Pete Sessions: “I would like to mention a few things. First of all, attorneys' fees do affect the settlement because it is money…”

“I would like to mention a few things. First of all, attorneys' fees do affect the settlement because it is money otherwise available to be paid by the tobacco companies that could be used for health of the children and the good things this bill seeks to do, for that money is directly usable for good things, and it ought not to be given away in unprecedented windfalls for attorneys, many of whom did little work. I know the distinguished Senator from Minnesota said that his lawyers did a lot of work. And I think that is probably true. Perhaps the Minnesota attorneys have done more work than any other group of attorneys in the country. And they were paid, I believe, $450 million. That is not $2.8 billion. That is 5, 10 times what they made. So they did a lot of work in Minnesota, and they are going to get fees far less than this settlement would call for. People say we should not mess with the contracts. But the other arguments from the people opposing the Faircloth amendment are: Don't worry about it. Florida reduced their fees. Although Texas hasn't yet, they may yet. And there are arbitration policies to reduce fees. So they are already admitting it is appropriate to reduce these fees. And as was noted, we contain fees for doctors and lawyers and every other kind of litigation--on many other kinds of litigation in the country. And we are comprehensively dealing with a health problem that is significant.”