Political Quotes

“I thank the Senator. The minority leader has spoken about the injustice done to the Dakota over a century ago, and we are endeavoring this year in this Congress to address another injustice; that is, the injustice where people are sick and dying from asbestos exposure and are not getting the money they and their families need. People who are not sick are drawing off money that should be going to those who desperately need it. We have companies going bankrupt, with people being displaced and losing their jobs. It is a bad situation, a terrible situation. We can fix it. I thank my leader for his extraordinary courage in pushing forward a proposal to further narrow our differences with our Republican colleagues. If you think about all of the areas of progress, we have agreed there should be a trust fund, we have agreed there should be a trust fund, and on how it should be administered; we have agreed on how much money should go into the trust fund; we have agreed the money should be fully allocated to meet the claims out there; we have agreed on medical criteria; we have agreed on 10 different levels of impairment. We have basically agreed on the claims. While there are several areas in which we still have some differences to agree on, we have made extraordinary progress. I commend Senator Daschle for his leadership in getting us close to this point.”