Burns criticizes Baucus provision to pay sickened Libby residents

WASHINGTON -- Montana Sen. Conrad Burns said Wednesday that he opposes a pending senate bill designed to compensate residents of Libby, Mont., who have been sickened by asbestos.
Burns, a Republican, is opposing a provision authored by the state's other senator, Democrat Max Baucus. The language, which would pay sickened Libby residents up to $1.1 million each for asbestos-related diseases, is included in larger asbestos legislation passed by the Senate Judiciary Committee last year. The Senate is expected to take up the bill in coming weeks.
About 200 deaths and many more cases of asbestos-related disease have been blamed on asbestos contamination associated with Libby's vermiculite mine, which was operated by W.R. Grace & Co. and closed in 1990.
Burns said he opposes the legislation because it does not use a certain test to determine who would be eligible for the compensation. The test, called the diffusion capacity test, measures the lungs' efficiency to pass oxygen into the bloodstream and helps diagnose victims of tremolite asbestos disease, which is commonly found in Libby.
Language requiring the test was removed by the committee when it approved the bill last May.
"Many Libby residents have been under the impression that legislation specific to Libby meets their needs, but that simply isn't true," Burns said in a statement.
A spokesman for Baucus refuted Burns' claim Wednesday, saying Baucus has been working with members of the Judiciary Committee to add the test back into the bill. The spokesman, Barrett Kaiser, said Baucus will try to add the language when the legislation is considered on the Senate floor.
"Max, as the champion for Libby, is going to fight tooth and nail to get this provision added," Kaiser said. "But if he were to oppose the bill right now, that would be walking away from the people of Libby."
Kaiser said that several of Baucus' aides traveled to Libby last week to work on the language.
In his statement, Burns referred to a letter he received from McGarvey, Heberling, Sullivan and McGarvey, a Kalispell law firm that represents many sickened Libby residents. In the letter, the firm's partners argue that without the test, 40 percent of those otherwise eligible for compensation would not receive payment.
The vermiculite mine near Libby contained naturally occurring tremolite asbestos, a particularly dangerous form of the mineral. The long, needlelike asbestos fibers easily can become embedded in human lungs and cause such illnesses as asbestosis, often fatal, and mesothelioma, a rare, fast-moving cancer that attacks the lining of the lungs.
The size of individual payments included in the Baucus provision would depend on the level of sickness. The highest payments would be for people suffering mesothelioma, but all those sickened would get at least $400,000.
The larger legislation would end asbestos liability lawsuits in exchange for a multibillion-dollar compensation fund. Baucus, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, has said he will withhold support for the entire bill unless Libby residents are compensated.
The EPA has declared Libby a Superfund site and since 1999 has been cleaning contaminated property, including homes and businesses, in the town. Last year, a federal grand jury indicted Grace and seven executives, accusing them of conspiring for decades to hide the danger. Grace has denied any criminal wrongdoing.