Baucus: 'Libby fix' stays in bill

The Daily Inter Lake

U.S. Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., has threatened to pull his support from asbestos reform legislation if provisions protecting people in Libby are removed.

Baucus battled for months last year to include his "Libby fix" in the Senate-passed Fairness in Asbestos Compensation Act, which aims to reform how asbestos lawsuits are handled across the country.

After hearing that asbestos-bill opponents have attacked the Libby provisions, Baucus said he'd help tank the entire bill if people in Libby "don't get the compensation they need and deserve."

He is the highest-ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee. The committee is expected to consider a necessary tax title to accompany the asbestos bill early in 2006. Because the bill proposes a trust fund for asbestos victims, the finance committee will determine the financing mechanism to make that happen, Baucus spokesman Barrett Kaiser said.

It will be one of the first pieces of legislation to be taken up by the committee, Kaiser said.

Baucus has vowed he will do "whatever it takes to help protect Libby," including using his influence to hold up the bill in the finance committee.

The senator's fix takes into account the unique circumstances surrounding Libby, whose residents were exposed to asbestos fibers by the former W.R. Grace & Co. vermiculite mine. It would, among other things, provide Libby residents who are sick with at least $400,000 in compensation.

Hundreds of people have died or are sick due to exposure to tremolite asbestos, a more damaging kind of asbestos found in Libby that creates different health problems than the more common chrysotile asbestos fibers found in other parts of the country.