Arlen Specter: “I have also sought recognition to comment about the status of pending asbestos legislation under S. 2290, the Fairness…”

“I have also sought recognition to comment about the status of pending asbestos legislation under S. 2290, the Fairness in Asbestos Injury Resolution Act. The Judiciary Committee passed out of committee a bill in July of last year, largely along party lines, which I supported because I thought it important to move the legislation forward even though I had grave reservations about the quality of the bill. There was no doubt that there was an urgent need for Federal legislation on this subject because some 70 corporations have gone bankrupt, thousands of individuals who have been exposed to asbestos have deadly diseases, mesothelioma and other ailments, and were not being compensated because their employers, potential defendants, were bankrupt. I enlisted the aid--he is still a very young man, although a senior judge--of the former chief judge for the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, Edward Becker, who is now a senior judge, having taken that status in May of last year, and I asked him to assist in trying to resolve many of the problems in the asbestos issue.”