Fiscal Note
No appropriation required.
Title
Opposing S. 852, the Fairness in Asbestos Resolution Act of 2005 and requesting that United States Senator Herb Kohl vote against the bill.
Body
WHEREAS, S. 852, the Fairness in Asbestos Resolution Act of 2005 is unfair to Wisconsin workers, communities and people currently suffering from asbestos related illnesses and is a giveaway to the corporations that knowingly poisoned U.S. residents for years, and;
WHEREAS, if this bill becomes law, the courthouse doors will be closed to all current and future victims who were exposed to asbestos and their only remedy will be a new federal trust fund that is inadequately funded, provides less compensation to workers than they currently get in the courts and will leave many workers and community members with no access to compensation, even though they have asbestos-related illnesses, and;
WHEREAS, asbestos is a mineral compound used in an estimated 3,000 different products from brake linings to insulation and is still present in 12 to 35 million American homes and workers, backyard mechanics and people involved in home improvement can be exposed to asbestos and never know it, and;
WHEREAS, it can break into fine fibers invisible to the eye that can cause devastating illness and death to anyone who inhales them into their lungs and asbestos companies and their insurers have known these facts for at least 30 years, and perhaps as long as 70 years and yet they continued then and now to expose their workers to the deadly fibers without warning them of the dangers, and;
WHEREAS, contrary to public perception asbestos has not been banned and is still being used today, exposing hundreds of thousands of workers throughout the nation and asbestos is a public health catastrophe that has killed 300,000 Americans so far and will eventually kill an additional half a million or more, and
WHERAS, millions more people exposed to asbestos suffer from asbestosis and pleural...
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