John Thune: “I rise in support of the Cornyn substitute amendment to S. 852. I thank the Senator from Texas for his work on this…”

“I rise in support of the Cornyn substitute amendment to S. 852. I thank the Senator from Texas for his work on this issue. He is someone who comes to this debate with great knowledge of the subject matter and has modeled his legislation after what has been a very successful model in the State of Texas. As the Senator from Texas has noted, this is a problem that needs to be addressed. Out-of-control asbestos litigation has become a disease in our economy. It threatens to drive scores of companies into bankruptcy. It diverts compensation away from legitimate victims of asbestos. It discourages investment in companies under suit and drives stock values down and diverts funds away from expansion and growth and results in job loss. In short, it has become an obstacle to economic recovery. Few of us in this Chamber can disagree with those very basic facts. However, I am not persuaded that creating a new Federal program, yet another entitlement program, one more compensation program, is the right solution. We need to seriously assess the wisdom of Congress's growing inclination to create more of what are virtually uncapped entitlement funds. The problem is in the courts. That is where the solution should be. We cannot continue to have the Government take every litigation quagmire out of the court system and put the problem on the back of the Federal Government and ultimately on the backs of the taxpayers. We cannot continue to do so.…”