Washington–Prospects for passage of legislation this year creating a trust fund for handling of asbestos injury claims grew even dimmer last week, Capitol sources said.

Lobbyists and congressional staff said that negotiations aimed at creating an asbestos injury medical criteria bill seen as the best alternative to the trust fund are also stalled.

Regarding floor action, lobbyists representing insurance interests said Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ken., Senate majority whip, several weeks ago privately outlined to them criteria for putting the trust fund bill on the Senate floor that they judged to be unrealistic.

Several lobbyists representing insurers and trade groups monitoring the bill, who asked for anonymity out of concern their statements could nettle lawmakers, reported that Sen. McConnell, at a small fundraiser, said the Senate Republican leadership will not allow the trust fund legislation to come back to the Senate floor unless there are 60 public votes for it, and “the leadership is assured that the debate won't consume more than three days.”

The 60 votes are needed to overcome a budget point of order that derailed the bill in late February. Since Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., the primary supporter of the trust fund approach, is seen as having only 57 supporters, overcoming that barrier is viewed as unrealistic.

Moreover, limiting debate to three days also seems unrealistic, since both supporters and detractors of the bill anticipate a huge number of amendments being offered even if the 60-vote point of order threshold can be attained.

The industry lobbyists also said that the next opportunity to bring the bill back to the Senate floor will be when Congress returns April 24 from a two-week recess.

The Senate plans to be focused on immigration for the next two weeks and hopes to complete action on the pension bill before the April recess, they noted.

The lobbyists also point out that action even on an important pension bill has slipped, with conferees making little progress and most industry lobbyists and staffers for the conferees saying completing work on the bill by Memorial Day is more likely.

Regarding medical criteria for asbestos illness, the effort to fashion an alternative to the trust fund approach is being led by staffers for Sens. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Richard Durbin, D-Ill.

Staff for Sens. Cornyn, Durbin and other members of the Senate interested in the bill met for five hours on the issue last week with lobbyists for the insurance industry, businesses targeted by asbestos suits and trial lawyers, and made little progress, a lobbyist familiar with the talks said.

But no agreements on remaining issues were reached, and the staff and lobbyists indicated afterward that they felt the talks would heat up only if Sen. Specter appeared close to winning the 60 votes needed to overcome the budget point of order that is now stalling action on the bill.

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