, such as proposed by Sen. John Cornyn of Texas as a substitute to S. 852, or Rep. Chris Cannon's bill, HR 1957."

During Tuesday's vote, Majority Leader Frist, a supporter of S. 852, changed his vote at the end for technical reasons so he could preserve the right to reconsider the vote on the budget point-of-order at some future time.

Winston indicated that one senator was missing who could have made the difference and enabled them to get to 60 votes—the absentee senator was Daniel Inouye of Hawaii. If Inouye supports waiving the point-of-order and/or other senators agree to switch their votes, Frist may ask for another vote on the budget point-of-order.

However, a potential "re-vote" will not happen until the week of Feb. 27, at the very earliest, when the Senate returns from a week-long recess.

Source: NAMIC

Posted: Wednesday, February 15, 2006 12:00:00 AM. Modified: Thursday, February 16, 2006 3:00:11 PM.

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We are 1,400 property/casualty insurance companies serving more than 135 million auto, home and business policyholders, with more than $196 billion in premiums accounting for 50 percent of the automobile/homeowners market and 31 percent of the business insurance market. We are the largest and most diverse property/casualty trade association in the country, with regional and local mutual insurance companies on main streets across America joining many of the country’s largest national insurers who also call NAMIC their home. More than 200,000 people are employed by NAMIC members.