Asbestos Claims Under Fairness In Asbestos Injury Resolution Act

Hearing on 'Recent Developments in Assessing Future Asbestos Claims Under the FAIR Act' 

Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on asbestos victims' compensation fund legislation further demonstrated the credibility of the independent Congressional Budget Office's unbiased analysis of the bill versus other privately-funded studies of unknown origin.

Dr. Douglas Holtz-Eakin, Director of the CBO, in his testimony, reiterated the findings of the agency's analysis of S. 852, confirming the soundness of the Asbestos Injury Claims Resolution Fund ("Fund") established by the FAIR Act:

• Total receipts to the Fund would amount to about $140 billion, including a small amount of interest earnings on its balances, with almost half of the revenues coming in during the first 10 years.

• The $140 billion in funding is well within the range of what they predict to be the projected costs over the next 50 years.

• The FAIR Act would not obligate the federal government if amounts in the Fund turned out to be inadequate. In the event that claims overwhelm the Fund and force a sunset, claimants would return to the tort system and the FAIR Act would require funding participants to continue making annual contributions to the Fund until all of its debts and obligations were satisfied - preventing any of the Fund's liabilities from falling on the federal government.

Other witnesses from NERA Economic Consulting and Navigant Consulting offered testimony bolstering the CBO findings, while raising only questions regarding the assumptions and methodology that underlie the Bates White's widely disparate conclusions.

In short, the hearing clearly demonstrated that as Senators confront the seemingly intractable problem of the broken asbestos tort system and consider admittedly complex legislation that holds the promise to finally solve this crisis, they should look to the analysis of the independent CBO for their cues. 

Asbestos Study Group

Mesothelioma Attorneys